Beyond slogans

The four-day DefExpo India in Chennai expects to ambitiously position India as an emerging defence manufacturing hub in the world, brand India as an exporter of defence systems and components and showcase strengths of the country’s public sector. Such objectives appear a bit audacious given that India is the world’s top importer of arms and does not figure among the top 25 exporters of arms. Yet, indigenisation of defence procurement is critical not just for strategic reasons but also for the success of the ‘Make in India’ mission. India accounted for 12 per cent of total global arms imports during 2013-17. About 62 cent of India’s arms imports in 2013-17 originated in Russia, 15 per cent in the US and 11 per cent in Israel. The size of India’s imports makes it an important customer for multinational defence companies. India is the largest customer for Russian and Israeli defence industries and the third largest customer for the French. It is also important to note that India’s imports from the US jumped 557 per cent between 2008-12 and 2013-17.

India spends a third of its defence budget on capital acquisitions and about 60 per cent of the defence related requirement is met through imports. Thus, the opportunity to increase domestic procurement is large. India’s public-sector enterprises such as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) have comprehensively demonstrated technological mettle in producing high quality equipment required for the country’s defence. Tejas, the light combat aircraft designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency in partnership with HAL, is one such example. India’s public-sector shipyards such as Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders and Hindustan Shipyard among others have demonstrated their ability to design and build naval vessel and submarines. India is one of the few nations with capabilities to design and build warships and one of the few countries that can manufacture Scorpene class submarines. The country also has capacity to build tanks, guns, rockets and missiles. Essentially, India has the capacity to indigenously manufacture much of the equipment it needs.

In contrast to India’s rising imports of arms and equipment, China had reported a 19 per cent drop in overseas purchases between 2008-12 and 2013-17, but has emerged the fifth largest exporter of arms, accounting for 4.6 per cent of the global arms export market, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates. India too can become a defence manufacturing powerhouse. But for that to happen, the government needs to demonstrate its willingness to rely on India-made defence manufactures. For that, the Union government needs to be ready to place large orders with the public-sector enterprises with proven skills as well as with private sector players who have forged relationships with global players for technology transfers.

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