Should the Centre have sunk the Navy chief?

Controversy surrounds the resignation of Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi in the wake of the latest submarine disaster which resulted in two naval officers being killed.

Admiral Joshi may have held up the highest traditions of the Navy in owning moral responsibility for the mishap — but one wonders whether there is more to it than this. After all, despite the fact that Indian Air Force aircraft crash from time to time, the Chief of Air Staff has never offered to resign. Nor does the Chief of Army Staff feel the need to quit because soldiers lose their lives in counter-insurgency operations every now and then.

The mishap that occurred on board the submarine INS Sindhuratna, which was on post-refit trials, needs to be viewed from a wider perspective of civil-military relations and not as a narrow Naval matter alone.

The fact that the government readily accepted the admiral’s resignation over the tragedy in itself suggests that civil-military relations are not healthy.

The Navy is a technology-intensive service and, therefore, involves the taking of several financial and administrative decisions, which the government alone is empowered to exercise.

Such critical decisions have been needlessly deferred time and again, adversely impacting the operational preparedness of the combat organisation.

Ideally, the government would like to have a pliant Navy chief, which explains the untimely exit of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat in December 1998. Evidently he did not fall in line with the political leadership over the procurement process for hardware acquisitions. Further, he questioned certain appointments made in the navy, all of which made the government uncomfortable.

Vulnerability quotient Interestingly, only Navy chiefs have proved vulnerable in both India and Pakistan. Vice-Admiral HMS Choudhri of Pakistan was sacked in the late 1950s when he demanded better pay for his sailors. Considering the Army is the senior service in both these countries, the Navy assumes a peripheral role in the political consciousness.

Both, New Delhi and Islamabad would be wary of acting against their Army chiefs. It would provoke unfavourable reactions and make things uncomfortable for the political leadership.

Even the US and Russian navies have had submarine accidents but their chiefs have not resigned from service. The difference is that a number of Western and Russian political leaders have done military service and are, therefore, militarily literate, unlike our netas . Clearly, the nature of military service, which involves training during peacetime, is risky and fatal casualties often occur, though a good commander seriously attempts to follow safety protocols to the extent possible to avoid them.

Smoked out INS Sindhuratna was forced to surface after smoke was detected on the vessel. Only last August, unexplained explosions sank the INS Sindhurakshak and killed 18 crew members. Significantly, both the Russian-made Kilo class EKM 877 Sindhuratna and Sindhurakshak had recently undergone modifications to upgrade their weapons systems. This minimally altered the original design and was aimed to increase their operational life. These modifications are necessary because submarines are seaworthy only for 20 years owing to corrosion through constant contact with saline air and water, leading leads to deterioration of cables, surface plates and hulls.

The government should therefore ensure that timely financial sanctions are made to enable periodic replacement of submarines, rather than compel the Navy to undertake upgrades to extend operational life. But the government has chosen to drag its feet on the Scorpene deal with France — that would add six submarines — as well as Project 75 to design submarines in India with Russian assistance — that would add 18 submarines to the fleet. This is indicative of its lackadaisical approach to the matter. Also, the Navy got only four of the six HDW submarines from Germany.

High maintenance The submarine is a maintenance-intensive vessel. In order to spend nine months at sea, it has to undergo six months of maintenance refits. Therefore, naval dockyards or public sector shipyards need to develop the necessary refit expertise both as an art and a science.

This requires technologies such as tooling, jigs and fixtures, besides the human resource expertise in specialised welding and so on.

The lack of consistency on the part of the political leadership, which first opted for HDW submarines, then Kilo class submarines and finally French Scorpene submarines, only weakens the maintenance refit capabilities of the Navy.

To that extent, neither the UPA nor the NDA governments have bothered about maritime security, and in the process, as a former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash has highlighted, New Delhi remains “sea-blind” and ignores the nuances of long-term naval planning.

Today, the submarine arm comprises only nine Kilo class and four HDW class boats, besides two nuclear-powered submarine, the INS Chakra II and the INS Arihant. This does not augur well for maritime security capabilities, given that the Chinese navy aims to develop ‘blue-water’ capabilities. New Delhi needs to shed its sea-blindness and support the country’s naval ambitions.

(The writer is Associate Professor, International Relations and Strategic Studies, Christ University, Bangalore)

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