India’s Rising Defence Budget
Proposing a 7.8% increase in defence expenditure for 2005-06, India’s Finance Minister P Chidambaram pegged it at India Rs 830 billion against last year’s allocation of Rs 770 billion. Of concern to Pakistan was the steep allocation of Indian Rs 344.72 billion in the capital outlay, the funding constituting 41.4% of the total defence budget. The Indians claim that the absence of prioritization and failure to utilize funds in time over the years has led to the need for such huge allocations this time. The Indian Finance Minister said that the Defence Ministry had for the first time in five years spent the amount allocated for weapons and equipment purchases the previous year. India seems to be set to go ahead with acquisition of vital state-of-the-art hi-tech weapons systems, major arms purchase, including hunter-killer “Scorpene” submarines from France, the long range “Smerch” rocket system from Russia, self-propelled artillery guns and low-level transportable radars, etc. Other than the general threat for the region posed by these acquisitions, Pakistan-specific allocations include money already utilized for Phalcon radar system from Israel and earmarked for the PAC-2 version of Patriot missiles, P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft as well as possibly the latest version of the US F-16.
Claiming that India’s defence spending was still the lowest in the region, only 2.5% of the GDP, Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee while comparing it with Pakistan (at 5%) and China (at 8%) of their respective GDPs, failed to mention the pro-rata threat perception posed to both these countries by India’s large defence Budget. The budget increased the allocations for fencing along the India-Pakistan border and Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir, Rs 2.33 billion against last year’s Rs 1.55 billion. Rs 8.64 billion was allocated for border works including erecting fences and for purchase of aircraft, riverboats, and infra-red devices for the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders.
While generally appreciating the Defence Budget, Indian defence analysts have criticized the “mere” 2.66% increase in the modernization allocations, protesting that this does not cater for the increasing obsolescence in defence, leave alone build a modern military machine for future defence capability in the face of “a massive military modernization going on in China and its inevitable spin-off effect on Pakistan”. It is true that expenditure on the procurement of aircraft for the IAF and the Navy would actually come down by 25% and 13% respectively, three out of the 37 authorised combat squadrons in the Air Force have been demobilized and the Indian Navy has certainly been facing critical shortages of warships and submarines. Critics complain that beyond shortage of funds the system did not allow for a long-term planning for defence modernization, decisions on acquisitions were not taken in time to enable actual procurement to take place.
The main cause of concern for Indian defence analysts remains the galloping growth of revenue expenditure over capital expenditure due to vast increase in manpower, the capital outlay being Rs 34,472 crore for the procurement of weaponry and combat support systems while a whopping Indian Rs 48,528 crore was absorbed by the 12% increase in revenue expenditures. Defence pensions alone consume funds equal to almost 16% of the budget (compared to a mere 3% two decades ago). The cost of manpower has mounted at an average rate closer to 11% per year, India has quietly added 200000 men, mostly to the Army despite the announced reductions of 50000. Most military observers have suggested a smaller and more professional Armed Forces, with manpower levels downsized to check the rising revenue expenditure and allow technical upgradation. Better equipped and better armed, they would be more financially feasible and more effective in future. Defence analysts advise balancing of quality with quantity if India is to maintain a credible and affordable defence. India has in fact two armies, almost 300000 troops (nearly 25% of the fighting force) are directly involved fully in Internal Security (IS) duties and the rest (of the 1.3 million Force) being earmarked for external defence. Another major criticism centers around the critical importance of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in future wars, an analyst noting that “RMA with Indian characteristics” seems to stand for regular manpower additions! Is there method in India’s seeming madness?
In the emerging new global environment, how does India perceive the security environment, and consequently threat perception? Unfortunately for India Internal Security has acquired high importance, with the emergence of radical groups in Indian polity, like the People’s War Groups (PMG or “Naxalites” as they are better called) being only one of the many internal militancies. With low-intensity conflict surmised as the main threat, a manpower-intensive military, but with a high-technology defence establishment is a necessity.
The Subramanian Committee Report on the Kargil War of 1999 identifies four areas of deficiencies of the Indian Armed Forces at the macro-level as shortcomings, despite the fact that India’s defence expenditure allocation as a percentage to Gross National Product (GDP) hovered around 3% and neither disrupted the development process nor undermined defence preparedness, viz (a) surrendering 5 to 10% of budgeted allocations on the average every year during the past decade, failing to spend money fully and effectively. The Armed Forces retaliate that allocations are not released in time to spend the money (b) Indian Armed Forces are no exception to the “uniform” psyche anywhere in the world to acquire the latest in military technology, whether or not the new military technology is relevant to the country’s threat perception. (c) the many independence movements across the breadth of the land from Kashmir to Manipur have made Internal Security into a primary mission profile, the Armed Forces claim lack access to intelligence and assessment thereof and are demanding greater accessibility (d) lack of substantial changes to the organizational structure of the Armed Forces to meet the changing environment by introducing new modules focusing exclusively on insurgency. Analysts opine that informed evaluation of intelligence among the political leadership, security forces and bureaucracy must be inculcated.
In his classified report to the 10th Finance Commission in 1995, Bharat Karnad, a senior defense analyst, had emphasized prioritizing of three capabilities, viz (1) meaningful thermonuclear-ICBM forces, making the international political milieu more receptive to India’s great power ambitions and actions; (2) tri-service power projection and expeditionary capability to maintain peace, order and stability in southern Asia and to protect India’s growing massive investment in oil and gas fields in many of the most turbulent areas of the world (the Middle East not being mentioned by name for politically sensitive reasons), this capability being built around several aircraft carriers and two-division equivalent of versatile Special Operations Forces, capable of fighting terrorists and guerrilla insurgents more effectively, and ( 3 ) unified network-centric command, control, intelligence, surveillance and communications nodes enabling economy of force-utilization and the prosecution of integrated warfare. Despite in its spectacular “shock and awe” success in Iraq, US has suffered setbacks at the hands of urban terrorism because of a lack of troops. The major increases in manpower in the Indian Army is therefore quite calculated, with more “boots on the ground” to support India’s “Cold Start” doctrine of having select forces trained and tasked to launch surprise all-out attack from a standing start against any neighbor in time of relative peace, with or without reason. This has enough dangerous connotations for alarm bells to start ringing in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
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