DRDO’s Arjun Tank scores bull’s eye on Indian Army egos
Somewhere down the harsh heat of Thar deserts, one of the Defence Research and Development Organisations (DRDO) prestigious projects, the Arjun Tank, ably performs one of the stringiest of testing with Indian Army’s 43rd armour. The DRDO representatives invite as many Indian Army Armor officers to test drive it in between the tests.
South Block, New Delhi, the nation’s capital, top DRDO officials give a high pitch, power packed presentations to the defence officials.
The one year old, Directorate of Public interface, the PR arm of the DRDO shuttles journalist to Combat Vehicle Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), the birth place of Arjun Tank, for a test drive.
There is new found aggressiveness in DRDO. DRDO wakes up the fact that a fabulous product does not sells itself, it needs PR too.
Arjun Tank is one of the strange case seen in the product development history. CVRDE takes up the project after it was initiated by Indian Army. Subsequently a host of Army deputes, including the former Army Chief Shankar Roychowdhury, worked on the project. Every year the Vice Chief of Army Staff monitors the project. Then when it comes to inducting it, the Army drags its feet. Throughout the development of the project, anonymous army officials feed the press of the failure of Arjun Tank. When the Tank is ready, the Army officials use frivolous reasons to delay the induction. Since its one year of inception, Frontier India Defence and Strategic News Service has documented not less than 3 such attempts to delay the induction of the Arjun Tank. It included announcement and withdrawal of comparative trials, then delaying induction on grounds that it should be totally sealed for medium fording and finally misleading the parliament of imaginary defects during the Army’s (AUCRT) internal trials. In fact, just before the AUCRT, Frontier India had written about the “color that Army would give to lend to the trials.” True to the warning, Indian Army lived it up.
Since the projects inception, the DRDO and CVRDE have bent backwards to please and accommodate the army, which is the end user. On its part, the Army has moved goalposts, openly blamed DRDO for failing to make Arjun Tank, humiliated its scientists via careful leaks, delayed trials and delayed induction. Even the current Army Chief openly called it as a “sub standard” tank is a conference for armor. Indian Army officers dominate the countries think tanks, the Industry-defence interface CII-Defence is led by an ex officer who was key to inducting the controversial T-90 tanks from Russia, the retired officers wrote in national papers and ex officers who have joined the foreign arms dealers. Till 1990, the army had good time as there were no good defence ministers or national media which had knowledge of defence research matters. Frontier India too has an experience in which an ex army officer wrote to us and asked us to stop the “salesman ship” of the Arjun Tank. The exchange of the emails can be made available to any official investigation committee.
Arrival of the Indian Premier PV Narasimha Rao who is responsible for all good things that India enjoys today, saw inducting the tank into the Armoured Corps. Subsequently, a host of informed defence ministers started arriving on the scene. Since then the Army has been on back foot. The time also saw some sections of the media getting wiser and started asking hard questions. In fact, the failure reports of key national defence projects reached such high decibels that it attracted attention. The arms trials have no more a hush hush affair.
Faced with adversity and improved atmosphere, the DRDO slowly but surely cranked up its PR machinery. It follows many strategies but, let us concentrate on the major four strategies they adopted.
First strategy was to invite as many users to try the product. The second strategy was increased access to media on successful trials and willingness to convey the nature of failure when occurs and share the remedies. The Akash Missile trials with the Indian Air Force (IAF) was so well publicized that it put the detractors in IAF on back foot. The third was to ramp up the DRDO presence in the trade shows and displays to the general masses of India via DRDO permenant exhibition center. What it still lacks is the engagement of Indian think tanks. For example DRDO has a sponsored chair in Indian Peace and Conflict Studies which could be used to correct the perspectives. The fourth strategy they adopted was to differentiate themselves from the OFB and HAL, which is responsible for final production of the equipment. So, the R&D was attributed to the DRDO and production defects were attributed to the production house.
All this had a quantum effect on the Arjun Tank project. Interestingly, it seems to have separated the wheat from the chaff. It has isolated the positions of the Director General Mechanised Forces (DGMF) and Director General Military Operations (DGMO) with respect to indigenization of equipment as a whole. The 43rd Armour which tests the tank, the armoured corps officers who have driven the tank have appreciated it. The current Defence Minister AK Antony, Minister of State for Defence M.M.Pallam Raju, and Minister of State for Defence Production Rao Inderjit Singh, have understood the importance of indigenisation. One of the commendable stances taken by the ministers is to make DGMF responsible for induction of the Arjun Tank, there putting it under pressure to perform.
Many questions like corruption in defence purchases, incompetence of the political appointed officers have come up. It cannot be ascertained for sure, but, some of the officers suffer from RAJ syndrome. The mighty army ego’s versus the civilian led organisation likeDRDO is very evident. By the current trend DRDO looks to have outsmarted them. The Arjun Tank fiasco by the Indian Army has started denting their Army ego’s atleast.
19 Responses to “DRDO’s Arjun Tank scores bull’s eye on Indian Army egos”
By Dr. R. L. Banerjee on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
It’s easy for anybody with common sense to realize one aspect of the Arjun tank affair is that the relatively uneducated and corrupt army officers are getting upper hand over the highly educated (world-standard) scientists of DRDO, with the help of even more corrupt and uneducated politicians of India. This is the main cause of the non-induction of Arjun tank in Indian army. The same kind of affair is also hindering the progress of the LCA project. The the policy of reservation in every domain of advancement in India will also have its poisonous effect be felt soon.
By Vaibhav Kumar on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
We should take a lesson or two from nations like Israel when it comes to indigenisation of defence equipment. Arjun a world class mbt is being sidelined in favour of T-90 which is a modified T-72 which in itself is a modified version of older T series tanks of which the design philosophy hasnt changed since ww2. Army which harps about weight of arjun should see that russia, the producer of T-90 is going towards heavy mbts like T-95 and Black Eagle for their own forces. Apart from R&D DRDO should have a say in future defence procurements also.
By tanker on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
i can only laugh at this dr banerjee. cluless about the army unless of course he is a imbecile from the drdo. the drdo is a useless organisation cvrde has done nothing but waste crores on a defunct tank which any way is a generation behind. not a single drdo lab is working beyond 20% of its capabilty. bloated staff doing nothing other than feathering their nests with unaccounted money.the so called projects are copies of foreign stuff trying to meet the gsqr.frequent foriegn visits by these scientists to bring back some brochures from a expo.all tyhe way to brazil. so dr banerjee use the rti to find out more though i am sure it will be covered under a veil of secercy.none of you big gas bags are ever going to die in a tank nor are your progenies. so gas on and on with chacko and likes. please dont insult me chacko as i have done my bit and so have my son.he will fight to his last in what is given to him that is a t90.
By Banjara on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
Nice to hear that you can “only” Laugh. You wish you could have danced too?
Every one of us have our kith and kin in the forces and we love them. What makes you and your son special?
By Gopal.Suri on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
Dear tanker,
You and your son work for Russian Army?
By Ravi on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
As a services brat, tanker - please accept my condolences. If the likes of you indeed are decision makers in the army, then i fear for your son, and many other people as well. Your bigoted and empty rhetoric about the DRDO shows how pathetic we army waalahs can be when talking about civilians. Of course we are superior to them, what do they know, they are good for nothing. Meanwhile , it is they who make the items we need while the bloody russkie sells us 2000 $ spanner to do a job which a 40 Rs item could do and we being superior and in love with the “imported” mentality fall over ourselves to accept it. Everything DRDO does is shit, but somehow more and more of their missiles and radars and stuff seems to be acceptable, while of course the indian army is the laughing stock of the entire world for its procurement policies. The chinese laugh at us, the pakis laugh at us, but our big bellies laugh back, since we are superior to everyone around us, especially bloody civilians like those “idiots” at DRDO.
By Banjara on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
I was goind through this Tankers coments again and again. Something that disturbs me is at the attitude. This guy claims to be from Army. Look what he has said.
1) DRDO Imbecile
2) copies of foreign stuff , trying to meet GSQR.
3) none of you big gas bags are ever going to die in a tank nor are your progenies.
4) please dont insult me chacko as i have done my bit and so have my son.
5) he will fight to his last in what is given to him that is a t90.
This guy is mentally sick. I will tell you why.
1)Look at the wordings and hate for DRDO.
3) Same contempt for other Indians too.
Just think of the implications, he is a total hater of people.
2) What about GSQR he would have made rading foreign magazine?
4) He hates civvies and then when civvies hate him, he cites 2 things a) he tries the “only he and his son” are patriots and they have done every thing for the country, so Chacko is not a patriot b) He says that I can insult you, but you cannot insult me. Ha!
5) here ih crosses all limit. Some how he tries to put his son abouve rest of us. He is a Bhura sahib and his son is naturally superior. Only he and his progenies will serve the country and other wil enjoy.
You are looking at a total self inflicting maniac.
By Vaibhav Kumar on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply
Tanker sir…which one would you prefer..
1> Your son is in a T-90 and is hit by an alkhalid
2> your son is in an Arjun and is hit by an alkhalid
just one from the above two..please dont put any other scenario where ur son is not hit by an enemy tank. If your son is not then someone else will be.
By ravi on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
the problem is the hate for drdo is very strong amongst some of these burrah sahibs. they never did one day of product development but are used to army style lording it over soldiers. in the army, the average guy getting in has to get 50% grade and above, af is 60% but navy is 70% and above, so you can make out difference in terms of understanding and using technology apart from specialists in eme who are good engineers. the average army tanker and soldier is the jock in school who was good at athletics, somehow crammed and passed the exams and was chosen for his street smart iq, “attitude” and physical toughness. all his life he looked down upon the geeks, the engineering types, and now add the army’s colonial era british attitude of “us” vs the bloody civilians and you can imagine how DRDO gets treated in public. i was standing with my uncle when a drdo waalah was being told stuff which second grade managers do in call centers man, that kind of rude behaviour. i’ll be honest, even i thought drdo was shit and all civilians were same, but over the years i have learnt different by working in industry, hiring people from central govt labs (some are good, some are brilliant, some are bad, but they are not all shit people) and learnt civilians are not so different from services.
but tankers attitude is attitude in services, which is a big part of the problem
By Dr. R. L. Banerjee on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
I am not at all surprised by the reply from the tanker. I am a Canadian university professor of Physics with D.Sc. degree from Sorbonne, Paris. I have the requred brain power to understand the difficulties the DRDO has to face in developing an useful machine of war in a country like India. First they have to work against the sanctions imposed by the imperialist nations of the world and then there are those bully, uneducated military personnels like our tanker. At the age of ony 12 yrs I was imprisoned for the first time by the British for taking part in the indipendence movement of India. I am at least as patriotic as any other Indian. That bully tanker certainly does not have the brain power to understand the worth of those dedicated DRDO scientists who are doing really very difficult jobs. I am not saying that all the personnels of DRDO are doing their jobs efficiently. In fact, there is no organisation in the world where everybody works equally efficiently. DRDO is not an exception.
By Nitin Nair on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
The Army definitely has a point that is cannot accept sub-standard systems even though it is indigenous. But I think they can order atleast some tanks to offset the R&D costs and then they can go for an improved Arjun mk2 tanks. Besides WW2 has shown that quantity has its own quality..for ex the inferior Sherman vs Tiger tanks. So even if they think Arjun is inferior they can atleast have sufficient number of tanks..Also I hav heard of some Indian officers claiming that Arjun’s weight is 60 tons whereas the bridges that we hav at the moment on the western front can only support 50 tons. Now this is typical BS. IF it is so then they need to replace the bridges rather than bring down the weight of the tank
By Ashwin on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
I’d support Nitin’s Comment towards Arjun MBT Tank. But it is believed that Arjun Tank has obtained the world class features that can be competed with other Battle tanks of the then era. We indians have to be proud of what we have gained indigenously rather to opt the failure Russian containers so called T-90.
By A1rao on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Tanker,
I applaud the fact that you and your son serve(d) your nation, but I can’t agree with your remarks that are denigrating Chacko or the scientists in DRDO as ‘unpatriotic.’ The T-90 did serve the purpose of providing an intermediate tank (that was superior to the T-72M1, T-55, and the Vijayanta) but it is hypocritical to only blame the DRDO scientists for cost overruns on the Arjun without realizing that this was due to the Army’s changing GSQR( which was originally copy pasted from an edition of Jane’s Armour). The imported T-90 have also faced cost overruns and was available for a cheaper price from one Russian firm, but we chose a more expensive firm to import the tanks from( I think it was available for almost $200,000 cheaper per unit cost). Not to mention the various teething problems, some of which still continue. How can you solely blame the Civilian side of this equation without considering that the Army’s decision making processes are also responsible for the eroded armored divisions and cost overruns? The T-90 served the purpose of filling a gap in the armored regiments(like your son I myself would much rather be in a T-90 than a Vickers), but one must realize that the positive attributes are limited and there is not as much potential to improve upon the platform when compared to the Arjun. How much longer must India rely upon foreign import vendors when the tax payers money should be instead staying inside the country to develop a self sustaining defense industry?
By Dan on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
To Tanker,
I have worked in these defence organizations and now iam in private sector outside india,let me tell you, i have seen both scientists here and india and i feel indian are far better technically.
only thing is we dont hav good infrastructure and enough spending on R&D.
The scientists are too good,but there is very less incentive from govt for talent.
Now coming to inferior products from DRDO,all countries have same problems,it is not a shit organization.
If you take boeing, EADS all have same productivity levels as DRDO,even here some scientists are very good, and others are like sleepy characters.
It is not easy to make something out of nothing with no technology ancillary industries.
Even here defence has been built over a period of 75 years to get a good quality engine,and india has just started it.
Ex: F22 aircraft took 30 yrs from design to fly stage with so much of resources and tech competance available to USA.
Everybody appreciates the army,moving goalpost’s (reqt change) over a period of time will work only if orders are placed, and the next versions will be better.
You can’t give a spec for Mig 21 and expect a SU35 after 20 yrs.(Similar F14-> F22)and keep saying it is inferior.
All countries have gone through these phases,their airforce ordered Mig 21 and as technology developed they ordered the newer ones
similarly with Tanks u cant giv a spec for T55 and ask for latest on market.
India is good in software but in semiconductor it is zero.everything takes time to mature.
collabration is the way to catch up and to bridge the tech gap ,we do get some head start that is enough.
There is no avionics companies in india,whatever our guys produce is very primitive,this is because other countries have a technology of 50 years and very good collaboration with other countries.
So it takes time,India is technologically advanced,just the investments compared to other developed countries is 2%.
All in all accept what u have ordered as per your original spec ,then provide a latest stuff spec u will get it.
Innovations keep happening,there is never a best product in one shot,It evolves to be a bset product in its category.
You cant’s have a F22 directly without labouring for F14 F15,F16,F18…..
So appreciate the work done,colloborate,kick asses in genuine cases ..
thanks
By vedant on Jun 25, 2008 | Reply
its an old habit of the indian army to use old equpitmentand n resist any change,look at the 7.62 self loading riffle,it was replaces by insas which is also by and large a useless firearm when it comes to close encounters and situations where heavy and rapid firepower is needed….we need a fulll makeover ranging from small firearms to heavy defence equpitment
By lalit shakya on Jun 28, 2008 | Reply
Finally I made the conclusion if Arjun tank is bad for indian Army then it must be sell to pakistan and china army if they interested to purchase.At least DRDO will earn some income
By Anup on Jul 16, 2008 | Reply
General public don’t know much about Arjun tank. I too earlier use to think that Arjun was not good tank, untill i went to see the Defexpo and saw what it is, specially the protection of Arjun and other tanks.
Arjun lack only in one dept., where the T 90S has monopoly, that is, Defence dealers, who want to sell T90S and will go to any extent for commission. Unfortunatly evey one wants some bonus before retirement. Still IA should order 500-750 tanks.
Once the Arjun is accepted then IA will ask for more tanks, for the simple reason it protect its crew and is superior in many ways then T 90S. We need some 3500-4000 tanks and at present we are in mess.
After all things said and done i strongly think that it is time for the PM to step in and do the needfull.
By mera bharat mahan on Jul 17, 2008 | Reply
tanker is obviously a troll or a puke or a chappati-face
in either case tanker, you are defending the POV of the army which is very unpopular with the public right now. the fact that the gaandu kammandu (dgmf) can engage in such chutiyagiri in broad daylight makes the civvie blood boil.
By K M Kurup on Jul 17, 2008 | Reply
The way Tanker has been spouting his intellect using derogetory remarks on DRDO scientists, Chacko and Dr. Banerjee clearly shows what an oxymoron he is.
Indian industry and R&D has suffered because of traitors like him who despise anything made indigenously. They only appreciate foreign products.
They would rather pay double the price for a Sony made overseas even if the same can be got for half the price in India.
So long as we have uncouth, uncultured and brain-dead people in the IA who oppose every indigenous product because their kickbacks would be in jeopardy, there is not much scope unless the PM, RM and the cabinet put their foot down and allocate enough funds for R&D and indigenous products such as Arjun and the LCA.
People like Dan can point out the differences between local and foreign industry, but it would be like throwing pearls to swines where Tanker and his ilk is concerned.