Indian Armed Forces are used to import Defence systems from abroad and use them mostly for training and during operations whenever necessity rises. Most of these systems are in free flow production in their respective countries and sometimes inducted by their Services. These systems, therefore, have got the maturity in terms of engineering, production and maintenance. This provides the comfort zone for the three Services to induct, operationalise and maintain these weapons.

The most important aspect is that these weapons, are not designed keeping Indian environment, tactics, operational doctrines or user’ preferences in mind. They are not customized for the convenience of the Indian Armed Forces. Even then, they are accepted by the Services based on their maturity level. Even in those cases where partial quantities are produced in the country, mostly in Indian Ordnance factories (OFB) and Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs), there is hardly any technology transfer taking place. These items would already have been produced in large quantities in their respective countries and would have reached end of production life for their own use. Many times, the tooling will be transferred to Indian production line accordingly. Though the products are subsequently made in India, most of the raw materials and components still have to come from the parent country and the value addition by Indian Industry is very small, varying from 10% to 30%. Even then, this is a preferred route for the OFB’s and DPSUs as there is no risk for them. They have assured product line and order quantities from the Armed Forces. Most of time, the critical high end system’s technology is not passed to India. It is a form of “Technology Apartheid.” India ends up paying exorbitant prices and foreign exchange.

The international arms market runs with political and monetary diplomacy. The arms majors adopt all tricks of trade to push their wares. India is one of the largest importers of arms in the world, hence these issues imply to India too.

With this background, it is natural that the Indian Armed forces hesitate to accept Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed items as they know that even after DRDO successfully develops, there would be a reasonable time gap before a smooth free flow production gets established by the Indian Industry. There is also pressure from import lobbies and vested interest which cultivate the sensation seeking mass media for defaming Indian indigenous research.

It is to be noted that all countries which develops a complex defence system has gone through the same pains and problems as DRDO before serial production gets established.

Frontier India Defence and Strategic News Service interacted with Dr. VK Atre who has held the position of Scientific Advisor to Minister of Defence. I covered in depth on the DRDO point of view on the state of indigenous Defence Research.

There are 4 state actors when it comes to indigenization of weapons.

1) The Ministry of Defence (MoD)
2) The Armed Forces
3) The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
4) The Public sector defence production units (DPSU)

There are 3 non state actors which influence the outcomes
1) Foreign Vendors
2) The Mass Media.
3) The Import Lobby

The Ministry of Defence

Ideally the MoD should act as the bridge between the scientific & technical community and the armed forces.

On the role of MoD in indigenization Dr. Atre say’s “Variable. There are occasions when MoD has supported DRDO strongly and there are occasions when they have not. It depends on the pressure by the User Service and the projection of Operational Requirement put forward by the User.”

The MoD is the hub for the arms import lobby. One must also study pressure from import lobby; we will deal with this subject later.

The central purchase committee is major contributor of delays too. Dr. Atre says “The laboratories can order equipment once the basic project is cleared. There are set purchase procedures. Our (governmental) procedures themselves cause some delay and require to be seriously looked into to reduce the purchase delays.”

The Armed Forces

Indian Armed Forces have 3 main wings
a)Imported Army or Indian Army (IA)
b)Imported Air Force or Indian Air Force (IAF)
c)Ingenious Navy or Indian Navy (IN)

It is not just the IA, IAF and IN have to work with DRDO. A host of private industries and PSU’s like Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) work with DRDO and are happy. This year, BEL has decided to give research and development projects worth 120 Crores to DRDO.

IA and IAF do not have a positive research attitude. Dr. Atre say’s “In my opinion IN is more interested in indigenous systems than the other two. I do believe this is more of an attitude than the successes DRDO’s achievements in Sonar systems. Even in non-NPOL and sonar projects (for example in EW projects), IN has showed this attitude. DRDO and BEL have very good working relationship; but the latter being a production agency has obviously caters to customer’s demands.”

The IA and IAF representatives are not helpful too. Dr. Atre say’s “IA and IAF representatives are indeed participating in some of the projects. But, in my opinion, most of them remain as representatives and not an integral part of the development team. Naval reps were indeed active participants in the design, development, testing and trails of the equipment and hence were deeply emotionally involved with the systems.”

The main project of IA with DRDO is Arjun MBT. The representatives of IA were not helpful. A recent parliamentary committee told “once these officers are posted to the DRDO units, they forget their uniform.” Now these representatives have to report to Indian Army every 3 months.

On being asked on IA representative’s role in Arjun Tank development, Dr. Atre said “I do not know the answer to this question as I was not involved with Arjun during its developmental phase. Lot has already been written about Arjun.”

The other service which has a major project with DRDO is IAF. Let us take a look at the IAF’s representative in the project. Dr. Atre say’s “Most of the times I felt that they were genuinely interested in seeing the most important and major technology of designing combat aircrafts in India. But at times I felt that they were not genuinely interested in LCA and acted as auditors rather than players. This ambivalent attitude reflected somewhat in the interest shown by HAL. If IAFs attitude was more positive and proactive, the project would (in my opinion) have gained more momentum.”

By now it is general knowledge that IA and IAF are partial towards equipment import. It lowers GSQR standards for import equipment while it does not do the same for DRDO. Another issue is IA drags its feet for giving dates for trials for months resulting in project delays.

Say’s Dr. Atre “I honestly believe that all our services are partial to ‘equipment import’ – some are more so. This seems to be a general problem in India. As I indicated earlier, Navy is more ready to be a part of DRDO and look for indigenous equipment while the others are less so. When one import’s any equipment, one perhaps has to identify the equipment that nearly meets the GSQR, as otherwise even the foreign companies have to get into R&D mode, which costs time and money. Hence it some times happens that the GSQRs given to DRDO are more demanding than those given to the foreign vendors. This is OK. However, what used to bother me were the acceptance criterion and trials of the imported equipment to verify the same. We at DRDO always felt that the DRDO equipments went through much more demanding User trials than the imported ones. This was generally true and certainly caused further delays. Our scientists often felt that the imported equipment did not perform all that well in the trials and later on in use also. There is some truth in this.”

DRDO

For a self assessment of DRDO, I asked Dr. Atre the success rate of DRDO projects, he said “Difficult to put a number. Sonar programs for Navy have the best success rate. Navy accepted the equipment in spite of PDC slippages. EW programs success rate is also high – all the three Services have accepted the equipment designed by DRDO (again in spite of slippages in PDC). Of late, success rate in Radar systems is also high. There are several radars, which have gone into production. The problems of PDC slippages in these have been reduced. (All in all in highly electronic oriented projects we have technologically done well). There have been several successes in Armaments, including torpedoes. For example Pinaka is a success but there was delay in meeting the specifications in user trials. Prithvi and Agni are clearly successes. So you see there are many successes in DRDO development and that is why I had initially indicated basing it only on Arjun and LCA (which I consider as successes looking at the complexity of the platforms), Akash, Trishul and Nag is not just right.”

That is modest statement by Dr. Atre. The fact is the country has achieved 40 percent indigenisation using DRDO products. DRDO. The 70 percent target is not for DRDO to achieve alone. The users too need to co-operate. All major powers in the world use or strive to induct indigenous product when ever available. These products pass through mark 1, mark 2 … stages in service of these countries before the product matures.

On a rough estimate DRDO has produced more than 1000 critical products and technologies in just 20 years which has brought us on par with the developed countries.

The Public sector defence production units (DPSU)

As mentioned earlier, the OFB and DPSU’s have a comfort level when producing an imported system which has a maturity in production cycle. There is very high resistance in technology transfer, when it comes from DRDO, as these systems need to be absorbed, machinery bought, processes created, fine tuned and updated as per the user feed back. Most of the quality problems that has arisen in INSAS, Arjun Tank etc have been due to the OFB and DPSU’s.

Say’s Dr. Atre “No DRDO should not be blamed for the production in efficiency. I want to elaborate on this so that you understand the scenario correctly and in the right perspective. Our Public Sector Undertakings are much more used to and comfortable with licensed production (most industries in India are, though the scenario is fast changing) which they called technology transfer. No technological know-how comes through such production except production processes. Of course, we can and did learn from this also. What is interesting to note is that under licensed production, technology transfer takes place from industry to industry on processes already well established in the other country. As the technology transfer from DRDO to PSU is based on lab models and prototypes, the amount of work that has to be put in by the PSUs is much more. This not only adds to the delay but demands much more (conversion) effort from them. When they do not invest this time and effort, clearly there would be quality problems.”

Foreign Vendors

The foreign vendors were critical when India achieved independence. They are still critical in terms of key technology or off the shelf product imports. Even DRDO imports from them in order to speed up a project or bring down the project cost. However, these foreign vendors play dirty tricks when the order value is huge. They are represented by Indian agents. These agents have their positive and negative aspects. There have been times, when these agents have supported the imported equipments in critical times. But these agents are too responsible for attacks on the Indian indigenous research as it stops their line of business.

There have been non deliveries and wrong deliveries by these foreign vendors. But due to good relationship with media and the yellow journalist, this news does not get reported.

Due to non delivery by these foreign vendors, DRDO projects get delayed. Foreign vendors are subject to laws of their own country. These government’s have policies where in they can hold the exports to India at will.

The Media

The media has been vociferous in criticizing DRDO. Media did the same when ISRO was struggling to launch SLV’s in 1980’s. Today ISRO successes have put the media on the back foot. As of today most budding journalist, retired armed forces personnel has found it convenient to bash DRDO , as they do not expect the DRDO to retort back. Imagine if the budding journalists write on the mafias or the retired armed forces officers report on their own organisations. It is not just convenience in attacking DRDO, a large number of the officials have openly spoken about the deliberate attempt to malign DRDO. Yellow journalism is naturally at play on behest of foreign agencies and vested interests in India.

Dr. Atre quips “The media stories cover the same theme: ARJUN, LCA, Akash and Trishul. The main attack in on the delays and resulting effect on the operational and staff requirements. There is some truth in this. There have been delays of several years, from the original PDCs, in some these projects. This is some thing none of us can deny. But picking on only the delays not talking about DRDO’s successes is what bothers me most.”

On being asked on the recent attack by media on DRDO, Dr. Atre say’s “I am not sure what triggered the most recent attacks on DRDO. As far as I can gather, the situation on Arjun has improved and several tanks were ready (the problem of weight and import content haven’t changed in the last several years), Akash had cleared some of its technical problems and several prototypes of LCA were flying and getting ready for the IOC (404 engines were cleared for the first two squadrons and most recent status of MMR is not known to me).”

Import Lobby

This is the bane of Indian defence procurements and detrimental to Indian indigenous research. They are in the Government departments, they are in the armed forces, they are in the Indian import agents and of course the yellow journalist who are apologists for imports. A lot of retired armed forces personnel are found hobnobbing with serving officers, as the serving officers are not supposed to interact with the vendors. These corrupt personnel try to influence the results of the arms tests. The Indian media often quotes them for bashing DRDO.
The controversies over arms deals, that now are normal in India, has led to frustration not only in the defence force but also the general public. The main problem is corruption. The corruption percolates from the middle men to political bosses/ bureaucrats and uniformed personnel.

Endgame

Indigenisation has same connotations as gaining independence. Look at what history has taught us. India has been time and again attacked by the outsiders as we lacked advanced arms and ammunition. The situation is no different today. The physical colonization has been replaced with mental colonization.

It is clear that total Indigenisation cannot happen without firm user commitment. Barring The Indian Navy, other services are not willing to go through the process. A thought that passes is if the imported systems are better than indigenous system, then, the country should import military officers too. Why do we need Indian officers who cannot make their own weapons and doctrines?