Antony pats own back, self-certifies excellence
Defence Minister AK Antony's self-certificate of excellence is not going to hoodwink the people who are shell-shocked by the depletion of resources at the Armed Forces' command and the many defence procurement scams that have emerged under his watch. A recently released Press note eulogising the Minister claims that he focussed on “ramping up India's defence preparedness, modernising the Armed Forces, strengthening security measures”, that he sought to “improve the lives of service personnel”, and brought about “absolute transparency in the complex defence procurement process”. Yet, on each of these counts, Mr Antony has failed miserably. India's defence preparedness level today is dangerously low. As then Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh pointed out to the Prime Minister almost two years, the Army lacks critical ammunition, the air defence systems are “97 per cent obsolete” and the Elite Special Forces are “woefully short” of “essential weapons”. Similarly, the many defence systems that Mr Antony says has added muscle to the Indian military have in reality either not yet reached the forces or they are still years away from active use. For example, neither the much-touted nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant nor the indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant has been commissioned into service. INS Vikramaditya has been been commissioned but not before the ministry bungled the acquisition process. The aircraft carrier was contracted from Russia in 2004 by the NDA regime and was scheduled for delivery in 2008. But it sailed into Indian waters only in 2014 and that too after India agreed to pay 137 per cent more for the warship. Moreover, INS Vikramaditya still does not have all the defence systems it needs — these will be fitted later.
But perhaps what is most galling about Mr Antony's shameless pat-on-the-back is his gloating about improving the lives of service personnel, when it was under his watch that INS Sindhurakshak sank last August, killing 18 men on board. Although India's biggest peace-time loss, it finds no mention in Mr Antony's review sheet — much like the other naval accidents that have happened in recent years. Finally, there is the Defence Minister's claim about ruthlessly cleaning up the procurement process. This is another white lie. Mr Antony’s ministry woke up to the AgustaWestland scam and more recently the controversial Roll Royce deal only after the Italians and the English respectively pointed to wrongdoing. In the Tatra trucks matter, it was the Comptroller and Auditor-General who raised the red-flag. Indeed, Mr Antony's only response to corruption in defence deals has been to blacklist suspected firms. This has hampered the modernisation of the Armed Forces while it has done nothing to regulate the acquisitions process.