Author: Sayan Chaterjee
India’s military history is not merely a record of wars fought and victories won. It is also a story of institutional evolution, strategic adaptation and lessons that continue to shape the country’s defence preparedness. That larger perspective defined the fourth Indian Military Heritage Festival (IMHF) 2026, which concluded in New Delhi on October 31. Organised by the United Service Institution of India’s (USI) Centre for Military History and Conflict Studies on October 30-31, it brought together military leadership, veterans, historians, authors, academics and strategic affairs experts to take military history beyond specialist circles and into wider public conversation, through panels, book launches and a tri-service exhibition. In his opening address, Vice Admiral Sanjay Jasjit Singh (Retd), Director General, USI, noted that what began in 2023 has grown into a signature event of the institution. He pointed to USI’s library of around 72,000 books and an archive that includes an original copy of the document relating to the 1971 surrender. The reference mattered: original documents, institutional records and personal accounts are the evidence through which battles and commemorations can be examined and passed on.
The festival opened with a session on the Garhwal Rifles, featuring Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain, Governor of Bihar, and Lieutenant General Dinesh Rana. Other sessions explored the Corps of Engineers, Operation Safed Sagar during the 1999 Kargil conflict, the shared military heritage of India and Britain, soldiers’ families and military medicine. A conversation on women officers in the Samudra Pradakshina and Navika Sagar Parikrama sailing expeditions highlighted changing opportunities across the three services.
The maritime dimension took centre stage on the second day, with naval historian Commodore (Dr) Srikant B. Kesnur (Retd) moderating two sessions that tied the Navy’s history to its present priorities. The first, ‘Indian Navy’s Indigenisation Journey - Past, Present, and Future’, featured Vice Admiral B Sivakumar, Chief of Materiel, and Rear Admiral Sujit Baxi, Director General, Warship Design Bureau, among others. It examined the shift from foreign suppliers towards indigenous ship design, domestic production and closer partnerships with Indian industry. The central question was not how many warships India can build, but how effectively it can design, develop, maintain and upgrade the technologies that sustain maritime strength, from secure supply chains to distant deployments.
The second, ‘1946-1971: Uprising to Risen’, traced the 1946 Royal Indian Navy uprising, when Indian ratings challenged colonial authority, and the missile-boat operations against Karachi in the 1971 war. Vice Admiral Anup Singh (Retd), maritime historian Swaroop Anand and defence journalist Sandeep Unnithan were among the speakers. The two episodes sketched a navy’s journey from the final years of colonial rule to a more confident maritime force. Three naval titles were released during the Future Ready Navy segment: Kesnur’s. The War in the Indian Ocean (Sabre and Quill); Captain (IN) N S Mohan Ram’s A Builder’s Navy: The Long Road to Self-sufficiency in Warship Design; and Commodore Pramod R Kulkarni’s Warship Design and its Management: A Systems Engineering Perspective. They link naval history, indigenous shipbuilding and design management to India’s maritime ambitions.
The wider strategic context came from Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, who placed the maritime domain at the centre of India’s economic growth, national security and strategic interests as the country moves towards Viksit Bharat 2047. He identified four changes shaping the maritime environment: intensifying competition around shipping routes and chokepoints; the growing influence of non-state actors and commercial entities; the expansion of the domain from the seabed to outer space, with greater surveillance and transparency; and wider access to technologies such as drones, artificial intelligence and satellite imagery.
Disruptions at sea, he stressed, do not stay at sea. They can affect energy supplies, food and fertiliser availability, trade and supply chains, and eventually reach households and businesses on land. For a country so dependent on seaborne trade, naval preparedness is part of economic security. The Navy’s response is to modernise its force, review operational doctrines and strengthen indigenous technological and industrial capabilities. Conventional platforms will remain the foundation of maritime power, while unmanned and autonomous systems add flexibility and scale. Self-reliance, he said, must extend beyond manufacturing to designing, maintaining, repairing and upgrading critical systems at home.
He also stressed preparing for environments where satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing services are disrupted. The Navy is working towards greater use of NavIC as the system matures, while developing alternatives for GPS- and satellite-denied conditions. The requirement is broader than navigation: the ability to keep operating when technologies normally taken for granted become unavailable.
Other discussions reinforced that military history must inform present-day thinking, among them the integration of princely-state forces after Independence and the institutionalisation of jointmanship through HQ IDS and the Andaman and Nicobar Command. The fourth edition of IMHF made a case for treating military heritage as a living national resource. The value of studying the 1946 naval uprising, the 1971 operations, the Kargil conflict or the evolution of indigenous warship design lies not only in remembering what happened, but in understanding how institutions adapt to changing strategic circumstances.
As the CNS observed, the Navy must continuously recognise emerging trends and prepare for an uncertain future. The festival brought that thought into sharper focus: a nation that understands its military past is better placed to make informed choices about its defence future. By connecting history with technology, operational experience and strategic debate, IMHF 2026 offered a platform to do precisely that.
The writer is a Delhi-based independent contributor to print and online publications; Views presented are personal.