PM’s day out on INS Viraat

Homework done, the PM made it a point to get full-fledged briefings on the things the navy has long wanted his audience for. Singh, whose entourage included his wife Gursharan Kaur, half of the PMO, including NSA M K Narayanan and an assortment of ministers including Prithviraj Chauhan and Rao Inderjit Singh, kicked off his day on the warship by getting a full-fledged classified operational briefing from the Navy’s Western Commander Vice Admiral S S Byce, Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash and other top officers on the projection for more ships to be a more credible defensive force and crucially, a perspective on missile defence on the Western seaboard.

Sources in the PM’s entourage said Singh had prepared a few questions, but was mostly glad just to hear out the commanders. After landing, though, it was many hours before the PM could retire to the large, specially equipped Admiral’s Cabin below the massive warship’s quarterdeck on Friday night. He was escorted to a sealed-off berth on the warship’s island platform where he silently viewed a dizzy display of naval strength on Friday afternoon, churning up the surf to both sides of the aircraft carrier.

After dinner on Friday, the PM was again treated to a rare display of anti-missile defence involving a Russian P-21 and, possibly for the first time in front of a civilian audience, an Israeli Barak interception missile fired from a frigate.

The PM also expressed a strong inquisitiveness about something that has bothered the navy for some time now — the fact that INS Viraat is its only aircraft carrier, when it ideally should be operating three.

His visit served to provide an official endorsement to the navy’s blue water drive, a phrase the PM may now count as part of his active vocabulary, the navy’s emerging role as a post-disaster relief force and its busy schedule of diplomacy as part of the larger masterplan of becoming a respected and credible power across the entire Indian Ocean region.

For Admiral Prakash, it was a sentimental time, especially since this could be the last big event for him as chief before his retires in October. He said, “I am happy to say the PM was deeply engrossed at every stage. He has said he believes that India will rely more and more on the maritime sphere in the future. That’s inevitable.”

shiv.aroor@expressindia.com