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Journalism of Courage
It is strange that the defence minister of India should publicly dress down the defence services for not adequately supporting indigenous development and production of weapons systems. This seems to be in line with the popular perception that our military top brass only want to buy foreign goods. George Fernandes is right that there would be little interest in our weapons systems if they were not operationally deployed in our frontline formations. On the other hand, he no doubt fully understands that technological edge in today8217;s warfare is far more decisive than any other single factor. He himself has been on record to emphasise that the defence services would need to have the best weapons and equipment that the country can afford to buy. The problem, however, goes much deeper.
One pertains to the issue of 8220;indecisiveness8221; that Fernandes complains about. This, as he knows, has come about substantively because of a series of scams and the apprehension of being named in such cases. Bureaucracies, by their nature, tend to take decisions by committee and a number of consultations and signatures are usually sought before a final view emerges, so that no single person could then be actually identified as having driven the decision. Military bureaucracies are inclined to be even more conservative in such matters. The only way the process can be speeded up is by integrating the procurement and perspective planning divisions of the defence services into the ministry of defence. Meanwhile, what should worry us all is that the person complaining about indecisiveness in indigenisation is the very same one who sits at the head of the ministry which is responsible for ensuring design, development, procurement and employment of the best weapons systems by the defence forces.
