India’s Defence Production Needs Many More BrahMos-Like Projects

The most spectacular example of the inextricable linking of the defence forces with an Indian weapons-maker is BrahMos – an Indian cruise missile built with Russian technology.

BrahMos Corp is an India-Russia joint venture, with DRDO footing most of the cash and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya offering the crown jewels of its defence technology, including its latest propulsion system, and not some stripped down export-only model. The missile entered production only after the defence chiefs agreed to buy sufficient quantities over an extended period. Russian specialists are actually employed by BrahMos Corp in India, ensuring that they are accountable for their work. It is a rare example of an Indian weapon that is loved by the army, navy and air force, and has the potential to be India’s new export item.

As BrahMos Corp CEO Sivathanu Pillai says,“You should know the customer. If a system is to be developed but the customer is not interested, then you are in the position of having to go after him begging.”

Pillai knows his customers well. Indian commanders have no problems inducting Indian weapons such as ballistic missiles (which are banned for sale under MTCR), but citing quality issues they readily reject equipment that can be imported including fighter aircraft, jet trainers, tanks and short range missiles.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that those who have most to gain from the cancellation of Indian weapons projects are foreign manufacturers.

Brahmos Corp did not have to go begging after the defence forces because Pillai and his team made sure the senior commanders were never able to ditch the missile. And you bet the commanders tried their best.

Different path

Pillai writes in his fascinating book ‘The Path Unexplored’ that it was after seeing the American Tomahawk’s success in the 1991 Gulf War that India decided to acquire a precision attack cruise missile. “This was to be our magical first strike weapon,” he writes.

Things kicked off in 1995 when the legendary missile man – and later President – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam asked Pillai, then the programme director of IGMDP, to take charge as the CEO of an India-Russia joint venture (JV) that would develop a brand new cruise missile.

Many of Pillai’s colleagues, including senior bureaucrats, were of the opinion that in the absence of quality requirements – let alone the promise of an order – from the armed forces, it was a risky venture.

There was also the prospect of internal sabotage. Pillai reveals in his book that there were senior military commanders who wanted to scuttle the BrahMos project by declaring its performance unsatisfactory. Their plan was to continue India’s dependency on imports.

Fail safe methods

However, what saved the project was the involvement of key members of India’s political establishment. Kalam made sure that the BrahMos team always got an audience in the Prime Minister’s Office. His rapport with Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was also the Defence Minister, proved to a great advantage for the missile men of BrahMos. Pillai remembers that while going through the JV documents, Rao nodded and said: “It is a good idea and if it clicks it has a good future.”

Rao, the prime mover behind India’s economic liberalisation, was the right Prime Minister at the right time. It required a leader with vision to give clearance to such a major project at a time when India’s bank balance was nearly zero. (It’s interesting to imagine the project’s fate if Manmohan Singh or I.K. Gujral had been the Prime Minister. Or if Mulayam Singh or A.K. Antony had been Defence Minister.)

Pillai points out that when Kalam would forward a proposal to Rao, the file would come back with his approval the same day. This is something unimaginable in India where politicking comes first and national security takes a back seat. In India, even low-level personal assistants can delay projects of vital national interest by sitting on files.

JV route

Initially, BrahMos was incorporated with DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya holding 49 per cent each and an Indian financial institution holding 2 per cent. But because involving a third party would have compromised secrecy, the financial institution was eliminated. The final shareholding was 50.5 per cent for DRDO and 49.5 per cent for NPOM.

The Russian insistence that the JV be a private sector company proved to be fortuitous. Had DRDO’s share been 51 per cent, it would be deemed a public sector company falling under India’s Defence Ministry. “The Russians feared procedural formalities and government controls from the Indian side would delay the operations of the JV,” Pillai writes.

Clearly, the government’s decision to relinquish control – despite being the primary funder – was brilliant. Free of bureaucratic interference, BrahMos has grown to be one of India’s most dynamic armaments companies. The BrahMos is the fastest anti-ship cruise missile in the world, and even the US doesn’t have such a weapon.

Brief look at old ways

The BrahMos story offers a striking contrast to the history of arms development in India which is littered with the debris of numerous failed projects. One of the earliest projects that India embarked upon was the 1960s Marut deep penetration fighter that performed creditably in the 1971 War. It is a measure of how highly the aircraft was regarded that the Egyptians joined the project, although they later pulled out after some years.

Designed by India’s Raj Mahindra and Kurt Tank, the German behind the legendary Focke-Wulfe fighter-bombers, the Marut was abandoned without further iterations in favour of the Jaguar from the UK. Though the Rs 800 crore deal did not create tremors, fingers were raised at Jagjivan Ram, defence minister in the Morarji Desai government, putting a question mark on the fairness of the deal.

Another indigenous project that imploded was the Arjun Catapult self-propelled gun (SPG). Going by the adage that the army fights with the weapons it has rather than the weapons it wants, the DRDO’s Combat Vehicle Research & Development Establishment developed an SPG by mating the Russian built M-46 130mm howitzer with the Arjun MK-I tank chassis. This new artillery system, which was on show at Defexpo 2014, was known as the Arjun Catapult MK-II.

There were other spinoffs from the project. Private defence contractors like Tata, L&T and Bharat Forge were involved in locally upgrading the M-46 to 155mm calibre, which increased the range from 26 km to 39 km.

The private companies were also developing their own 155mm howitzers in collaboration with overseas defence companies, while collaborating with the DRDO’s Armament Research & Development Establishment in Pune to design a 155mm Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System with a 50-km strike range.

But curiously, after 100 of the Arjun Catapults were produced, the army did not ask for further enhancements to the system and today India continues to seek high calibre artillery systems from foreign vendors.

In November 2014, the government decided to purchase 155 mm guns with a range of 40 km under the “Buy & Make Indian” programme. The plan is to acquire more than 800 guns for the army.

Bottomline: instead of developing a gun with a 50 km range, the army is shooting for an artillery system with a much lower range.

Endgame

Until now it was believed that a few rogue commanders – in cahoots with “retired officers, politicians, journalists and prominent newspapers” – were responsible for cancellation of HAL and DRDO projects. For instance, there is the “Chandigarh Gang”.

RSN Singh, a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research & Analysis Wing, revealed in Canary Trap about the existence of the Chandigarh Gang as the “mainstay of the international arms lobby” during the decade long UPA rule. “This gang is not necessarily in Chandigarh alone, but nevertheless is centered around it,” Singh wrote.

The very same gang is at the forefront of hyping the Chinese threat and disparaging the DRDO, all at the behest of the arms lobby, according to Singh.

However, with an Italian court referring to former air force chief S.P. Tyagi as a key player in the Agusta-Westland helicopter bribery scandal, it can be safely said the defence procurement establishment is working overtime to scuttle indigenous Indian weapons.

In this backdrop, the BrahMos project offers India an alternative – and proven – option with the involvement of a sufficient number of stakeholders who would want to see defence projects succeed rather than scuttled.