Today's HERALD has a hard hitting critique of India's defence expenditure by Praful Bidwai titled "India must cut arms expenditure". It fully confirms the hunch some of us have had on goanet recently that defence expenditure is out of control.
Bidwai finds that since the nuclearisation of the Region in 1998, Indian defence expenditure has doubled i.e. increased by 100 per cent. In just the last nine months there has been a 26% increase. Counting the establishment expense, defence pensions and purchases by the defence PSUs, the entire defence budget is not Rs 83 thousand crores as nominally presented in the Union Budget but over Rs100 thousand crores. This makes it the second biggest line item next to interest payments. It has effectively crowded out social and welfare expenditure. Bidwai notes that India belongs to the bottom 25th percentile of nations in human development indicators. But it is among the top five or so in military spending. He suggests that this skewed profile reflects the great power ambitions of our elites coupled with a callousness towards the employment and welfare of the Indian people, which ironically creates a climate of greater (internal) insecurity and ratchets up the justification for more defence spending! He believes that India needs to rethink ts nuclear and defense policies. There is simply no concept of minimal defence and systematically pruning defence expenditure. Instead there is always a clamour for more money, the latest and best weapons, the addition of nuclear weapons rather than substituting for conventional weapons etc. In a nuclear era he finds the military still seems mired in pre-world war II battle doctrines! Purchase of expensive weapons systems have consumed Rs 100 thousand crores in the last four years (i.e. averagin Rs 25 thousand cr per year). In the new fiscal year these will jump to Rs 34 thousand cr and the strategic advantage expected is dubious. There is no concept of pruning defence expenditure through conventional means such as manpower reduction, energy efficiency, inventory control, streamlining procurement and eliminating corruption. Base closure such as of R&R sites like Dabolim would be too far out in this context! In fact Bidwai is openly critical of the decision to purchase the discarded Russian aircraft carrier for whose untried and untested fighter planes Dabolim is slated to be the training base! In conclusion, we might add that the Indian military is often praised for being apolitical and not coveting political power. The question which Bidwai's analysis seems to pose is: at what enormous financial cost to the country's socio-economic development?
