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The Rediff Special/Admiral J G Nadkarni (retired)

What ails India's Defence Budget today? Three things. First, we are spending too much for what we are getting. Putting it more crudely, we should be getting more bang for the buck. Second, there are imbalances in the appropriations between the services. Lastly, there are growing imbalances within each service.

Today we claim to spend less than 3 per cent of our GDP on defence. Unfortunately, truth is the first casualty in a show of statistics. China with a defence force three times our size still claims to spend less than us on defence! India's defence planners are no saints either. We too have resorted on occasion to sleight of hand and subterfuge.

By quietly removing the expenditure on defence pensioners (close to Rs 10 billion a year) and putting it under some other head we have reduced half a percentage point out of our expenditure. Anyway, the question is not of how much we spend on defence or in absolute terms or even as a percentage of our GDP. Far more relevant is the question whether we can cut down without unduly affecting either preparedness or posture.

In 1962, India had a slim trim army of 250,000. In 30 years, it has more than quadrupled and is still expanding despite talk about force limitation. What is more, it is a fully voluntary, everything paid for, full time force. People in the know feel there is a considerable amount of flab in this giant. What is true of the Army is equally true of the other two forces.

The Indian Navy's uniformed strength is supported by an equal body of civilian employees. The average sailors per ship ratio in most western navies today is about 250; in the Indian Navy it is about 450. The entire French Navy, for example, is maintained and refitted by a workforce of 6,000 civilians in three dockyards. The Indian Navy has about 35,000 workers in its three dockyards.

It can safely be assumed that an across the board cut of 25 per cent in our Armed Forces personnel strength is possible without the slightest detriment to our fighting ability. It will certainly save close to Rs 30 billion annually from our defence outlay. If nothing else it can make some precious money available for modernisation.

A large military also requires a large amount of equipment. Not having succeeded totally in our goal of self-reliance, India had the dubious distinction of being one of the largest importer of conventional arms during 1987-91. It amounted to $ 3.5 billion per year, far ahead of second ranked Saudi Arabia ($2.1 billion) and constituting nearly 15 per cent of the national import bill. Despite constant talk of self reliance we are still importing arms.

Two years ago the Indian Air Force signed a $ 1.5 billion contract with Russia for the supply of 40 Su-30 aircraft. Six month ago the Indian Navy signed a $ 1 billion contact with the same country for the purchase of two submarines and three destroyers.

Obviously this scale of import had to be financed by borrowing from abroad and has added a cool $ 14 billion to our external debt. And has this massive transfusion revived the patient or whetted his appetite? Hardly. Still to come. The Advanced Jet Trainer with a bill of $ 3 billion to follow and a self-propelled 155mm gun for the Army.

As large as the Defence Budget is, there are perpetual imbalances in the distribution. Part of the blame for this can be laid on our imperial legacy. India had a huge army of over two million during the Second World War. Even at Independence, the army was a sizeable force of 2,000,000. On the other hand the maritime defence of India was underwritten by the Royal Navy. In 1947, the Indian Navy consisted of four old wartime sloops and a few mine sweepers. The naval share of the defence budget was a minuscule three per cent. It has steadily climbed up to about 12 per cent but has stagnated at that figure.

With the massive Indian Army requiring nearly 60 per cent of the defence outlay it appears unlikely that the imbalance between the services will be removed in the near future. In most developed and developing countries, the ratio in the strengths of the army, the Air Force and the Navy is about 4:2:1. Sometime it varies to about 10.2.1 as in China. In our country the ratio has perpetually remained at 20.2.1 Given our peculiar military ethos, ignorance and disdain of matters maritime and the reluctance of the political leadership to change the status quo, it is unlikely that the imbalance will ever change.

Far more important in discussing the Defence Budget is the alarming imbalance that is growing within each service budget. In most sensible service budgets the total amount available is usually equally divided between maintenance and modernisation. With the growing cost of new equipment coupled with steep increases in pay, allowances and incentives, the developed countries are trying to effect massive reductions in manpower to maintain this ratio.

The story in India is different. The Indian Army's maintenance budget has been rising steadily and now eats up over 90 per cent of its total appropriation. Thanks to the Fifth Pay Commission, 60 per cent of the budget is spent on manpower related costs alone. Some years ago when asked to explain why there was a deterioration in the maintenance of buildings, the chief engineer of a command explained that whereas the maintenance allocation had remained fixed the pay and allowances of the maintenance staff had steadily climbed up.

Ninety per cent of the allocation was being spent on pay and allowances leaving very little to buy any paint. India's Armed Forces are in grave danger of following the MES maintenance personnel into oblivion. The answer is not in raising a chorus to increase defence outlays. A more pragmatic approach would be to see ways and means by which we can cut down on manpower expenditure.

In the past, we have tried to justify the strength of the army by citing a number of statistics and parameters. Our size, our population, our large land border, the strengths of our potential adversaries not to speak of the growing internal problems such as terrorism, insurgency and militancy, all have been quoted as excuses. But every argument, every statistic can be countered by another.

Brazil, a country three times our size, with a common land border with twice the number of countries (speaking incidentally, a different language) makes do with a defence budget one-third of ours and about one per cent of her GDP. The size of her army is one-tenth of ours. How is this possible?

It is not necessary here to go into the details of budget cutting. There are a large number of unexplored avenues. Partial conscription is one. A number of countries, especially those with large land forces, have adopted this method without the slightest detriment to their fighting ability. Russia, China, Vietnam and even France have largely conscript armies.

A mutual reduction of forces between India and Pakistan is another way of budget cutting. Both countries today are drawing economically due to the millstone of defence around their necks. Yet false pride, generations of mistrust and hated and populist policies have prevented both countries from even attempting such an alternative. They would rather drown than proffer a hand to each other.

Yet all is not lost. Even at the peak of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union successfully forged the SALT agreement.

What is necessary today is a change in our thinking and a desire to accept reality, that our defence spending is getting out of hand. That far from helping, it is retarding our economic development. That our bloating manpower costs are preventing both modernisation and a reduction in the Defence Budget. It took us forty years to wake up to the hoax of the socialistic economy. By which time most of the countries of Asia had overtaken us. How long will it take India's Armed Forces to brake and change the present route which is taking them downhill to ruin?

How Readers reacted to Admiral Nadkarni's last columns

Admiral J G Nadkarni

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