New Delhi: “A nation with India’s maritime assets, challenges and opportunities urgently needs a multi-disciplinary maritime advisory body to conceptualize a vision, draw up plans and monitor activities in the maritime domain”, advocated Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) on November 26, 2013. Admiral Prakash was delivering the Fourth YB Chavan Memorial Lecture at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).
Insisting that the first task of such a body should be to “craft an overarching Maritime Security Policy and thereafter to undertake its integration with India’s Maritime Strategy” he said that such a synergy “can ensure that we draw maximum advantage from the maritime sector to benefit our economy and also reinforce maritime security”.
Speaking about India’s Maritime Security policy in terms of the Sino-Indian strategic equation, he said that the rapid growth of both economies has led to increasing reliance on energy and raw materials, and transported by sea. “This has focused sharp attention on the criticality, for both economies, of uninterrupted use of the sea- lanes for trade and energy transportation. Thus, while the PLA Navy makes forays into the Indian Ocean, the Indian Navy has newfound commitments in the South China Sea.”
A country’s maritime strength does not reside, exclusively, in its navy; which is merely one of a number of components that complement each other in contributing to maritime security, said Admiral Prakash. “There is an urgent need to focus on the other aspects, many of them belonging to the civil sector, that are needed to make India a complete maritime nation,” he added.
“India has become a significant military and economic entity, with great-power aspirations, before it has become a significant industrial power or even a major trading nation” he stated, insisting that it is an anomalous situation where India possess a nuclear arsenal and boasts of the world’s 5th or 6th largest armed forces, but is forced to support its operational requirements through massive imports. “The nonchalance with which we continue to import huge quantities of defence hardware not only undermines our security but renders all talk of ‘strategic autonomy’ quite meaningless,” asserted Admiral Prakash.
Terming government’s approach towards private Indian companies as “preposterous and irrational” Admiral Prakash said that while the MoD has no qualms about importing billions worth of weapons from abroad, it strongly resists the suggestion of private Indian companies entering the defence sector. “Considering that 97% of our trade is carried by sea, the civil maritime sector, defined by the Ministry of Surface Transport as encompassing port operations, the merchant fleet, the shipbuilding industry and trained human resources, is a vital component of maritime security.”
Pointing at the Asian countries which have brought holistic focus on their maritime sector to reap tremendous economic benefits and reinforce their maritime security, he said “India’s ports and infrastructure remain inefficient, our shipbuilding industry is sluggish, merchant shipping grows at snail’s pace, seabed exploitation is stagnating, and human resource development is inadequate”. Terming the Indian Shipbuilding industry as “most spectacular failure” Admiral Prakash said that “of all the Indian flagged merchant vessels, just over 10% have been built in Indian shipyards; because of higher costs, lengthy delivery periods and, sometimes, due to indifferent quality,” resulting in Indian shipyards contributing to just 1% of the global market share.
India’s economy as well as progress and prosperity depend on international trade, which is carried overwhelmingly by sea; as is energy, the lifeblood of our industry. These factors, coupled with the prospects of oceanic mineral resources and India’s growing international profile, have helped awaken an overdue realization of its dependence on the seas.
Given the trans-national reach and versatility of maritime power, not only is the Indian Navy going to find greater salience in India’s national security matrix, but will also play a vital role in sustaining India’s economic prosperity, said Admiral Prakash. Some aspects of the Navy’s force-accretion plans, like a multi layered surveillance capability with deployment of task-optimised aircraft in the Indian Ocean, the arrival INS Vikramaditya, with its complement of MiG-29K fighters and Kamov-28/31 helicopters and the operationalization of the SSBN Ariihant, will endow the nation with a number of powerful maritime capabilities, concluded Admiral Prakash.
The YB Chavan Memorial Lecture is the annual lecture organised by IDSA in collaboration with the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Mumbai, since 2010. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Professor Sunil Khilnani on ‘The Great Power Game: India in the New World”, followed by Professor Kanti Bajpai on “India and China: Can the Giants of Asia Cooperate?” and Ambassador Kanwal Sibal on “India’s Foreign Policy – Future Challenges.”
Admiral Arun Prakash’ speech is available on IDSA website www.idsa.in
Strong Maritime Policy Should be an Integral Part of National Security: Admiral Arun Prakash