Underwhelmed by one year of BJP’s government

It has been over a year since BJP formed its first full majority government.  And if one were to step back to look into this one year, one is underwhelmed by the performance of the government.  Now before I am branded as another die-hard critic who sees only the nefarious and amoral in all that the new government has done. Let me clarify one thing, I am and continue to be one of the biggest supporter of Narendra Modi. As founding member of an organization that played a vital part in ensuring Narendra Modi’s victory, I along with others have toiled hard to convince people to support Narendra Modi. Infact, it gives me pride to say that, we started campaigning for Modi in June 2013, when even the BJP had not even appointed him as the campaign chief in the Goa conference and where the established opinion was that the likelihood of Narendra Modi becoming PM candidate was as unlikely as India winning the next Football world cup. Further even though we spent our time and money in galvanizing across 2 states, hundreds of towns and thousands of villages, we at the culmination of our goal dissolved the very organization and got back to our normal lives. Hence it is the voice of someone who has staked a lot on Narendra Modi that I claim that I am underwhelmed.

Also neither I am those who had unrealistic expectations from this government. I understand how economics work and Rome was never built in a day. I am not demanding my Bullet trains today as I know that it take’s years to build one nor am I asking India to become a developed nation in the next five years. I clearly understand that things take time and effort to succeed. Therefore the question arises is why do I feel underwhelmed by the government’s performance. Given that it is a true fact that government has minimized and eradicated corruption at the highest levels, has given rigour to foreign ministry languishing since the days of Indira Gandhi. The government has done many things right from modernization and importance given to defence sector to socio-economic policies like the insurance schemes and others. The Swach Bharat Abhinayan is truly commendable and if it succeeds it would be truly transformational.

No, it is not because that I don’t see the positive developments in the last one year nor is it because that I doubt their intentions that I feel underwhelmed. No, not at all. The main reason, I feel underwhelmed is the progress made on the economic and development front. I see clear lack of rigour and drive towards development, economic reform and rejuvenation. My main grouse, when Narendra Modi set us a target of 272+, the so called “intellectual” opinion of this country sniggered at our unrealistic and quixotic goal. Even the staunchest of Narendra Modi’s supporter never believed we will win more than 272 seats to become the first non congress party to win majority on its own. We succeeded in achieving the same precisely because we set ourselves hard and brutal targets and strove with determination, single-minded focus on achieving it and nothing distracted us on our path to victory. Today, I see a lack of similar sentiment in the way government is approaching matters, from GST to land ordinance bill, from Labour reforms to relegating useless laws and regulations.

What the government has done in the last one years on the reform and development agenda has not be unique or special. It did not a Narendra Modi to do it and any sensible government could have done the same. If BJP had in its wisdom chosen Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley or any other so called secularly acceptable PM candidate, BJP would still have likely formed the next government in a coalition of myriad partners. This coalition government of Arun Jaitley would have easily achieved what this government has achieved in the last one year. Then the question arises is why has the government till now done what any mediocre Arun Jaitley government could have done with coalition government. Why did hundreds of thousands of youth organize themselves spend time and money in electing Narendra Modi has prime minister with a full majority if all that could have been achieved would have been achieved without us doing so. When I look back, I remember the volunteers with whom I interacted who were ready to spend even their meagre earnings to campaign for Narendra Modi and I feel disheartened that all their efforts have not mattered as we ended up appointing a Jaitley government rather than Narendra Modi led one.

Hence I urge our Prime Minister to relook at the last one year critically and understand the tremendous effort of the volunteers who are all looking for the same single minded determination, focus towards achieving unrealistic goals. To display drive and rigour in achieving necessary actions to reform and deregulate the mess created by the 65 years of misrule and set us up for double digit growth for the next two decades. Enough of testing waters solutions, half-hearted attempts, misaligned thrusts and working on “consensus solutions”. I would like to end my case by saying

 “Bas Karo Jaitley Sarkar ab Chahiye Modi Sarkar “

Is Indian army preparing for a war in Central Europe - Have we got the priorities right for the future

One can finally see a sense of purpose and impetus to move forward in the Indian military establishment. This is can be largely attributed to change in leadership and appointment of an energetic and purposeful defense minister. In the past one year, a spate of modernization programs have been cleared or commission and existing programs have been speed-ed up. The general view on these actions is that the intent is right but a lot needs to be done to rectify the years of inaction. But noone is asking the most important question on the army's modernization program and that is, whether it is planned anticipating the future. 

Let us get straight to the point, why is the Indian armed establishment preparing itself for conflict in central Europe rather than a Himalayan conflict in the north and Naval conflict in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). And are we equipping ourselves with the right tools to fight these conflicts.  The reason the question is being asked is that our armed forces are trying to build a platform similar to the one the cold war powers possessed during their stalemate on the German plains. 

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A prime example being India's continued efforts to build Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun. As the First and Second Gulf War, IDF-Hezbollah war and other modern conflicts have proved, Main Battle Tank is an out-dated concept. While they were the main thrust tools for Soviet plans through the Fulda gap, in today's low intensity conflict, they are just cumbersome piece of equipment with little tactical advantage. Given that majority of our border is mountainous, a Main battle Tank is useless in any conflict with China or future low intensity warfare in Kashmir like Kargil war. Therefore, wouldn't it better if India instead focused on building low turreted futuristic platforms like the Russian Armata that can be developed to various vehicles evolved to operate in different situations. 

This takes us to another important point, are we spending enough on research in Mountain warfare and High attitude warfare. Simple but very important aspects including cold weather clothing and material research, mountaineering equipment are in some cases still being imported and not produced indigenously. If this is the situation of our preparedness in terms of even basic necessities, we can as well forget about ability to fight futuristic warfare. Take for-example the research by countries on development of Wing-suits for long distance insertion deep inside enemy territory. This is highly relevant for mountainous terrain in the Tibetan plateau. This is just one of many things that we are not looking into. In-fact given that more than America or Russia, mountain warfare is highly relevant to us, we should be at the forefront of developing radical and path breaking weapons. India's defense establishment should not only have long term strategic plan for mountain warfare but also dedicated laboratories for development of radical technologies rather than as in today focusing on irrelevant research such as the discovery of Sanjeevani plant.

The point of building an army for the past is not just the case of the Indian army but also its naval and air forces. Take for examples, the tremendous money being spent on building aircraft carrier groups. Once again aircraft carrier groups are becoming obsolete from their hey-day in world war II and cold war world. Just as Long range Bombers made battleship's irrelevant, access denial strategies involving cruise and ballistic missiles are making today's aircraft carriers nearly impotent. The latest issue of the Economist, calls for development of such fantastic technologies such as Rail guns and directed energy laser weapons if aircraft carriers and other surface ships are to remain relevant in modern battlefield. Given that India's potential conflict will be more likely with China than Pakistan. How would Indian aircraft carries be effective when China has devised ways to counter and neutralize American carrier group dominance. And surely, China would down the road give access to Pakistan to such carrier defeating technology like the recently tested WU-14 which would easily neutralize all our planned aircraft carriers. 

The Economist in the same issue calls for America to develop its third offset technological jump innovations. It asks for America to ditch the expensive human controlled fighter aircraft in favor automated drones. In this context, the entire debate about Rafale and Grippen aircraft is non sequitur. India should rather emphasis on developing low cost stealthy automated drones that can produce rapid and large scale impact. 

Hence it is time, India stopped building a World War II army. Sure the mandarins of the armed forces would rather like to have Big Tanks, Big Ships (aircraft carriers) and Faster Jets. But the defense minister should take holistic view of the future and conserve our limited resources in developing and building the forces required to fight a 2040 war rather than 1940 one. India should follow the leads of China, Russia and America and develop multi utility armor platforms and integrated soldier packs. The focus should be for rapid response, high impact warfare in limited time-scale as modern battle will evolve to that. India air modernization should focus on Drone and anti-drone warfare in the same vein while the naval department should increase its focus on submerged warfare including larger submarine fleet and even autonomous unmanned submarine drones. And not the least, India should remember that tomorrow's battlefield will be five dimensional one rather than a three dimensional like in the past. Cyber and space warfare will be a key component of any attack.  Development of anti-satellite and anti ballistic technology will be key in the latter's case while harnessing Indian IT and technological bench strength to develop cyber capabilities to not only defend our assets but also as a deterrent for future mischief.  

Therefore the minister should think for the future, think out of box taking an outside view rather than being confined to vision of bureaucratic mandarins of the north block.