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Indian defence budget and realities!
India has hiked its 2009-10 defence budget by 34 percent, allocating Rs1.42 trillion out of which a huge sum of Rs 548.24 billion has been marked as capital outlay to procure state-of-the-art weapons. The last time the defence budget was increased by over 30 percent was in 1987-88 when allocation was increased by 43.4 percent to Rs 12,512 crores. The rise in the defence budget is a clear depiction of the Indian mindset. It is yearning to be a regional power and is being propped up by the West, to act as a bulwark to China. What the Occident is overlooking is explained by Plato in his renowned work Republic, in which he describes the perfect society, with a guardian class protecting the city, giving rise to the concern, who will "guard the guards?" Armed to the teeth India will become another Frankenstein, in the likes of Sadddam Hussain, bully of the block and a menace for the world. Oblivious of the outcome, the western Military Industrial Complex is happy to sell its overpriced weapons of mass destruction to a gullible Indian market since the Indian indigenous arms industry is beset with expensive failures.
The Law of Scarcity dictates that a trade off be made between two classes of goods - coined by Adolf Hitler - guns (military weapons) and butter (civilian goods). The choice has to be made by society, depending on the threat to its sovereignty, how much of the scarce resources are to be allocated for guns and how much for butter. Unfortunately, because of acute Indian propaganda regarding the Mumbai attacks and aspersions cast on Pakistan, well-known Indian defence analysts like Commodore (retd) Bhaskar, the director of the Indian National Maritime Foundation, or Bharat Verma in his article Less money for fire power and many others insist that the current hike would not be enough for force modernisation. The Indian masses and think tanks should take cognisance of the threat within, which is gnawing away at the roots of India. The Naxalite insurgency has become the biggest threat to the Indian union, surpassing unrest in IHK and revolt-hit northeastern states. Out of 630 districts the Indian government has declared 220 districts as the Maoist affected areas. As per its government announced figures, more than 181 security personnel have been killed during the past five months. There is no official mention of collateral damage, civilian casualties and losses suffered by Maoist guerrillas. In fact India is fighting a bloody war against Naxalite insurgents, who call themselves the liberators of repressive rule of Indian government and frequently challenge the writ of the government. They are the spokesmen of poor and landless farmers and neglected tribal people of West Bengal.
The Nation:July 15, 2009
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