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Need self-reliance in defence production, says RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat
RSS cjief Mohan Bhagwat said India cannot be assured of its safety unless it cuts down its dependence on others for its security needs.
India will need to emerge as a strong country with muscular defence, foreign and internal security policies to insulate itself from attacks from other nations, the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Mohan Bhagwat said on Thursday in his annual Vijayadashami speech at the organisation’s headquarters in Nagpur.
Speaking about “self-reliance” in defence production, he added that India cannot be assured of its safety unless it cuts down its dependence on others for its security needs.
The point is considered significant in the backdrop of the controversy over the Rafale deal. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has defended the deal, Opposition parties led by the Congress have demanded the setting up of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe allegations of corruption in the agreement signed in 2016 between India and France for the purchase of 36 Rafale jets.
“The country cannot be assured about its security without the total self-reliance in the field of defence production even while continuing with the multilateral exchanges wherever necessary. The pace of national efforts in this direction has to be accelerated,” Bhagwat said.
Without naming the Rafale deal, Bhagwat said while the purchase of equipment for the armed forces from foreign countries cannot be stopped, it is equally important to ensure that the terms of the trade are not skewed.
Defence expert C Uday Bhaskar described what Bhagwat said as “welcome” but added that successive governments have “failed to nurture an ecosystem where we are self-reliant even in a modest way”.
“It is anomalous and ignominious that we claim to have nuclear weapons, but have to import rifles and pistols...,” Bhaskar added.
Arun Anand, author of the book 'Know About RSS’, said the Sangh chief’s statement has a twin purpose. “One to ensure that India is not arm twisted into agreeing to demands put forth by countries that it does business with, and two, to weed out corruption since there would be no scope for kickbacks if Indian begins to manufacture the equipment that it needs.”
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, however, said the RSS chief should have questioned the Modi government on the Rafale deal, “where wake in India was scarified and there was a total surrender of India’s interest to a lot of global players on every front”.
The RSS, which in the past has applauded the government for carrying out surgical strikes against terror camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and for the handling of the Doklam dispute with China last year, wants India to re-look at its maritime and border security. Bhagwat said though India has maintained peace with the neighbours, this has not been reciprocated.
