Budgets: A disarming dream

ALTHOUGH THE philosophy behind defence expenditure (DE) is said to be akin to a medical insurance, yet this bit of economics has mostly remained a puzzle for the common taxpayer, who views it more emotionally than rationally.

ALTHOUGH THE philosophy behind defence expenditure (DE) is said to be akin to a medical insurance, yet this bit of economics has mostly remained a puzzle for the common taxpayer, who views it more emotionally than rationally.

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Now he believes that this is the minimal price of liberty that he must bear!
But, the dichotomy lies in the fact that there is very little by way of a genuine need- based defence allocation. In the absence of any worthwhile national debate on the issue, it has traditionally become the prerogative of the party in power to apply its own yardstick of national security and arrive at a magic figure that very seldom ever matches the actual defence requirement, as can be seen in the successive budget presentations. For a long time now it has been the theoretical ingenuity of finance ministers supported by a battery of supposed finance whizkids who, while doling out pittance in the bowl of the forces make sure that all chances of debate and questioning of the issue remain obfuscated, taking refuge behind the semantic entrapments of economic theory, that to a large extent are Greek to most of the elected members managing the affairs of the State, and in any case meaningless for the common citizen.

Little wonder that despite the perennial belligerent posturing by Pakistan and the open stirring up of unrest in J&K as early as 1989, the annual defence outlay kept plummeting from 3.6 to 2.3 per cent of the GDP, between 1989 and 2000.

Ironically, when Kargil was thrust upon India, we stood as glaring examples of botched up statecraft. A Nation that had refused to take lessons from its own history, because our (defence) budgetary support at the time of Kargil was as deplorable as that of the ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ era of pre-1962!

Such repeated disinterest towards defence allocations did have a telling impact on the state of preparedness, as what was being allocated was barely enough to offset inflation, whereas with the passage of time the revenue expenditure (RE) component kept increasing leaving precious little for modernisation of the forces. Added to this was the mismanagement of defence purchases and a virtual ‘zero’ accountability of what the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Ordnance Factories (OFs) were doing with the funds allocated to them.

The twenty odd prototypes old and yet nowhere to be seen other than the annual ritual of Republic Day parade, Arjun main battle tank is a case in point.

The story of indigenously built INSAS rifle (Indian army small arms systems) is equally appalling as it falls well below the performance capability of the 1947 vintage Kalshnikov series of AK assault rifles..

The acquisition of advanced jet trainer (AJT), the light combat aircraft (LCA) and the advanced light helicopter (ALH), after all these years, still continue to remain on the wish list.

Interestingly, so lackadaisical was our attitude towards defence expenditure that at one stage the Armed forces were even directed to cut down expenditure on training and mothball the existing equipment to preserve shelf life, as apparently any expenditure in newer acquisitions was not forthcoming since it did not figure in the priority list of the then planners comprising the elite band of financial managers, warming the precincts of North Block.

The South Block (Services’ Headquarters) sitting right across the road had little option but to oblige, yet could not contain the ageing for long as the armed forces soon got pitted against the threat of obsolescence. There were whispers of dissent within the fighting component of the three services for getting dragged into the 21st century with a large inventory of World War II vintage military hardware, faced with the paradox of possibly getting pitted against an adversary who was all the while gnawing its teeth, smirking triumphantly over its state- of-the-art acquisitions and borrowed technology.

It is an irony that five decades of insurgency, four full-scale wars and an unabated spate of terrorism was insufficient to amend the status quo in terms of military modernisation until the Nation had to actually go through Kargil half prepared. Although the 45-day Kargil contest did see a temporary rise in outlay followed by kneejerk purchases, but lamentably instead of altering the status quo, this exercise soon got into a controversial spending, scams and scandals as highlighted by the subsequent audit reports from the CAG and sting operations.

So come February and we shall once again go through the routine budgetary ritual. Once again it will be claimed as a dream budget, aimed to fulfill the aspirations of the Armed forces.