Military Industrial Complex

Now, most of us might feel that the term given above refers to a small setup of a

couple of shops in the middle of a cantonment to supply basic necessities to

soldiers, items such as bread, milk and eggs. At least that’s what I thought when I

first heard the term. The Oxford dictionary defines ‘Industrial’ as, ‘a particular form or

branch of economic or commercial activity.’ This is the exact definition of the word

‘Industrial’ in the context of it being used with a ‘Military Complex’. Dwight

Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States of America classified the

‘Military Industrial Complex’ as a union between defence contractors from the private

sector and the armed forces.

The most important flaw with MIC is that it allows the private sector to

influence public policy. The perfect example of this would be the ‘Rafale Scam’.

In 2012, after almost 10 years of negotiation, the UPA government had decided to

buy 18 Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation and then assemble 108

more Rafale jets in the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL in Bengaluru

with some help from Dassault. All of this with every single jet at a price of 526 crore

rupees.

Then in 2016, the BJP government confirmed the order of 36 “ready to fly” jets at the

price of 1611 crore rupees per jet. This time they were avoiding the idea of ‘Make in

India’ and were completely outsourcing their order which was quite the opposite of

the almost confirmed deal made by the UPA government.  The UPA government’s

price included the transfer of technology, under which 108 aircrafts would have been

built by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Under the current

deal, there is no transfer of technology as all 36 planes have been ordered on a fly-

away basis.

What is most interesting is that the Modi government superseded the public sector

HAL, which has extensive experience (78 years) in the aerospace industry, having

developed defence helicopters such as the RUDRA and fighter jets like the SU-30

MKI, in favour of the Anil Ambani-led company, which has zero experience in the

defence sector.

Incidentally, Anil Ambani happened to be in Paris when Modi confirmed the deal for

the Rafale Jets. Ambani also accompanied Modi to Russia and was involved in talks

of a maintenance deal with Almaz-Antey, makers of the S-400 SAM system.

When asked about the intricacies of the deal, the government conveniently refuses

to answer by saying that national security might be threatened by giving any details.

The order of the planes is supposed to arrive by September, 2019.

Now, the Indian National Congress used this whole ‘scam’ as a means to

undermine the power of the BJP. All of that just lead to the usual bickering; one side

accuses the other of something, as a result they’re accused of something else and

then everything is heavily publicised and all of it boils down to nothing.

Now that the BJP has already been elected into power, their decisions in the future will decide the result of this whole affair.