In the past seven years Defence Minister A K Antony’s incompetence has ensured that India’s military capability rapidly shrinks.
Primarily, the tax-payer spends money on appointing the defence minister to make certain that India’s armed forces receive incremental modernisation and sufficient military capabilities to safeguard the territorial integrity of the Union as well as to defend increasing strategic interests.
Antony, the most ‘honest’ defence minister will probably be remembered for the unprecedented number of scams that happened during his tenure and nothing more.
In addition, he is solely responsible for the upkeep of the well-being and morale of the forces.
However, Antony, possibly the longest serving defence minister, belied expectations and instead created a huge obstacle course in modernisation of the armed forces and permitted maligning of the Indian Army by his defence secretary at various stages.
Antony, the most ‘honest’ defence minister will probably be remembered for the unprecedented number of scams that happened during his tenure and nothing more.
For all the professed honesty that Antony touted on taking over, should have made him clean up the rampant existing corruption in defence public sector units and ministry of defence.
Under his leadership it appears that the primary national objective is not to add military capabilities to ensure the nation’s security but to find ways to guarantee maximum kickbacks.
Frankly, nobody involved in the decision-making process is really concerned about the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft being inducted on time to shore up the rapidly declining firepower of the Indian Air Force; or about the Indian Navy receiving submarines in time; or with the tremendous collateral damage the nation suffers on its borders with Pakistan because the infantry is ill-equipped.
Despite similar levels of corruption, China never overlooks the primary objective of building military muscle. Frankly, no other country does except India.
…the air force has stated that it is unable to successfully tackle the emerging China-Pakistan two-front threat.
The Defence Procurement Procedure document created by Antony and the babus of the MoD has become a huge obstacle course in procurement, which is difficult to fulfill by foreign vendors.
The defence minister is stuck in the trivial and frivolous with a clerical mindset merely to prove his so-called ‘honesty’ overlooking the primary aim of adding sufficient military muscle and firepower to the defence services.
The result is that the air force has stated that it is unable to successfully tackle the emerging China-Pakistan two-front threat.
The non-replacement of dwindling and ancient submarine fleet of the Indian Navy has not only left a gaping hole in underwater warfare, but is also taking toll of officers and sailors lives in peacetime. Imagine the large casualties that will occur during war.
In the army, the artillery lies empty, ground air defence does not exist, the 333 infantry battalions have not been modernised and lack mobility and sufficient firepower.
Unfortunately, the officers and the men of the military are not only deeply anguished, but also very angry.
Antony is unable to control the babus in the MoD and the result is unbridled corruption inside the ministry.
It is amazing that top classified documents of the air force found their way from MoD to an American agent via middleman Abhishek Verma. The American partner sent the documents back after differences occurred between him and Verma to the MoD. The MoD certified that these were highly classified documents.
Till date the honest defence minister has not investigated, or concluded and taken to tasks thebabus who are responsible for the leakage. It appears that these documents are available for a consideration in MoD.
The defence minister appears to be passing his time at the cost of the tax-payer and as such is heavily dependent on the bureaucracy.
The bribe takers are Indians sitting in seats of power. They are never taken to task, but the foreign vendor who is forced to part with his money is automatically blacklisted on mere hearsay, thereby derailing the military preparedness of the nation.
The defence minister appears to be passing his time at the cost of the tax-payer and as such is heavily dependent on the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy in turn is running riot by fighting cases in courts against its own military. It is overlooking all rulings in favour of the military by the armed forces tribunal.
The former defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma refused to settle legitimate ‘pay and pension’ demands of the veterans despite losing the case in every court. Today, he stands in contempt of court in the Supreme Court.
Further, despite stating that there was no attempt at a military coup, Antony has not ordered a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate the ‘fake military coup’ that Shashi Kant Sharma tried to create, to malign the Indian Army. Responsibilities need to be fixed as to why the MoD was hell bent on demoralising its own army.
Admiral D K Joshi, a highly upright officer with integrity, resigned as naval chief in protest because of the third rate equipment being supplied by the ministry, which was taking lives of officers and men during peace time.
This was in the best tradition of the military where the chief could not safeguard lives of his men and was totally disgusted with the defence minister’s incompetence in resolving the problems that the navy is facing.
The head that should have rolled was A K Antony for the mess he has created.
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AK Antony & Chidambaram systematically starved the Armed Forces year after year wherein Antony surrendered thousands of crores back to Finance ministry as unspent funds which were grabbed by Chidambaram only to be allotted to his pet ministries. Undoubtedly this had the blessings of ManMohan too.Army was thus starved & left begging for basic arms, ammunition,clothing & equipment while that was the fate of Air Force too.The serving Generals did not & could not raise these issues publicly for the fear of loosing Governorships, Re-employment in lucrative places as also fear of getting sacked as it happened to Ex Naval Chief. The damage done by Antony during his tenure as Defence Minister can not be repaired in the next 10 years as appropriate increase in Defence Budget is impossible in near future.Luckily neither Pakistan nor China has taken any UNDUE advantage of this grim situation. Hope they don’t.
While there is no doubt that Anthony is responsibe for the mess, the armed forces are in today, was he not accountable to anybody ? Should it not be the ex-PM who should be held accountable as well, because Nathony reported to him as a part of his cabinet and Manmohan Singh was just a mute spectator to all of Anthony’s doings (like Manmohan Singh was a spectator to a lot of other misdeeds of others in the UPA regime). Not once in his 10 years in power did the PM challenge Anthony on the sorry state of affairs in the defece ministry.
The worst part is there is no awareness amongst the vast majority of we Indians as to how vulnerable the Country today is today due to Anthony’s misdeeds and Manmohan Singh being his comrade in arms with his silence.
Rahul G’s Honest Antony was more busy in assisting his wife to sell her paintings to Air India which his cabinet colleague, Sharad Pawar’s Praful Patel had saddled with unnecessary aircraft and excess capacity that grounded the Indian Airline industry and enable the sale of Indian Tax Payers assets (Aircraft and hub facilities)to Arabs at steep discount while saddling the Indian Citizen with an enormous non performing asset. Who benefited? Members of India’s Neta-Babu-Cop-Milard-Crony Kleptocracy. At the cost of Rupee Value, National Security and the funds necessary to create infrastructure from education to health services to transportation to credible courts.
Dear Sir,
I fully agree with your comments. This is quite unfortunate that despite of spending billions of dollors on our defence, we are still not in a position to defend our country. These corrupted politicians and the staffs in MOD is acting as pakistani spys and bringing all sort of obstacles when it comes to military modernisation and procurment. I strongly believe that pakistan is bribing this idiots to come up with fake blames of corruptions in order to derail all wepons deals.
Sir, I really salute our brave men and women[both in and Ex] for their sacrifices. But how can we open the eyes of this useless and coward politicians who are always ‘pissing’ in front of pakistan.
A true patriot and think- tank like you can raise this issue with our so called patriotic politicians. Otherwise these ‘rats’ will run for guns only when another Kargil occures…!!!!
With Salute
Bobby [a true indian]
Rightly said. Unless there is an ulterior motive he would not have acted in such a sluggish manner. He has demoralised the defence forces by his procrastination. Frustrated the navy chief ultimately tendering the resignation. Country is in the hands of anti national foreign forces. If for any other country civil war would have broken out. It’s the patience of Hindu culture which is allowing these traitors to get away. But these very people accuse Hindus being intolerant. But it cannot be taken for granted anymore.
What is said is true,but it is also true of previous governments.Corruption has been rampant in all government departments.antony is heading the MOD but another so called honest Joe by name manmohan Singh has been heading the Indian government he justified all scams in his Govt as coalition compulsions.
If we really want defence preparedness then we must insist on having a joint chiefs of staff who ex officio must be defence minister with cabinet rank and all three service chiefs must rank above defence secretary so that their genuine demands can not be over ruled by an IAS babu or stalled implementation.the armed forces have proved their commitment to Democracy and ther should be no fears of a coup.the earlier this is done the better it will be for the honour and safety of our mother land.
Thanks for such a thorough analysis of this “Useless” man Antony. He is having a field day because of our “illiterate” opposition who should have been asking him questions every time he blacklisted a supplier for paying bribes to our MOD functionaries. We have journalists like Kuldip Nayyar who want friendship with Pakistan but who never tires of suspecting Indian armed forces. Not satisfied with the explanations given by all concerned about the “routine nature” of army units moves, in a recent article he wants a judicial inquiry to pin down culprits for “attempted coup”. GOD HELP US BY GIVING SOME SENSE TO NEWLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT.