From the ashes of colonial oppression, India emerged as a beacon of hope in 1947, embracing its newfound independence with dreams of prosperity and sovereignty. Yet, the road to true liberation was fraught with challenges, particularly in the realm of defence and security. Recognising the need to break free from the shackles of foreign dependency, India embarked on a transformative journey of self-reliance in defence.
Self-reliance in defence entails a country’s ability to meet its defence and security needs primarily through its domestic capabilities, resources, and indigenous development. For India, this road has been characterized by significant milestones, initiatives, and challenges.
The newly independent nation was built on the grounds of partition and faced territorial disputes and geopolitical rivalries since its nascent ages. The border skirmishes with the neighbouring countries were one of the main security threats to the country and called for a strong arsenal. India’s defence sector was fragile and heavily reliant on foreign imports at the time of independence, making it vulnerable to external pressures and geopolitical dynamics.
Nurturing Indigenous Industries: The Early Steps
By the time of Independence, the British had left 12 ordnance factories within the country, but making these industries self-reliant was not of colonial priority. Those factories later turned into India’s defence industries. India’s goals for expanding its defence industrial base were visible since its early years of freedom. In the 1950s, India started producing defence equipment with little technical know-how, and still was very much dependent on imports for the advanced equipment. In 1956, the revised Industry Policy Resolution gatekept arms and ammunition industry to the public sector which only allowed state enterprises to produce defence equipment. India officially rooted its feet in the defence research and development industry when it established the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in 1958. DRDO is the design, development, and production institute of the state-of-the-art weapon systems for our defence forces.
Building Capabilities Through Collaboration: 1960s and 1970s
In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, India started building up its domestic defence production capabilities with the assistance of countries such as the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. But these efforts were primarily for the assemblage under license, as one notable instance of this collaboration was Russian Mig-21 fighter aircraft being manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru. However, these arrangements adversely affected the indigenous industries by reducing research, development, and domestic production.
Milestone of Self-Reliance: The Nuclear Deterrence and Technological Progress
A strong statement of self-reliance was flaunted to the world by India after its first successful nuclear test in 1974 codenamed “Operation Smiling Buddha”. However, India remained committed to a nuclear-restraint strategy, adopting just a credible minimum deterrence posture. In the 1980s, efforts for increasing domestic production of defence equipment re-emerged, huge investments were made in DRDO and indigenous missile systems like Prithvi-I Short Range Ballistic Missile
(SRBM) with a range of around 150 kilometres (km), Akash Mk-I – Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) with a range of around 30 kms and Nag Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) of range around 7 kms were developed. The DRDO has continued to work on the refinement and development of various missile systems, and the ranges and capacities of these missiles have improved over time.
Towards Economic Liberalisation and Diversification: 1990s and Beyond
The next decade, India embraced the policy of liberalisation in its Progressive Economic Reforms due to which later in the 21st century, private companies too became players in the market competition arena, which parallelly affected the defence sector in terms of private access to the full defence industry for the first time.
Policy Shifts and Technological Ascendancy
The Defence Procurement Policy of 2013 was a pivotal policy by the government to boost domestic acquisition, wherein Indigenous Defence Equipment was announced as the preferred choice. Ever since, India has been treading the path of self-reliance, forging its own destiny to this day. India is now one of the few countries in the world that boast indigenously crafted aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), a testament to its innovative prowess and technological ascendancy.
In the successive years, the government adopted policies which nurtured research and development in the public sector, revised the funding mechanism and opened the floodgates of FDI influx. In the 2016 Defence Procurement Policy, the government promoted the “Make in India” policy with the aim of promoting India as a global manufacturing hub. It increased the FDI in the defence sector to more than 49% which previously was 26%, and further focused on the ease of the private sector to conduct business and relaxed the licensing process. Another significant provision was the Strategic Partnership (SP) model where Indian private companies can collaborate with foreign companies to develop fighter jets, armoured vehicles, helicopters and submarines. One example is the joint venture between Indian Kalyani Group and Israeli Rafael Advanced Defence Systems that submitted its first indigenous missiles to the Indian army in 2021.
Aatmanirbhar Bharat: A Paradigm Shift
As an economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, Prime Minister Modi introduced the policy of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” or Self-Reliance, which identified defence as an important sector. By making this sector self-reliant, employment opportunities could be amplified and import burdens could be reduced. From 2015-2019, India imported 10% of the world’s arms, which was the highest in the world. The new Aatmanirbhar Bharat on the contrary paid its focus to curb imports and take a leap in procuring indigenous arms.
A Catalyst for Self-Reliance
The Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)-2020 policy unleashed a new era of self-reliance in the defence sector. Under this policy, the FDI soared to new heights, with the automatic route now permitting a daring 74% participation, while the approval of the government acted as the key that unlocked 100% FDI. It further embarked on the vanguards for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme involving start-ups, MSMEs while also launching an indigenization portal like SRIJAN to promote Make in India by Indian industries together with MSMEs.
Fostering Indigenous Manufacturing
In the 2020-2021, the Ministry of Defence announced an embargo list of 209 banned import items to foster indigenization. India also created two dedicated Defence Industrial Corridors- one in Uttaranchal Pradesh and the other in Tamil Nadu. Major investments were put into DRDO resulting in a total of 52 ordnance factories as of 2023. These factories have borne remarkable fruits – sprouting a bountiful network of 52 cutting-edge ordnance factories scattered like stars across the Indian terrain, casting a brilliant light on the nation’s commitment to advancing research and development in defence equipment. These ordnance factories have been restructured into 7 government defence companies, forming the base of India’s military strength. Additional 12 Defence PSUs (DPSUs) also contribute to the Indian defence sector.
Rise of the Private Sector
The Aatmanirbhar initiative has aggressively backed the private sector in the defence sector which has resulted in increased productivity, created collaborative platforms for DRDO and private players, for instance, L&T Defence is creating UAV Lakshya for DRDO. As of 2022, India’s military expenditure amounted to the fourth highest in the whole world and 68% of the defence procurement was indigenous. The government of India envisions spending 2.7 trillion rupees on defence equipment in FY2023 and 99% of it is supposed to be procured domestically.
From Self-Reliance to Global Presence
India is not only creating indigenous weaponry but has also emerged as a global player by orchestrating a thriving market for exporting its indigenous productions. According to SIPRI, India’s defence imports declined by 11% from the year 2013 to 2017 and 2018-2022. Shedding its past reliance on imports for defence needs, India’s defence exports experienced a staggering growth of 334% in the year 2022 and are expected to touch 170 billion rupees in 2023.
Weaving a Tale of Progress
India has embarked on a metamorphic odyssey towards self-reliance in defence, unfurling its dreams of ascending as a formidable global protector of its national security. It has been scripting an awe-inspiring saga of progress in defence research, development, and production, deftly chiselling away at its reliance on foreign imports and evolving into a radiant beacon of global export. Though intertwined alliances with other nations stand strong, India’s homegrown prowess has woven an enchanting tapestry of strategic autonomy, empowering it to shape its destiny on the world stage.
-The writer holds degrees in Sociology and Defence & Strategic Studies. As an avid research scholar, she focuses on Geopolitics, Military History, Defence & Strategic Affairs, Social Structures, and Social Work. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
