India’s Quest for Defence Indigenisation: A Case Study of the Indian Navy
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23477970231207255 |
| Author | Priyanka Patel,Sameer Patil,Arun Vishwanathan |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
Research Article
India’s Quest for
Defence Indigenisation:
A Case Study of the
Indian Navy
Priyanka Patel1, Sameer Patil2 and Arun Vishwanathan1
Abstract
India, like all major military powers, has been making sustained attempts at indige-
nously meeting its defence requirements. However, when one looks at the macro
picture, it is apparent that the country has had limited successes in inducting defence
platforms or weapon systems that are indigenously designed, tested, manufactured
and inducted into the military. There have been some exceptions to this like the HF-24
Marut fighter jet, the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, the Main Battle Tank Arjun, Leander
class frigates, Indigenous Aircraft Carrier Vikrant, Kolkata and Vishakhapatnam class
destroyers and the Arihant nuclear submarine. While these examples only prove the
general rule, they also point out India’s relative success in creating domestic capacity
to build naval platforms. As India embarks on the path of Atmanirbharta (self-reliance),
it is crucial for the political and military decision-makers to understand what, why and
how the above-mentioned projects, particularly the naval ones, became successful,
so that their success can be replicated elsewhere. The article attempts to understand
the reasons behind the Navy’s successes. These successes have been the result of
an institutionalised—as opposed to an individual-centric—approach by the Navy to
create in-house design capabilities, organisational structure, planning procedure, ca-
pacity building efforts and linkages with other stakeholders like naval Defence Public
Sector Units, Defence Research and Development Organisation and other scientific
establishments and industry. This has made the Indian Navy more successful as com-
pared to the other two services of the Indian military when it comes to designing,
testing, constructing and inducting indigenous naval platforms.
Keywords
Indian defence modernisation, Indian defence indigenisation, Indian defence
industry, Indian Navy, Naval DPSUs and the Indian Navy, Make in India
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
10(3) 364–394, 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23477970231207255
journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
1 Centre for Security Studies, School of National Security Studies, Central University of Gujarat,
Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
2 Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
Arun Vishwanathan, Centre for Security Studies, School of National Security Studies, Central
University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat 382030, India.
E-mail: arunv@cug.ac.in
Patel et al. 365
Introduction
India, like all major military powers, has been making sustained attempts at
indigenously meeting its defence requirements. However, when one looks at the
macro picture, it is apparent that the country has had limited successes in induct-
ing defence platforms or weapon systems that are indigenously designed, tested,
manufactured and inducted into the military. There have been some exceptions to
this like the HF-24 Marut fighter jet, the Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun, Leander
class frigates, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, Indigenous Aircraft Carrier
(IAC-1) Vikrant, Kolkata and Vishakhapatnam class destroyers and the Arihant
nuclear submarine. While these examples only prove the general rule, they also
point out India’s relative success in creating domestic capacity to build naval
platforms.
As India embarks on the path of Atmanirbharta (self-reliance), it is crucial for
the political and military decision-makers to understand what, why and how the
above-mentioned projects, particularly the naval ones, became successful, so that
their success can be replicated elsewhere. In the absence of such an understand-
ing, India will find it difficult to increase the share of indigenous weapons and
platforms, reduce dependence on arms imports and ultimately achieve autonomy
in decision-making on defence procurement issues.
The article has four major research foci. First, understanding the rationale as to
‘why’ indigenisation has been a major focus of India’s defence procurement and
modernisation efforts. Second, to understand ‘how’ India has sought to indigenise
its defence capabilities in terms of various efforts like direct government to gov-
ernment purchases, licensed manufacturing, etc. Third, the article seeks to assess
the level of indigenisation in the three Services in the Indian military by analysing
the major defence platforms and equipment. Fourth, to assess the reasons as to
‘why’ the Indian Navy has been more successful among the three Services in
terms of indigenisation efforts to modernise its major equipment and platforms.
This section will also undertake a detailed case study of the Indian Navy’s organ-
isational structure, planning procedure, capacity building efforts and linkages
with other stakeholders like naval Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs), Defence
Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and other scientific establish-
ments and the industry which have made it more successful as compared to the
other two services of the Indian military when it comes to designing, testing,
constructing and inducting indigenous naval platforms.
Methodology
In order to assess the level of indigenisation in the three Services in the Indian
military, the authors carried out a detailed analysis of the major defence platforms
and equipment in the three Services. To this end, the authors have used four broad
classifications of various defence platforms and equipment as per their origin
which are: Imported; License Manufactured; Joint Venture; and Indigenous.
Herein, ‘Imported’ means the equipment/weapon system/platform is purchased
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