Harish Dugh Posted online: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 at 1308 hours IST Updated: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 at 1319 hours IST
New Delhi, March 30: India on Tuesday signaled that it will be giving greater priority to its off-shore areas than ever before when it cleared a huge defence expenditure of 33.6 billion rupees ($768.5 million) primarily to acquire ocean-going military weaponry.
This was evident from the clearance of 10.84 billion rupees on purchase of nine offshore naval patrol boats alone, besides the upgrading of Sea Harrier planes and the purchase of C-303 submarine-fired torpedo decoy systems.
All these three are specifically designed for deployment over water and indicate that India will be taking very serious look at enforcing its suzerainty over its immediate neighbourhood other than its land border with Pakistan and China.
This may well be a message to other nations of its intent in the future.
Coming as it does in the wake of US Secretary of State Condolleezza Rice’s sub-continental tour, where she promised F-16s and various other armaments to both India and Pakistan, the expenditure indicates that India may not be attaching that much importance to her offer.
It also shows that India will not really let a Pakistan-centric defence policy rule the country’s global strategy anymore.
Considering that India is half-circled by the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean that is a virtual gateway for all trade between the East and West, the policy shift may well herald a muscle-flexing exercise vis-à-vis other nations.
From oil to defence ramifications of this policy shift will have all major nations scurrying back to the drawing board, trying to gather what exactly India may be signaling.
India may well have borrowed a leaf from China’s defence strategy – it brooks no interference anywhere near its own water bodies.
India, having gained enormously in strength (economic and military) in recent years, could well be demanding official world recognition of that fact by putting in place an entire infrastructure in an area that was more or less unpatrolled heretofore.
