Praveen Davar | In 1980s, Rajiv Govt Followed An 'Offensive' Defence Polcy

It was exactly 34 years ago, on May 21, 1991, that Rajiv Gandhi, India’s youngest-ever Prime Minister (he was 40 when he became PM in 1984 and 45 when he left office in 1989), was killed by a “human bomb” in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai.

Rajiv Gandhi is best remembered for ushering in the computer and IT revolution and for initiating the panchayati raj revolution, which led to women’s empowerment on an unprecedented scale, strengthening democracy at the grassroots. But the young generation of today must be made aware that during the Rajiv Gandhi era, India saw a spectacular defence policy.

Rajiv Gandhi became Saarc chairman in 1986 and was invited by President Zia-ul Haq to visit Pakistan. He accepted, but took care not to visit the country as Gen. Zia, despite his “cricket diplomacy”, was playing a double game: training and financing Sikh militants while talking of peace. He had the patience to wait for two years.

Early in 1987, India conducted its largest-ever military exercise in the Rajasthan desert. It tested the modern warfare strategic concepts of the then Army Chief. Operation Brass Tacks coincided with a similar exercise by Pakistan which regrouped on the borders of J&K and Punjab. India too moved its troops from Rajasthan to the borders of Punjab and Jammu.

This led to a confrontation with Pakistan. After diplomatic talks in Delhi, the crisis was defused and a formula agreed for pulling back troops. This added to Rajiv Gandhi’s image as a world statesman. As then President R. Venkatraman said: “Rajiv's contribution to the international sphere lived up to the standards set by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Rajiv’s response to the call for assistance by Sri Lanka in 1987 and the Maldives showed his commitment to Saarc.”

While Rajiv preached peace and disarmament wherever he went, his policy towards Pakistan suggested that he was more ready than any of his predecessors to use the coercive power of India’s military might for foreign policy ends. Behind Rajiv’s statesmanship lay a steely determination to ensure India’s military rise following his illustrious mother and predecessor Indira Gandhi, whose indomitable courage and political leadership in 1971 gave the country its greatest-ever military victory. He presided over the largest expansion ever of India’s defence forces. Defence expenditure doubled during his five years in office as his government strove to maintain and modernise the armed forces. This involved the purchase of howitzer guns (Bofors) from Sweden, which proved its mettle in the 1999 Kargil war, a second aircraft-carrier (INS Virat) from the UK, Mirage-2000 jets from France, besides the European Jaguar and Russian MiG-27. INS Chakra, on lease from Russia, made India the first non-nuclear power to operate a nuclear-powered submarine, thus making the Indian Navy a “blue-water force”, capable of operating hundreds of miles from India’s shores.

During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure, the Indian Navy’s 99 vessels included two aircraft-carriers, 12 submarines, 21 frigates and five destroyers, enough to deter any seaborne invasion. Rajiv himself said: “The defence of India requires our undisputed mastery over the approaches to India by sea.” The Brass Tacks crisis strengthened Rajiv’s resolve not to rush to Islamabad. It was December 1988 before he went there, the first visit to Pakistan’s capital by an Indian PM since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1960. By the time of Rajiv’s visit, Gen. Zia had died in a plane crash, elections had taken place and Benazir Bhutto had become Prime Minister heading a minority government, the first civilian administration since her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was deposed in 1977.

In Rajiv’s four years as PM, the defence budget increased at the rate of nearly five per cent every year (3.94% in 1985-86, 4.12% in 1986-87, 4.47% in 1987-88 and 5.15% in 1988-89). From Rs 7,987 crores in 1985-86, it shot up to Rs 12.000 crores in 1989-90, the fifth year of the integrated five-year defence plan designed to build a modern fighting force with state-of-the-art weapons systems. In 1988-89, defence costs crossed the safety line of four per cent of India’s GNP for the second year in a row.

A strategic analyst noted that Rajiv Gandhi “spearheaded a new, activist foreign policy to establish India as the greatest military power along the arc from the Himalayan crest to the North Sea”. He encouraged an ambitious plan under which the Army was to grow to 45 divisions by 2000 (from 41 in 1989). It would also have a rapid deployment capacity, also involving the Air Force and the Navy. The Navy acquired a second aircraft- carrier from Britain and a nuclear-powered submarine from the Soviet Union, which raised eyebrows across the world. Work proceeded on the India-built main battle tank Arjun and it was decided the next aircraft-carrier would be constructed in India with indigenous technology and resources, with limited foreign collaboration. In 1985 and 1986 alone, the Indian government concluded as many as nine agreements to buy foreign weapons systems, two of them from the Soviet Union, three from Britain, two from France and one each from Singapore and Sweden. The deal to buy the 400 FH-77B 155-mm howitzers from Sweden, and make 1,500 of them in India, involved $3.5 billion, well over the cost of the arms transferred by the United States to Pakistan between 1982 and 1988.

However, it was perhaps the Indian Navy that received the highest priority of Rajiv Gandhi’s defence policy. The young Prime Minister himself stated, like his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru soon after Independence, that “the defence of India requires our undisputed mastery over the approaches to India by sea”. That is the vision that must dictate our defence policy today, no matter how high the operational costs might be.