There is no way that the Government of India can expedite the acquisition of submarines and anti-submarine assets even if it manages to lay its hands on all the money needed for the buy. Events are overtaking it at a very swift pace with the Chinese expanding their presence in the Indian Ocean with special emphasis on Sri Lanka.
New Delhi used the diplomatic channel to convey to Sri Lanka its displeasure at the visit by Chinese submarines (some nuclear armed) to Colombo port. It would appear that the visitation of Chinese submarines is set to become a frequent feature, and some analysts have begun talk about the possibility of a Sri Lankan port becoming a Chinese naval base.
India has made its views known to Colombo but it should be prepared to accept that the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa will do its best to repay to China and Pakistan with gratitude for the gifts of weapons and other military equipment given to destroy the war machine of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) led by the separatist V. Prabhakaran. Already it is repaying that debt by facilitating Chinese intimidation of India with its gunboat diplomacy and the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operations from a Colombo perch.
Indian assistance to Colombo during the Eelam War was limited training and non-lethal equipment like radar and communications equipment. India has since tried to match Chinese military relationship with Colombo with training facilities; and undertook tri-lateral exercises with Sri Lanka and Maldives. The China has cast a spell on both these close neighbours of India and is using their naval facilities as part of its “string of pearls” policy in the Indian Ocean littoral.
Late last year the Chinese informed India that it was sending its nuclear powered Shang class submarine for a two-month operational run in the Indian Ocean. From Dec 13th, 2013 the Chinese submarine roamed the North Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean from the east coast of Africa to Indonesia. The Chinese Ministry of Defence said that it had informed the Indian military attaché in Beijing of the submarine’s sojourn “out of respect for India”.
The Chinese have helped build Hambantota port on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, and media reports claim that the Rajapaksa government is not averse to giving the Chinese base facilities there. Chinese presence in Hambantota gives it a dual advantage –of putting both India and the US on notice. The US has had a naval and air base at Diego Garcia due south of the Indian peninsula ever since the British vacated territories east of the Suez Canal in the 50s and 60s. The Americans have since improved the infrastructure on Diego Garcia by raising the height of the airstrip and improving its length. Raising the height became necessary because of the likelihood of a tsunami inundating the island and rendering all operations infructuous. The Americans have also increased the storage facilities for fuel and spare parts on the island.
India will have to find ways of deterring the Chinese. There are so many ways like, for instance, recording the signature of every Chinese ship and submarine that visit ports in the Indian Ocean littoral states. The entrance of Chinese vessels in these ports may not be noticed but the exit can be registered and the engine and propeller signatures recorded. It will then be easy for India to discern between Chinese vessels and submarines of other nations that are not hostile to India. Undersea listening devices, for which the US has proven technology and Sound Surveillance Systems (SOSUS) that the Americans had developed during the cold war period are the other means that can be of help besides sharing the acoustic intelligence on a real time basis.
Washington’s avowed policy of a “pivot to the east” will have real content only if it bolsters the surveillance capabilities of the nation-state with the most dominant peninsular presence in the Indian Ocean littoral i.e. India. If the Chinese want to “show the flag” in a flagrantly offensive manner, it will have to pay the price for it.
India is on the verge of acquiring a sea-based nuclear deterrent once the indigenously built INS Arihant is commissioned in the next three years. So there is submarine building capability and technical personnel who have learned enough of the project to be able to retain the momentum of the Arihant to produce two more of that class and a larger follow-on to the mothership through a private-public partnership to construct four larger attack submarines.
The rate of depletion has been dramatic during 2014 with the Sindhurakshak exploding in Mumbai harbour on the eve of Independence Day; the six Scorpenes that were to be built with French help are already about five years behind schedule. The request for proposals to build six conventional submarines for an estimated Rs 50,000 crore in India has been cleared as recently as 25th October, 2014. It is intended to fit indigenously developed air-independent propulsion (AIP) which gives additional endurance than that of a conventional submarine to this assembly line.
There is no way India can stampede itself into catching up with the competition (China and Pakistan combined). The next best thing it can do is to acquire acoustic intelligence gathering equipment through ‘buy and make’, if necessary, to bridge the gap between acquisition of operational platforms and operational capacity. Simultaneously, it must step up its maritime surveillance. That will be half the battle won.
– by Ram Singh Kalchuri
