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| Newly Completed INS Teg |
By Jennifer McArdle
India’s Navy has for too long been neglected when money has been allocated. The latest defense budget suggests that may be starting to change.
In comparison with its sister services, the Indian Navy, or India’s “Cinderella service,” since independence, has consistently garnered the paltriest share of the defense budget. However, the release of the 2012-2013 defense budget, allocating the Navy the lion’s share of the capital budget in comparison to its sister services, seems to suggest otherwise. Has India’s “Cinderella service” finally found its glass slipper?
After the withdrawal of the British in 1947, and its subsequent partition, India has perpetually grappled with various forces of endogenous unrest. From the long-standing insurgency struggle in India’s northeast, to the slow-burning conflict waged against the Naxalite movement in large swathes of its interior, to the separatist struggles in Punjab and Kashmir, the Indian state has found itself compelled to deploy a large number of ground troops in order to maintain a unified state. India’s inward-looking security mindset was further solidified during the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, as Indian troops were overrun by a lightening Chinese assault across the freezing plateaus of Ladakh and the mountain passes of India’s northeast. New Delhi’s embarrassment at its lack of preparedness in 1962, when coupled with the simmering tensions along the Pakistani border, assured the Army and Air Force positions of relative inter-service strength. Indeed, the Indian Navy’s share of the defense budget in 2011 hovered at 15 percent in comparison to the Army and Air force’s shares of 51 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
Unlike past budgets, the Navy is the only service to increase its share of total defense allocation – up to $4.77 billion from $2.74 billion last year. The Army’s budget at approximately Rs. 97,302.54 crore ($19.46 billion) accounts for 50 percent of the defense budget, followed by the Air Force with Rs. 48,191.16 crore or 25 percent and the Navy at 37,314.44 crore or 19 percent. While the Army’s share of the defense budget is eaten away in revenue expenditure, or allowance for the armed forces, the Navy’s spending is primarily driven by capital expenditure, which is spent on the modernization of the naval armed forces. The Navy received a 72 percent hike in its modernization budget, in comparison to its sister services at +0.5 percent in the Air Force and -3 percent in the Army. The hike in the Navy’s budget allows it to boost spending by 74 percent in the next financial year.
Read the full story at The Diplomat