Editorial: Indian Navy’s Atmanirbhar moment
The Navy must now be given freedom and budgetary support to build another warship
The successful sea trial of the first indigenous aircraft carrier marks a historic moment in the history of the Indian Navy and reflects a stellar achievement of defence engineering. With this feat, India now joins the elite club of six nations — the US, UK, Spain, Russia, France, and China — that have the capability to design and build an indigenous aircraft carrier. Built at a cost of Rs 23,000 crore, the 40,000-tonne warship is a reincarnation of the earlier version of INS Vikrant, which had played a significant role in the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. The Indian Navy has been focusing on significantly bolstering its overall capabilities in view of China’s growing efforts to increase its military presence in the Indian Ocean Region. The Indian Ocean, considered the backyard of the Indian Navy, is critical to the country’s strategic interests. The project has also demonstrated the strength of the public-private partnership as nearly 550 firms, including about 100 small and medium enterprises, were involved in it, providing various services overcoming the pandemic-induced difficulties. Vikrant will be the second aircraft carrier after the Russian-built INS Vikramaditya, which was commissioned in 2013. The next challenge is to expedite the completion of works on India’s second indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vishal. The Navy must be given total freedom, flexibility and the necessary budgetary support to build another warship. Given the rapidly changing security scenario, India needs to carry out military modernisation at a much faster pace. The current weapons procurement system too needs overhauling and must be decoupled from the red tape.
The Navy has been seeking approval from the government since 2015 to build a second indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-2). This proposed carrier, INS Vishal, is intended to be a giant 65,000-tonne vessel, much bigger than IAC-1 and the INS Vikramaditya. The Navy has been trying to convince the government of the operational necessity of having a third carrier because persistent air power is required day and night to defend the vast Indian Ocean Region. Now that India has developed the capability to build such vessels, it should not be whittled away. The expertise gained by the Navy over the past 60 years in the art of maritime aviation should not be allowed to be wasted. Even if the government gives the IAC-2 project the go-ahead now, it will be over 10 years before the warship is commissioned. An aircraft carrier is one of the most potent marine assets for a nation, which enhances the Navy’s capability to carry out air domination operations. While the United States Navy has 11 aircraft carriers, China has two and a third one is in the making and another two are likely to be commissioned within a decade.
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