By Dr George Jacob
Kochi, July 20, 2020: India’s first five Rafale fighters touched down in Ambala, Haryana, on July 29. They flew 7,000 km from France, where they were manufactured. The nation went gung-ho, or was supposed to pretend so.
As the ‘game changing’ fighters landed, the defence minister was thankful to his boss for the new purchase. The macho in him had him look over the borders and flex elbows displaying his Biceps at India’s not-so-friendly neighborhood. He must have forgotten in the excitement that historically arms-race has never staved off habitual intruders-those with insatiable hunger for neighbouring territory.
Arms-race has only heightened tensions. Neighbours hellbent on nibbling away territory haven’t been put off by military clout of their neighbourhood. Nations have had development stunted; money meant for nation-building that matter siphoned away.
That was what must have had Dwight D. Eisenhower, former US president quip, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed’
Indo-French deal which had these fighters land in India was mired in controversy, calling for the Supreme Court’s involvement. Every arms deal has been fraught with sleaze, controversies and siphoning huge amounts of money usually through middlemen. Anil Ambani, the younger of Ambani brothers, was suspected to be the middleman here.
Curiously, Ambanis have had their fingers in every lucrative Indian pie. For some reason, door to the corridors of power always remain open to them. The Ambanis subsisting in penury surely needed some pocket money to survive in these times of a pandemic-induced economic ill-health! After all, wasn’t a certain Ottavio Quattrocchi also given small change, supposedly by Rajiv Gandhi before India laid her hands on the Bofors gun?
Let bygones be bygones, as they always tend to! The Rafale ‘deal’ was clinched when Prime Minister Modi, during an official French visit in April 2015 announced that India would acquire 36 fully-built Rafales for 7.87 billion Euros (588.92 billion rupees) citing ‘operational necessity’. That has been the compelling excuse of every arms purchaser.
Any arms purchaser would splurge when 15.5 percent of the Union Budget or 2.1 percent GDP have been set aside for defence spending for current fiscal. This amounts to a whopping 4,713.78 billion rupees. That kind of money allows any arms shopper to march into any ‘arms supermart’ confidently. And walk out with an overfilled pushcart.
But a conscientious shopper might be troubled if he knows the country spends only 1.28 percent GDP on health. The prime minister, the other day rightly claimed superlative performance by India on the Covid front, compared even to First-World nations. India has lost ‘only’ 34,968, compared to 153,000 Americans.
Yet34,968 is 34,968. Many could have been saved if Indian hospitals hadn’t collapsed under the ‘Covidian’ weight — If they hadn’t shut doors on numerous sick who approached them. The only Indian state that seems to be standing up to SARS-CoV-2 is Kerala. This is because of Kerala’s robust public healthcare sector.
If India is serious about alleviating extreme poverty and rural distress, she needs to shell out 3.77 percent of her GDP. But then, who cares about homeless millions, the hungry, naked and malnourished?
In today’s India, the imagery of Rafales’ ‘spectacular’ landing in Ambala is much sought-after and admired than that of well-clothed, well-nourished, and adequately educated, healthy smart Indians going about their daily lives.
On the contrary, the din of the five Rafales taxying to their new hangars in Ambala drowned the hunger cries of thousands of Indians uninterested in the excitement.