Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Stealth ships to give fillip to Indian Navy’s Ocean power?

The Indian Navy deserves to be complimented for receiving the “Project 15B” Kolkata class (DDGHM) stealth destroyer Vishakhapatnam (D-66) on October 31, which incidentally was the 37th death anniversary of Indira Gandhi, who was one of the rare political figures in India who could grasp the supreme importance of sea power. Understandably, she gave the maritime force an unprecedented fillip with the help of the then Soviet Union and its long-serving naval chief Adm. Sergey Georgyevich Gorshkov, arguably one of the brightest and best of the Kremlin’s sea warriors, who was admired, respected, feared and even envied by the West.

Those were heady days for the Soviet submarine force and for India’s rising Navy. Mrs Gandhi, in her two terms in office in 1966-1977 and 1980-1984, literally lit India’s shorelines and sea lanes with the induction of a variety of ships, submarines, sailors; led by confident captains and astute admirals. The Indian Navy’s vessels set sail for “Mission in the Ocean”, well served by its in-house directorate of naval design to boost an indigenous production line.

The first Soviet-made Foxtrot class submarine arrived in 1968. The six indigenously produced British-origin Leander class frigates were commissioned 1972-1981; three Godavari class frigates 1983-1988; eight Soviet-built Petya frigates 1969-1974; three Nanuchka corvettes 1977-1978; fourteen Osa fast attack craft 1971-1977; eight Polish built Polnochniy amphibious vessel 1975-1989; and the Natya minesweeper; submarine tender; submarine rescue ship.

In 1981, an order was placed for German HDW submarines, followed by the Soviet Kilos. The Indian Navy’s finest hour arrived in September 1980 with the induction of the first of five power-packed Soviet-origin 4,950-ton “full load” Kashin (Rajput) class destroyers. With a combat radius/range of 4,500 nautical miles at 18 knots, it was an unprecedented taste of power and status for Delhi, which fulfilled its long-cherished goal of a blue-water navy-capable surface ship in its inventory.

With this formidable naval firepower, directed by a formidable woman Prime Minister (as Mao, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Pakistan’s Gen. Yahya Khan could testify), the Indian Navy caught the imagination and attention of the world, and the probing questions of Capt. Richard Sharpe, editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships 1988-1989. “I already suggested that major navies are set apart from the others by the acquisition of fixed-wing carrier-borne aircraft and nuclear subs. India now belongs to that very select club which has both, and the transfer of a ‘Charlie’ class SSGN (nuclear-powered guided missile submarine) from Vladivostok to Vishakhapatnam… is the clearest statement yet that she intends to have a navy which can not only dominate others in the region”. The answer to the West was given by then naval chief Adm. R.H. Tahiliani in December 1987: “to raise the cost of intervention by superpowers”.

Indeed, Jane’s probing questions spoke volumes of the misplaced notions on the Indian Navy’s “rising profile and presence”, as in the same breath it took note of Beijing thus: “Of all the world’s navies the most difficult to assess is the Chinese.

Decades of isolationism… coastal defence have restricted blue water development”. In hindsight, will it be incorrect to suggest how wide off the mark was the Western assessment of India and China? India wants to “dominate” while China is “difficult to assess”? The India-phobia of the West was matched only by its acute ignorance about China! Read this: “India has built up an arms industry of notable capabilities and builds for her own Navy, Army and Air Force”. Wasn’t it a compliment, even if sarcastic or left-handed? In retrospect, the West appears to have been extremely gullible!

By November 1984, Indira Gandhi had gone. But her maritime legacy still reverberated through the Indian Ocean’s waves. In 1989-1990, the West’s attention was focused on New Delhi, not Beijing, thanks to the lingering misjudgement of Kissinger & Co. “That India intends to be dominant regional maritime power ‘from Suez to Malacca’ can no longer be in doubt… Since the US Seventh Fleet sailed uninvited into the Bay of Bengal in 1971, it indicated a wish to be able to challenge superpower supremacy”.

Three decades have passed. The West has been forced to do an about-turn. India was then the devil and China the victim. Now there’s a role reversal.

Coming back to India’s stealth destroyer Vishakhapatnam. A lot remains to be done. Time over-runs invariably mean cost over-runs. That’s unacceptable. A cursory glance through China’s and India’s 21st century naval inventory will be disappointing, despite the sterling performance and head start India had 50 years ago. India now faces a quantitative and qualitative backlog. Indians’ initiative was always admirable, but the implementation fell short.

For both India’s and China’s navies, the Soviet Union was the pivot. Moscow supplied ready-made combat vessels to New Delhi and Beijing, helping design and develop indigenous production lines. Despite the ideological differences, Moscow’s clinical efficiency and technology were of immense help to India’s naval buildup. In three years (1986-89), Moscow sent six Kilo submarines.

In comparison to the Communist Party-run China, India must buck up. The shipyards of Beijing -- Huludao, Wuhan, Changxingdao, Dalian, Shanghai, Guangzhou -- are, on average, taking three to four years to commission subs, destroyers, frigates and amphibious vessels. China clearly wants to break out to influence history with its sea power. Against this background, the nine-year wait to produce a Project 15A/15B destroyer like Vishakhapatnam, which has clearly failed to keep up with the delivery timetable, gives China an advantage. India has developed the required shipbuilding skills, undoubtedly, but this needs to be combined with timely delivery for the Indian Navy’s operational preparedness. New Delhi can’t relent on this and concede the Dragon’s plans for “command and control of the sea”.