: K.P. Nayar
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120411/jsp/opinion/story_15356374.jsp#.T4Vx1atYsYl
Will Minister
Antony resign?” More than any other, this is the one question that I have been
asked by Americans in recent weeks about the defence minister who has been in
the news for the better part of this year. Most of the people asking this
question have some connection with the military-industrial complex in the
United States of America or the country’s defence and strategic community.
The reality,
howsoever unpalatable, is that few defence ministers can survive after
incurring the personal displeasure of an American defence secretary, unless
they are defence ministers in Russia and China or in countries like Iran or
North Korea, which are in various stages of confrontation with the US.
A.K. Antony
attracted the wrath of the Obama administration last year by his determined
refusal to receive the then defence secretary, Robert Gates, who tried to
inject himself into a US delegation that was to travel to India for the second
round of the “strategic dialogue” between New Delhi and Washington. Gates
wanted to lobby with Antony on behalf of American companies, which were then in
the running for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft being sought by the
Indian air force, the biggest military aviation deal hitherto.
Antony made it
clear to his cabinet colleagues, who were persuaded by the secretary of state,
Hillary Clinton, to plead the case of the Pentagon’s civilian head, that if
Gates arrived with Clinton he would go to the remotest location in Kerala where
even his mobile phone had no signal for the duration of the American’s stay in
New Delhi. Kerala was then in the middle of its state assembly election
campaign, which gave Antony enough of an excuse to be in his home state.
The defence
secretary did not give up. Gates used the ruse that he was demitting office in
July and that he wanted to make a farewell call on Antony: at that point, April
was being considered for the strategic dialogue, which eventually had to be
postponed because of the defence minister’s insistence that he will not meet Gates
as long as the aircraft contract was at a sensitive stage in the acquisition
process.
Pentagon
officials have told reporters on background that “the defence secretary was
informed that it would be suicidal” for Antony to meet Gates and that this message
was conveyed by Indian diplomats in Washington, who were negotiating the
strategic dialogue arrangements with the Obama administration at that time.
At the end of
April 2011, American companies were eliminated from the race for the multi-role
combat planes, the US ambassador, Timothy Roemer, resigned the next day, and
Gates lost any further interest in making his farewell call on Antony. The
strategic dialogue eventually took place in July last year without a top-level
defence participation.
After an unstated
policy of having no ministerial exchanges in defence for 50 years — except on a
solitary occasion, that too botched — US defence secretaries have lately taken
exceptional interest in their Indian counterparts and senior Indian ministers
in the last decade. The most famous of such exchanges was when Donald Rumsfeld,
who was predecessor to Gates, called on the deputy prime minister, L.K. Advani,
at his hotel on a Sunday in a well publicized effort to highlight a new
chemistry in their ties.
Rumsfeld felt
somewhat proprietary about the new defence relationship that the administration
of George W. Bush considerably advanced with India, but luckily for New Delhi,
he did not stay at the Pentagon long enough to see Washington’s hope of bagging
the much-sought-after combat aircraft deal crumble into dust. There is no
saying how the mercurial Rumsfeld would have reacted to such a disappointment.
Gates, a man of great dignity, took the setback in his stride, at least in
public.
The Pentagon is
not alone in being disgruntled by Antony’s ways. He has consistently refused to
visit Israel, which interchangeably shares the first or second spots with
Russia among the sources of arms imports for India.
As if to add
injury to insult, last month the defence ministry blacklisted Israel Military
Industries for 10 years for allegedly paying bribes to secure contracts in
India. IMI is not just another arms-seller. It is owned by the government in
Tel Aviv, a leading weapons manufacturer for Israel’s defence forces.
It was not expected
that Tel Aviv will take the ban lying down. Additionally, the ban by Antony’s
ministry has cast a shadow over plans by the Netanyahu government to privatize
IMI. There are now question marks about the timing of the privatization: if the
world’s number one arms buyer — India — has found IMI unsuitable to do business
with, it could have ramifications for investors seeking to buy into the
company.
Those familiar
with New Delhi’s lay of the land in such matters were not, therefore, surprised
when grumblings of discontent, which began as whispers after Antony rebuffed
Gates, grew louder following the rejection of American bids for the multi-role
combat aircraft. It was not entirely unexpected that after the decision against
the Israelis, Antony would be put in a spot by a steady flow of news stories
and purportedly thoughtful op-ed articles.
The Americans and
the Israelis are not alone in being at the receiving end of Antony’s efforts in
full throttle to do what he can to curb corruption in defence purchases and
create a level playing field. Singapore is a country with which India enjoys a
relationship that is totally free of trouble. That has not, however, prevented
Antony from banning Singapore Technologies Kinetics from future contracts for a
decade.
This land systems
and specialty vehicles company has launched an all out bid to clear its name,
including recourse to the Supreme Court. It has also threatened to seek
international arbitration, creating an irritant in bilateral relations.
Russian defence
suppliers who have had a free run of New Delhi’s procurement process for many
decades have similarly been slapped with punitive sanctions as part of Antony’s
anti-graft drive. The defence minister has further angered Swiss, South African
and many more arms manufacturers, lining up a formidable array of forces, all
of which would be glad to see him move out of his present job.
Typically, nobody
is criticizing Antony for cracking down on corruption. Instead, the strategy of
those who want him out of the way is to attack Antony for slowing down the
modernization of the armed forces by creating bottlenecks in arms purchases,
and for creating a trust deficit between the civilian and uniformed segments of
the defence establishment. All in all, the effort is to show up the defence
minister as a man incapable of running an enterprise as vast and complex as the
one for which he is tasked with providing leadership.
The age
controversy about General V.K. Singh, the army chief, was the best thing that
Antony’s detractors could have hoped for. Unfortunately for the defence
minister, both propriety and constitutionality demand that he cannot truthfully
tell his side of the story.
For instance,
Antony personally believes that the army chief is not lying about his age and
that General Singh was born in 1951. Similarly, the General has been a
steadfast ally of Antony in what the latter is trying to do about corruption in
the defence establishment. It may be a hard idea to sell, especially after a
sensational story about troop movements, but the personal warmth and respect
for each other between Antony and Singh are nothing short of total. Which is
why there has been no move to dismiss the army chief or get him to resign. Even
though Antony believes that General Singh made a mistake about his date of
birth, an episode from his own past prevents Antony from doing anything about
it except to follow the letter of the law. Antony was chief minister of Kerala
when a similar controversy dogged the state government.
Raman Srivastava,
an Indian Police Service officer of the Kerala cadre who became
director-general of the state police and later headed the Border Security
Force, was at the centre of this controversy. A mere five months separate him
and his brother, Vikram Srivastava, an IPS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre,
who became director-general of the Central Reserve Police Force: a biological
impossibility since both the brothers were born of the same mother.
As chief
minister, Antony did not allow the Kerala cadre officer to change his date of
birth. There is no way he would have acted any differently with General Singh.
What is more, it is Antony’s estimate that there are at least 3,000 such cases
of incorrect birthdays in government service records. That is a Pandora’s Box,
which is best left shut.
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