The events in Lebanon have put the spotlight squarely on Make-In-India & AtmaNirbhar Bharat. Even PM Modis staunchest detractors will have to grudgingly appreciate the vision of being self-reliant especially in critical sectors.
Geo-Politics is a key determinant in the way our connected world functions & resolves its conflicts. Unresolved conflicts are wounds & sores that fester through war & destruction. And as conflicts become complex wars are becoming asymmetric with technology adding a dimension beyond unthinkable. The recent micro-targeted attacks with handheld devices blowing up at the click of a remotely operated button is an example of this new dimension. Add to that the study of the complex global supply chain & its elements, the assembly process, identifying supply chain elements, implanting micro explosives in the hardware, programing malware & selective triggering of explosion must be complex operation of the next level that the Israelis must have executed that too after secretly developing the system in a modular format over years.
In the context of India though the spotlight must bring to focus the critical risk that India must navigate as it marches along on its socio, political & economic goals in becoming a leading economy. Overt enemies, covert deep state & the enemy within will all try to impede & derail the progress. After all the world is ideologically polarized & for them India which ranks one on population & seventh on land area is an attractive hunting ground to subsume to their ideology. For some merely curating a conflict has been a trusted way to economic & financial hegemony and hence for them to instigate, unsettle & destabilize India is not off syllabus.
Tech, electronics, manufacturing, production etc. will play a key role in these asymmetric wars. If these are not in our control or worse still in the hands of our detractors or even if controlled by those feigning neutrality can spell disaster. We got a flavor in the Kargil war when US denied satellite navigation-based GPS data to our forces. Thankfully ISRO stood up to the challenge & our own space program obviated any further need from outside. Even today our TEJAS is being held to ransom for a small Danish component that they won’t export! Imagine if Indian Railway KAVACH system was held to similar ransom. It would be a disaster bigger than some moron’s placing alloy wheels on tracks or removing fishplates. Or for that matter how our own Covaxin by Bharat Biotech saved us from an assured Bio disaster during the pandemic. Imagine the relaxed insurance of being the second largest cell phone manufacturer in the context of what we saw in Lebanon and contrast that with when we were importing most of our cell phones from anonymous facilities. It’s not being alarmist but then whoever thought twelve hundred pagers could blow-up in pant pockets at once!
This incident in the Levant must renew & strengthen our resolve to focus on manufacturing especially Defence manufacturing along with electronic, avionics, shipbuilding, artillery software, hardware, semiconductors etc. Defence startups & SMEs must be encouraged & application driven research in our engineering schools must be aggressively funded. Thankfully much has happened over last ten years. Space program has accelerated, HAL Is seeing action, BRAHMOS is being exported, SEMICON mission is on its way, public sector Defence companies such as Bharat Dynamics & Bharat Electronics have become refreshingly aggressive.
Defence manufacturing will by incidence positively impact the manufacturing sector. A sector that missed the bus as we hop skipped from Agri to Services & the reason we lag. After all the hockey stick like growth in the Semicon industry came just as the USAF realized their missile guiding system was inaccurately spraying all around Vietnamese targets. And we know what the Oppenheimer Project, Hughes & others did for early development of the Bay area.
On another note, we saw a rally in Defence Stock on the bourses that has gone cold in the last few months. I don’t see why it should not once again return considering these events. But whatever it be, the last thing we want in times of critical conflict is the country to be held ransom for the lack of a nut-bolt or an electronic component or even a bullet proof underwear. More so in the warfare of future with micro targeting with technology tools.
The importance of Make-In-India at least in Defence manufacturing cannot be understated!