SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Rahul Bharatbhushan Kamble
India achieved a historic feat when on September 2, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi presiding over the commissioning of the country’s first indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-1), formally known as 'INS Vikrant'. The timing happens to be crucial, when China is building up its presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Vikrant is the largest warship to have ever been built in India, and the first indigenously designed and built aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy. It puts India in an elite club of nations that have the capability to design and build these giant, powerful warships. Only few nations currently have the capability of manufacturing an aircraft carrier — India joins this elite club now. Experts and Navy officials said India has demonstrated the capacity and self-reliance to build what is considered to be one of the most advanced and complex battleships in the world. According to the Navy, over 76 per cent of the material and equipment on board IAC-1 is indigenous. This includes 23,000 tonnes of steel, 2,500 km of electric cables, 150 km of pipes, and 2,000 valves, and a wide range of finished products including rigid hull boats, galley equipment, air-conditioning and refrigeration plants, and steering gear.
INS Vikrant has been designed by the Indian Navy's Directorate of Naval Design (DND), and is built at Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL), a public sector shipyard under the Ministry of Shipping. India’s earlier aircraft carriers were either built by the British or the Russians. The INS Vikramaditya, currently the Navy’s only aircraft carrier that was commissioned in 2013, started out as the Soviet-Russian Admiral Gorshkov. The country’s two earlier carriers, INS Vikrant and INS Viraat, were originally the British-built HMS Hercules and HMS Hermes before being commissioned into the Navy in 1961 and 1987 respectively. INS Vikrant, the predecessor of IAC-1, a Majestic-class 19,500-tonne warship, was the name of India’s much-loved first aircraft carrier, a source of immense national pride over several decades of service before it was decommissioned in 1997. India acquired Vikrant from the United Kingdom in 1961, which carrier played a stellar role in the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the birth of Bangladesh. Even after it's commissioning on September 2, Vikrant will be fully operational only a year later, with the landing trials of MIG-29K fighters being completed by mid 2023.
INS Vikrant will operate an air wing consisting of 30 aircraft including the new fighters, MiG-29Ks, Kamov-31 choppers, MH-60R multi-role helicopters and advanced light helicopters. India plans to buy 26 carrier-based fighters for Vikrant, the largest warship to be built in the country, through a government-to-government deal to meet the navy’s requirements, with the US firm competing with French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation that has pitched its Rafale-M jets to the Indian Navy. Also there has been an increasing curious popularity for the proposed desi home-grown 'HAL-Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter' popularly known as TEDBF.
Since 2015, the Navy has been seeking approval to build a third aircraft carrier for the country, which, if approved, will become India’s second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-2).
India's first Chief of Defence Staff Late General Bipin Rawat, who was then tasked with prioritising acquisition for the armed forces, had spoken against investing in another aircraft carrier, and had instead suggested that Lakshadweep and the Andaman & Nicobar islands could be developed as “unsinkable” Naval assets. But Navy officials were of the thought that to defend the vast Indian Ocean Region, persistent air power is required day and night.
The Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean region has steadily increased over the past decade.
India’s adversary is well defined and there is no illusion about this within the national security planners. The Indian Navy must move from a maritime diplomacy mindset and be prepared to take on the adversary on the high seas. Simply put, the Indian Navy needs to show teeth as the theatre has shifted from mere blockading of Karachi harbour to the Indo-Pacific and against an adversary who wants to be the number one power in the world and is willing to throw all rule books out of the window in pursuit of its ambition.
The brazen and uncouth statement of the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka, describing India as having occupied the Island nation 17 times in history is just something. The Chinese war dance around Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific cannot merely be dismissed as Kabuki for domestic audiences. Just like May 2020 in Ladakh, China is applying force and announcing its presence as a pre-eminent power on the global stage.
(The author is a medical student studying in Sangli district)
