Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Indian Navy Comes Of Age, But Some Caution Needed

What is the state of New Delhi’s sea power amidst a turbulent region and with the world in flux. This is an apt time to examine the rise of the Indian Navy over the last 35 years, from 1990-91 onwards.

Why 1990-1991? That was the financial year when India almost became bankrupt, with its economics in a state of turmoil. It was then that the Soviet Union, the mainstay of India’s defence sector and supplier of most of this country’s military equipment, was about to go belly-up. The USSR finally dissolved in December 1991, with the resignation of President Mikhail Gorbachev, and a one-time superpower broke into 15 independent states.

This, given our heavy dependence on the Soviet Union, was a huge jolt to the Indian armed forces, and the Navy in particular.

The irony of 1990-1991 was that the West was alarmed at the rise of the Indian Navy despite it being one of the youngest and most inexperienced among large nations, lacking in sea-time experience during the heyday of British rule. It was strange as the Indian Navy was nowhere close to the then Royal Navy, through which imperial Britain ruled the waves across continents. Plus, there were very few non-white Indians recruited into the Royal Indian Navy, unlike the Army and Air Force (born in 1932), which were a critical component of Britain’s imperial project. Till 1930s, the Navy was almost exclusively British officered and led, until the Second World War compelled the induction of Indians.

Unlike the other two wings of armed forces, India’s naval fleet was the “smallest in manpower” and the “lowest” in finances for many years since 1947. What, however, is striking today is that among three branches of the armed forces, the sailors and their captains are much better combat-equipped pertaining to fighting preparation, indigenisation and overall positioning.

Yet, alarm bells started ringing in 1990-1991 as Jane’s Fighting Ships announced: “There are now active programmes to build in India new aircraft-carriers, submarines, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, different types of patrol craft and amphibious ships”. Simultaneously, “submarines, minesweepers and maritime aircraft are still being acquired from the USSR”. Clearly, “the intention to build a Navy which dominates the region cannot be in doubt”.

What is surprising is that the growth of the Indian Navy was intensely resented and made an issue by the West, which suggested that India’s “willingness to project power has caused a tremor of anxiety as far away as the eastern Asean states and rather stronger reactions in the other Indian Ocean islands of Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles”. This assessment by the West was, however, not entirely fair given that it had maintained an iron grip over the world’s sea lanes for more than 500 years ever since the adventurers of Britain, Spain and Portugal served as an advance party of their regular navies in search of fortunes from India to South and Central America. According to Western analysts and experts: “In the search for control of natural resources in the region, India clearly intends to be in a strong position when the time comes to exploit them.”

Unfortunately, though, the Western experts were wrong in their assessment as India did not deliver on expectations. Instead of India’s Navy, it is China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) that today is sailing around the world’s oceans, posing a serious challenge to all the Western navies. From the coastlines of South America to tiny island nations in the Western Pacific, from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman to the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan, China’s PLAN is aggressively exploiting natural resources and carrying out gunboat diplomacy against the weak and small states of all continents to claim Beijing’s sovereignty over international waters.

The Indian Navy, however, has wisely gone on doing what others should have done with more intent and purpose for the nation’s long-term self-sufficiency, such as what millions of farmers succeeded in doing to make India stand on its own in the food sector. Fast forward to 2016-2017, one finds the same Jane’s Fighting Ships review New Delhi’s naval progress: “Consideration is being given to an indigenous aircraft-carrier… The Indian Navy has built up considerable experience of short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) ops using ski-jump, but could now choose to opt for conventional take-off and landing to broaden aircraft options”. Overall, in 2016-2017, the West appeared to be more appreciative of the Indian Navy because China single-handedly posed a grave threat to the entire West and its allies. Suddenly, India was seen in a new role: as at least a partial bulwark to the Dragon’s destroyers.

However, it is important to note a few shortcomings for the overall strategic defence preparedness of the Indian State. If the Indian Navy can be said to have achieved minimum deterrence capability in the oceans spanning the Persian Gulf and Oman to Strait of Malacca and Singapore, the Indonesian archipelago and till the Cape of Good Hope on one side and Perth on Western Australia’s coast on the other, regrettably the same can’t be said of Indian Air Force due to the current dire straits it is in. It would be an understatement to say it is SOS time for the IAF. Military Balance 2010 (of International Institute for Strategic Studies) showed the IAF’s fighter strength at 37 squadrons. Today, its 2025 edition shows that this has dwindled to 29 squadrons (against a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons). To make matters worse, the crash of a Tejas fighter at the Dubai air show in November didn’t improve matters. The Dubai disaster is a definite setback, even though it might be temporary.

The Indian Navy, in contrast, has come of age, with several ship production yards across coastal states producing indigenously designed and developed fighting ships. Thanks to the foresight of India’s political and military leadership of the 1950s to 1990s, it has been catapulted into a new league of progress and performance.

However, a few words of caution are advisable. India cannot afford the luxury of time and cost overruns in shipbuilding. Also, the bane of the Indian system is its chronic reluctance to go all-out to develop indigenous power plants, whether for IAF fighters or for submarines, aircraft-carriers, destroyers and frigates. Even two new frigates, Udaygiri and Himgiri, commissioned in August 2025, have power plants and propulsion systems from America’s GE and Germany’s MAN.

India needs to take up the production of advanced engines for a truly indigenous defence capability on a war footing.

Tomorrow, December 4, is Navy Day

The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College, New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.