Admiral D K Joshis Resignation - More a Policy Issue Than Procurement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The resignation of the chief of naval staff has failed to halt the series of gas-leak episodes in the Indian Navy. An important lesson from Admiral Joshis resignation is that Indias security and civil-military equation is linked not just to the speed of arms procurement, but also to the ironing out of differences on the maritime policy front. On 24 February 2014, INS Sindhuratna, the Indian naval submarine, went for a sortie off Mumbai. Exactly on the same date, 70 years ago, in 1944, a ship named SS Fort Stikine set sail from Birkenhead for Bombay. The 7,000 tonne coal burner was loaded with a dangerous mix of ammunition, explosives and cotton. On 14 April 1944, Fort Stikine, while alongside at Victoria Dock, caught fire, causing a massive explosion, killing and injuring thousands. The fire ravaged 42,000 tonnes of foodgrain at a time when India was suffering acute food shortages and resulted in creating 1,00,000 tonnes of debris material.1 The Bombay explosion was hushed up. In sharp contrast, a fire of much lower magnitude onboard the Sindhuratna caused much heated debate in Indian and international media. The tremors caused by the 1944 disaster travelled thousands of miles from the epicentre, but did not cause any upheaval in the military hierarchy in British India. The Sindhuratna story, on the other hand, became the precipitate cause of the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral D K Joshi’s resignation. Politics of Disasters It is generally believed that disasters are not driven by politics, but are also not immune from politics (Cohen and Werker 2008). Admiral Joshi’s decision to relinquish command is based on his values and morals. However, outside factors that probably impelled his conscience to arrive at this unprecedented decision are equally important. Since the mid-2013, a series of negative media reports highlighted every minor seamanship and ship-handling error, material malfunction, and even individual marital discord as evidence of naval incompetence. The naval chief was also put to test on some isolated case of an officer’s indulgence in an act like wife swapping. In a bizarre incident, on 10 December 2013, an empty shell misfired from a coast guard vessel damaged the fourth floor of the Western Naval Command headquarters located close to the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai (Goswami 2014). This too was added to the list of naval follies. All these issues were clubbed together with one major accident, the explosion and the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak, on 14 August 2013. Concerted pressure was exerted on the naval chief by the defence minister and the media, making it difficult for the admiral to serve with dignity. The question is, why were minor incidents blown out of proportion to give the impression that the navy was not in safe hands? Why did the defence minister not defend the onslaught against the navy? More importantly, why did the defence minister accept the resignation of Admiral Joshi with such alacrity? The three plausible reasons for the alienation of the chief from the establishment could be: (a) spoilt personal equation with the defence minister or the defence secretary; (b) pressure exerted by various arms lobbies operating in Delhi to push their brands; and (c) disagreements with the domestic defence establishment over an international maritime agenda. This article argues that the admiral’s nuanced understanding of the ethics of military leadership led him to resign rather than be the conscience-stricken executor of the flawed maritime strategy of the government. Arms Lobbies There is little to suggest that Admiral Joshi had any altercation with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on any personal issue. Unlike, General V K Singh, the former chief of army staff, who took his battle with the bureaucracy into public domain, Admiral Joshi acted gracefully and refrained from using the media to indulge in a mud-slinging match with the government. It is a known fact that the network connections of arms lobbies run deep into our defence establishment. The top three contenders feeding the Indian arms appetite are Russia, the United States (US) and Israel. On 24 February 2014, The Financial Times, London, reported that the US has replaced Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier by exporting $25.2 billion worth of military equipment to India in 2013 (Plimmer and Mallet 2014). A K Antony cannot be blamed for being slow on signing defence deals because in his tenure as defence minister of India, “the two-way Indo-US trade has quadrupled in just seven years from $25 billion in 2006 to about $100 billion in 2013” (Chellaney 2014). In his annual press conference on Navy Day in December 2013, the naval chief had proudly announced that the navy is already flying the P8i Boeing 737, maritime reconnaissance aircraft; MiG-29 fighter jets for INS Vikramaditya; and the AJT BAe Hawks 142 AJT (advanced jet trainer). Six French Scorpene submarines and three 6,500 tonne BrahMos firing destroyers are under construction at Mazagon Dock. Currently, all public sector undertaking (PSU) shipyards in the country are overloaded with orders.2 In comparison to the army, the navy’s perspective plans are experiencing fair winds. Hence, there is need to refrain from concluding that Admiral Joshi was a victim of US-Russian jostling in the Indian arms bazaar. However, to deny a role to the arms lobby in the fall of the second Indian naval chief in 15 years would be tantamount to undermining their reach and range. For example, the sacking of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat on 30 December 1998, by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, proved to be serendipitous for the Israeli arms industry. Admiral Bhagwat’s successor was Admiral Sushil Kumar, a Jewish officer and a specialist hydrographer. Since 1998, India’s share in Israeli annual arms sales has catapulted to $1.5 billion (Harel 2014). Piracy and the Indian Coast In his last Navy Day conference, Admiral Joshi had devoted more space to a particular policy issue of strategic importance. He was hopeful that the passage of the Anti-Piracy Bill by Parliament would provide the navy stronger legal support to counter piracy at sea. The other concern voiced by the chief was the need to revert the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) promulgated “High Risk Area” to its original limits. In 2012, IMO along with the United Nations Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) had expanded the longitudinal limits of the piracy prone “High Risk Area” in the Arabian Sea from 65 degrees to 78 degrees. This eastward expansion, based on exaggerated threats, has shifted the international piracy gaze closer to the Indian coastline (Singh 2014). This definition of the piracy zone impinges on our national security concerns. The merchant ships, in order to avoid encountering pirates, hug the Indian west coast. This rather unnecessary development has increased the insurance and freight costs of goods coming to India. Besides, the movement of big ships close to our coastline also disrupts the business continuity of our fishing fleet. The close proximity of fishing vessels to armed merchantmen can also lead to accidents like the Enrica Lexie shooting case in which two Italian marines allegedly killed two Indian fishermen off Kerala’s coast in 2012. Since piracy attacks remain undefined and unpredictable, it is dangerous to declare vast areas of sea as war zones for prolonged durations. This is exactly what is happening in the piracy zones extending from the Somali coast right up to the Arabian Sea, where pre-emptive strikes are common, ostensibly in self-defence. One such act happened in July 2012, the US navy’s, USNS Rappahannock’s trigger happy firing squad took aim at a trawler in the sea off Jebel Ali, killing one Indian fisherman, Arumugam Sekar, and wounding three others. All this indiscriminate shooting is being justified under the guise of maritime necessity of war against piracy. Placing armed men on merchant ships to counter piracy had begun in the 18th century. The threat posed by German submarines during the first world war led to the vigorous revival of the practice. On completion of the second world war, the US, the new global maritime power wanted to reorder the governance model at sea. In 1946, the US initiated the disarming of the merchant ships. Moreover, the US did not want the cold war to extend to sea lanes of communication and let the Soviets have an opportunity to disrupt capitalist commercial shipping. Admiral Joshi was also perturbed about the growing presence of private naval companies operating in our coastal vicinity. At his final press conference, he mentioned: An adverse fallout of piracy of serious concern is the largely unregulated carriage of armed guards onboard merchant ships. There are close to 140 Private Security Companies operating in North Indian Ocean, which hire out Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel or PCASP. These personnel shift between vessels at sea, without entering any port or coastal state regulated maritime territory. There are scores of ships operating as floating armouries, outside any coastal state jurisdiction. The recent apprehension of ‘MV Seaman Guard Ohio’ off Tuticorin, with 25 armed guards of four different nationalities, is a case in point. Lack of any provisions to deal with such vessels or armed personnel hampers legal actions. We have recommended that this necessitates formulation of a regulatory framework by IMO.3 The fear highlighted by the naval chief related to “embarked security” and floating armouries lurking in our littorals was not based on hyper-nationalism. His response against the threat posed by private navies was firmly rooted in the correct understanding of the evolving order at sea, and the appropriate responses that a medium power like India needs to adopt. The genuine economic activity and interests of our fishermen cannot be sacrificed because the global big business finds the tiny fishing boats threatening. India has already seen how armed guards on ships can lead to killing of innocents, now to permit private navies like Typhon to operate in our midst would add to the existing chaos. Typhon, a new navy floated a few years ago is based in Abu Dhabi. It is “founded by Simon Murray of the commodity giant Glencore International Plc (GLEN)” (Hellen 2013). Murray has teamed up with Anthony Sharp a former French Foreign Legionnaire. The employees of the company include former Royal Marines, Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff, United Kingdom (UK), and General Sir Jack Deverell, former commander of Allied Forces Northern Europe; Admiral Harry Ulrich, ex-head of US naval forces in Europe; and Peter Ahlas, former chief of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s (HSBC) marine and insurance business. According to The Telegraph, London, “It’s quite a roll-call for a company that’s just completing its first fund-raising, of just $15m, and has yet to put to sea” (Sibun 2012). The introduction of private navies is not an innocuous development. It is not a natural outcome of the inherent asymmetry involved in using million dollar warships against poverty stricken Somali pirates. It is a project to circumvent international law and legitimise the use of force by corporations. Tragedy or Opportunity? For some, crisis and disaster is a tragedy, others see it as an opportunity. For example, for the US forces present in India, the 1944 Bombay Dock explosion offered a good case study to plan the impact of their future bombings on Japanese cities in 1945. The 1959 book by John Ennis, The Great Bombay Explosion, has many photographs that were then clicked by the men of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The US was so deeply interested in the explosion that Commander Wendland, the senior-most US Coast Guard officer in India requested the British to include Lieutenant J T Hackett of the US Coast Guard Services, then Naval Liaison officer at Bombay, to sit as observer with the Board of Inquiry (BOI) looking into the causes of Bombay explosion. The proposal by the US was approved by B Rama Rau, chairman of Bombay Port Trust, but the British war department refused to have Hackett to be a part of the BOI proceedings.4 However, the 1944 explosion gave the US Coast Guard a reason to activate its merchant marine hearing units at all major ports of Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi and Colombo.5 At present, it is difficult to identify the gainers from the current crisis in the navy. However, it is clear that the degree of strategic autonomy India will enjoy in the coming years depends on how the future Indian governments react to the reordering of global maritime regimes. Instead of the hype over the lacunae in military procurement driving the civil-military relationship, military-modernisation debates must lead us to understanding the evolving order in the oceans. It is under the tutelage of A K Antony, the longest-serving defence minister, that India has come to acquire the dubious distinction of being the biggest importer of arms in the world. Therefore, those protesting against the tardy pace of procurement by the MoD, are either pitching for much higher defence budgets to buy more from outside or are simply using this as a ploy to divert attention from the main issue related to maritime strategy. An important lesson from Admiral Joshi’s resignation is that India’s security and civil-military equation is linked not just to the speed of arms procurement, but also to the ironing out of differences on the maritime policy front. Blame is a usual, if not inevitable, feature of disasters (Bucher 1957). However, the inevitable hostility generated by such blame games has to be tamed. The unprecedented spate of accidents in the navy indicates a serious missing link at some level. At the time of such acute crisis, instead of dispensing with the naval chief, it would have been prudent for the defence minister to stand tall with the navy to meet the challenge together. Postscript The resignation of the chief of naval staff has failed to halt the series of gas-leak episodes in the navy. Last week, two of the navy’s – yet to be commissioned – most prestigious projects, INS Kolkata, the BrahMos fitted destroyer, and the indigenous nuclear submarine project, received a jolt. On 7 March 2014, a young naval officer, Commander Kuntal Wadhwa was killed on board INS Kolkata due to leak of carbon dioxide gas while the ship was undergoing trials at Mazagon Dock. A day after the INS Kolkata incident, on 8 March, it was reported that one dockyard worker died and three others were seriously injured due to a pipe burst at the Ship Building Centre at Visakhapatnam, where nuclear submarines are being built. The accident occurred when the hatch of a “tank” to be installed in INS Aridhaman – the follow-on submarine to the first one, INS Arihant – blew off during its “hydro-pressure testing”. That the accident happened in open and not within the confined space of the submarine mitigated the impact. Accidents and injuries are normal occurrence in any large organisation that operates complex machinery. They have also been part of the Indian Navy since its formation in 1947. However, over the past six months, the frequency of the accidents and deaths they have caused is unprecedented. Both the MoD and the navy need to examine various dimensions of the problem and try to see if there are any links connecting the spate of incidents. More importantly, it is incumbent on the navy to ensure strict adherence to not only the standard operating procedures at all levels, but also quality control. The Indian Navy will have to instil a cultural change where, safety and security should take precedence over guts and glory, at least, in peacetime. Under-prepared machines, incapable of operating to their full potential, should not be pushed to their limits, to add to the number of ships that the navy can put out at sea. More importantly, security of the equipment and those operating it must always be under the scanner.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:30:00 +0000