Deadly Military Industrial Complex Rising in India
Since the Narendra Modi’s BJP government came to power in 2014 the dreaded military industrial complex is taking its firm roots in India e.g., recently the present defense minister of India Mr. Arun Jatiley held consultations
with representatives of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CII) on the
proposed Strategic Partnership (SP) model meant to promote the private
sector in defense manufacturing. Not only this, already many Indian
private companies are diverting their manufacturing businesses from
consumer goods to war machines e.g., Tata Advanced Systems won a contract of surface surveillance radar project for Navy from the Ministry of Defense; Reliance defense also bagged a contract of 916 crore from the defense ministry; Mahindra group also signed a deal with Airbus to manufacture parts of its Panther helicopters in India.
These are all the worrying signs of the dangerous military industrial
complex taking its deep root in the Indian economy and society. Already
the Indian nation state is no. 1 in terms of foreign arms imports
in the world, and now within its boundaries too the government is
pushing for more resource allocation towards manufacturing of arms and
ammunition. This military industrial complex is dangerous because once
it gets firmly rooted in an economy it will have to be kept going at any
cost because the whole economy will start to depend on it heavily for
jobs and growth! The American nation state is the prime example in the
world today of the dangerous effects of this military industrial
complex. The then retiring US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his
1961 farewell speech, warned against this rising military complex in
America (see the video below):
No one listened to him and now the US Empire goes on waging one war
after another all over the globe just to sell the arms and ammunition
being produced by this complex. There are so many vested interest
involved in this complex in America right now that simply shutting it
down is no longer an option. It will collapse only after it collapses
the whole American economy and society. The same will happen in India in
future. Just to keep the entrenched military industrial complex going
the Indian nation state officials will also go on looking and waging
wars everywhere.
Economic science tells us that any economy, at any time, has scarcity of
resources to fulfill goals of its inhabitants. This scarcity means
people, in reality the so-called public representative policy makers
like the politicians or bureaucrats, will have to choose their ways of
using these scarce resources very carefully otherwise there will be a
huge wastage of resources, which no country can afford. In a country
like India where still around 30% of its people are living below the poverty line such extravagance expenditure by the government – in the fiscal year 2017-18 government budget allocated 3,59,854 crore rupees to the Ministry of Defense – on manufacturing war weapons is absurd and antithetical to its goal of progress.
I know many will say that India is surrounded by enemies like the
Pakistani and the Chinese nation states so it must keep a big military
force for the purpose of national defense, but there is little evidence
in theory and history in believing that the Indian nation state will be
attacked and taken over by either the Pakistani or Chinese nation states
in present or in foreseeable future. In fact, if we look at the recent
history, then it is the Indian nation state who engineered the
disintegration of the Pakistani nation state into modern day Pakistan
and Bangladesh! Historically speaking India has been the country with
imperialistic dynasties like the Mauryas and the Cholas! The Indian
nation state is the reason of worry for most of its smaller neighboring
nation states like Nepal or Sri Lanka. And besides that, the whole idea
of national defense itself is flawed. There are much better alternative ways of protecting the Indian populace other than state’s standing military forces.
All in all, the people of India will have to decide, in the end, whether
they want their government to use resources in the making of ‘bullets,
guns and bombs’ or ‘daal and roti’! If they choose the former, they will
starve to death. If they choose the latter, they will survive and
thrive.
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