POLITICS: India Has Diplomatic, Not Military, Uses for Jets

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Nov 22 2002 (IPS) - After 18 years of see-saw negotiations to sell advanced jet trainers to India, Britain may yet lose the deal, now worth 600 million U.S. dollars, to stiff competition from the United States.

On Aug. 2, Defence Minister George Fernandes told the parliamentary consultative committee attached to his ministry that price negotiations for British Aerospace’s Hawk trainer were over and that he was just awaiting final cabinet approval.

But that was in the immediate aftermath of three visits to the Indian sub-continent made in rapid succession by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in order to defuse a military standoff between India and Pakistan.

During that visit, he expressed strong support for India’s position that Pakistan must stop ”cross-border terrorism” in disputed Kashmir.

Much to the gratitude of the Indian side, Straw, who was also aggressively pushing the Hawk deal simultaneously, announced at a press briefing in May – at the height of military standoff between the nuclear-armed neighbours – that the United Kingdom ”stood four square behind India in its fight against terrorism”.

During his last visit in mid-July, Straw pledged steady supplies of spares for British-built assets operated by India’s armed forces, including Sea King helicopters, Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft that India manufactures under license, and Sea-Harrier jump jets used on aircraft carriers.

The supply of spares has been sore point with India, which has traditionally sourced its defence purchases from the Soviet Union and its successor state Russia in a deliberate strategy not to be caught without critical spares in a military emergency.

But in recent years the right-wing, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has pursued a policy of diversified defence purchases.

It has even been looking toward the United States, against which country India was ranged during the Cold War years, for its defence requirements.

Earlier this month, the United States announced that mandatory congressional approvals would no longer be required for arms sales to India that were worth less than 40 million dollars, which meant fast-track sales of essential spares. At a U.S. embassy briefing Nov. 15, following a meeting of the Indo-U.S. Security Cooperation Group, U.S. officials said: ”It has been conveyed to New Delhi that armaments sales up to 40 million dollars will not require mandatory Congressional approval.”

Since Oct. 25, Washington has placed India on par with its close allies in the Asia-Pacific region like Japan and Singapore where the grant of armament export licenses are concerned. This is a turnaround from the earlier policy of bans and controls imposed after India tested a nuclear device in 1974.

But Washington’s new policy of accommodating India’s defence needs may be to the detriment of other players in the international arms bazaar including Britain, starting with the deal over the advanced jet trainers.

The Hawk’s main competitor is the spanking new Czech-American L-159, which made its debut at the Farborough show in June this year and manufactured by Aero Vodochody. The U.S. aero-industry giant Boeing Corp has a 35 percent stake in it. The L-159 is powered by a turbofan engine manufactured by the U.S.-based Honeywell Corp.

On Oct. 1, India’s Air Force chief S Krishnaswamy declared that Czech-American L-159 was being evaluated, again raising speculations on the fate of the vexed Hawk deal.

Commented Manoj Joshi, defence analyst for the ‘Times of India’ newspaper: ”Surprisingly the Indian Air Force, which backed the Hawk for all these years, now wants the whole deal to be reopened again.”

Curiously, one of the reasons why India has been going slow on the Hawk was the fact that several of its critical components were sourced from U.S. manufacturers in the United States and would have attracted earlier embargoes.

Another reason was the price. Perhaps encouraged by India’s perceived need to win over western powers in its 55-year-old dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, British Aeronautics unilaterally hiked the price of the Hawk to about 18 million U.S. dollars for each of the 66 pieces under negotiation.

Meanwhile, India’s need for an advanced advanced jet trainer has grown. After all, more of the now-notorious, Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters, which stands in as a ‘lead-in’ fighter, have been falling out of the skies and killing young pilots.

When a MIG-21 crashed earlier this month in West Bengal state and killed two pilots, it was the eleventh piece to go down this year. There is now an average of one crash a month.

On the latest crash, Fernandes said last week: ”The longer the country took to decide on the advanced jet trainer deal, the greater would be the losses for the Indian Air Force.”

Contenders for the Indian contract include the Russian MIG-AT, the French Dassault Alpha jet and he Italian Aeromachhi MB 549.

In fact, Fernandes visited the Aeromachhi plant at Venegono Superiore during a visit to Italy in September, in the first indications that the Hawk deal was far from finalised.

Visiting India in February, Antonin Jakubuse, head of Aero Vodochody, said that apart from a 25 to 45 percent lower cost, his firm was also offering ”joint partnership, technology transfer and joint marketing,” for the L-159 aircraft he described as ”NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) compatible and the best aircraft in its category worldwide.”

Price, age factor and U.S. pressure apart, Fernandes will have to steer clear of controversies when he finally decides. The Hawk is already tainted by charges that unfair means were used to get dictators like Indonesia’s Suharto and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe to buy it.

Fernandes, who has been defence minister since 1998 except for a brief period when he left under suspicion of corruption, said he hoped the air force could acquire an advanced jet trainer before he left office.

The corruption scandal was yet another reason why the advanced jet trainer deal and other arms purchases slowed down.

POLITICS: India Has Diplomatic, Not Military, Uses for Jets

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Nov 22 2002 (IPS) - After 18 years of see-saw negotiations to sell advanced jet trainers to India, Britain may yet lose the deal, now worth 600 million U.S. dollars, to stiff competition from the United States.
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