scorecardresearch
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeNational InterestThere’s a humongous scam in the Rafale deal. It is called stupidity

There’s a humongous scam in the Rafale deal. It is called stupidity

Follow Us :
Text Size:

Rafale deal is no scam. It’s just a glaring example of the BJP government’s pusillanimous, unimaginative, over-cautious and unsuccessful handling of defence purchases.

We now have sufficient evidence to say that there is a humongous scam in the Rafale deal. Except that this ‘scam’ is spelt as ‘stupidity’.

A picture of Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of ThePrintIf you find ‘stupidity’ too strong, you can choose a euphemism if you think it adequately describes this breathlessly arrogant idea that you could refuse to answer any questions on the pricing of a nearly $10 billion deal by claiming a secrecy clause between two democratic governments where all spending is subject to parliamentary and audit scrutiny. Or with explanations that get ludicrous by the day.

Today’s arms bazaar carries almost no secrets about platforms, weapons and accessories. If you are buying the Meteor missile to go with the Rafale, not just the Pakistani and Chinese air forces, but any teenaged defence nerd with a smartphone can give you a tutorial on it. What you can, and must, keep secret in this is sensitive electronics and tactics. Even the ballpark price of a Meteor missile, the Israeli 360-degree helmet for the pilot, is widely discussed in open-source military literature. There was no harm in discussing it in public and no reason to hide it. Except arrogance: How dare anybody question us in a defence deal? Are we like the Congress in the Bofors decade?


Also read: ‘Teflon’ Modi plus national security—BJP’s strategy to counter Congress on Rafale


Now the BJP is realising how, post-Bofors, any government making a big defence purchase must expect to be called a thief. It can deal with the problem in one of three ways. First, the A.K. Antony way: Just don’t buy anything, and ban all private global armament companies. The only major purchases made were purely government-to-government, with Russia, where there is no transparency of pricing or competition and a few non-lethal systems from the US. Second, set up a transparent procedure, buy boldly, but be willing to answer questions that will inevitably arise. Or third, you buy like a monarch, bypass all ‘boring’ procedure like the Cabinet Committee on Security and other formalities, make big headlines on a foreign visit, and then contemptuously decline to answer any questions. This is serial, arrogant stupidity, and shows how the Modi government has dug a hole for itself.

With each passing day, the government is digging itself deeper into this hole. The latest excuse for not proceeding with the earlier deal of 126 Rafales, 108 of which were to be manufactured by the holy PSU monopoly, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), is that it didn’t have the back-end infrastructure.

Now, no company in the world would be immediately ready with assembly lines for a specific foreign fighter aircraft. Any reasonable person would know that HAL would still be better equipped for licenced production than any other company because that is mostly all—regrettably—that it has done in all these monopoly decades, and not particularly efficiently. But nobody would diss a defence PSU. It is a different story that India missed a great opportunity during the Vajpayee years when the IAF wanted to shift the entire Mirage-2000 assembly line to India. It would have had HAL ready for the Rafale, but George Fernandes, then Tehelka-hit, was wary of a ‘single-vendor’ buy.

For some reason the government won’t state the simple truth, that a purchase as large as 126 Rafales was unaffordable, that it would have vacuumed the budgets from the Army and the Navy and that, for now, two squadrons were considered sufficient. Nobody’s willing to say that HAL wasn’t dumped to favour somebody else, but because you scaled down the order and gave up co-production? Why, it beats me. Unless the logic is, why speak the truth when it is so much sexier to spin a web of nonsense and trap yourself in it.

Then, the alibi: An emergency purchase had to be made as the IAF force levels had fallen to dangerous levels. That fact has been well-known for 15 years. This aircraft requirement was first mooted in 2001. This Rafale deal is a great commentary on the inability of a nation with super power fantasies to buy for its Air Force a couple of fighter squadrons that were critically needed two decades ago. Even these two Rafale squadrons won’t be fully battle-worthy until 2022. A government or a “system” (since it is irrespective of who’s in power) as incompetent as India’s should either outsource its national security to a bigger power, or give away Kashmir and Arunachal to Pakistan and China, respectively, demilitarise, and save all that money for health and education.

One of the engines that powered Narendra Modi’s conquest in 2014 was his promise of a tough, decisive national security policy. He accused the UPA of being waffling and woolly-headed and weakening the armed forces by being too scared to buy new weapons for them. People believed him then, because he was right. The same people, therefore, are justified to ask him what has he done, with just months left for his full term, to rectify this.

The answer can’t be a few defence Make in India tamashas and air shows. The amount of FDI in defence manufacturing is so ridiculously low, not even a few million, that we are embarrassed to mention it. This government has been as pusillanimous, unimaginative, over-cautious and unsuccessful as the UPA. It is just that the UPA had never promised any better, but the BJP did.

The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. These two squadrons will duly come up. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come. And defence Make in India? It was, very unfortunately, dead on arrival when you carried in your wake one among India’s most controversial corporate houses as a beneficiary from India’s biggest defence deal in decades.

This, when this country is yet to see any private sector company make anything major for the military. Even that will take getting used to in a country which took half a decade accepting private airline and phone companies. And when a corporate almost guaranteed to leave a trail of controversy and litigation with many of its projects pops up in pictures and television footage, even in an aviator’s livery at the Bengaluru air show, and makes press releases claiming tens of thousands of crores of manufacturing deals as “offsets” for a brand new venture in defence, you should expect trouble. Now, when you say he will not manufacture even a screw for the Rafale, or that the orders he gets from Dassault under these “offsets” will be no more than Rs 6,000-12,000 crore and mostly to make wings for the Falcon, a popular executive jet Rafale makes, you are indeed speaking the truth. But it doesn’t matter. People will believe what they want to believe and they will compare this with the company’s boast earlier.


Also read: He had everything, but Modi missed a brilliant chance to fix the messy Indian military


The final act of self-destructive absurdity in this list of serial stupidities was the string of “cease-and-desist” lawyer’s notices the corporate sent out to media houses and journalists (this writer included) somehow believing that everybody will be silenced in shock and awe. I don’t know what has caused more damage to the government’s case on Rafale, the exaggerated claims of offset beneficiary, or this incredibly arrogant notice. Governments will muddle along, but sadly, both actions damage the IAF, and the dream of defence Make in India.

Any major defence deal in this benighted city, crawling with defence agents, fixers, corporate lobbyists and self-styled ‘subjantawalas’ (know-alls) is bound to be called a scam. In the post-Bofors decades, every government has spun more complex layers of procedures to escape just such an opprobrium. None has succeeded in achieving such immunity, and none can. The Modi government had the opportunity to change this with transparency, disclosure and engagement. It has blown it.

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

77 COMMENTS

  1. I have the good fortune of reading it late and have the advantage of reading it after the Supreme Court quashed all the petitions relating to Rafale deal. Good fortune because reading biased articles under the guise of skepticism should be avoided till author gets irrefutable proof of one’s erraneous thought processes. Advantage because now I can laugh at the monumental stupidity of the article.

  2. Sir,

    There is actually a concentration of the powers with a single man. He( has many qualities. But his balance assessment is limited. Clothes are too much big, for him. He has no vision of the future. He not maybe neither Kissinger, nor Tchou-en-Lai. By entrusting him missions which are not of his competence, we empty competence of certain ministries. We consolidate the idea that the questions related to the security and to the foreign policy are exercised in reality by administration staff, which did not receive a mandate from the people. In brief we continue in the line inaugurated in 1947, namely that these questions are handled by a circle restricted to bureaucrats! We need to define clearly the foreign policy of the country, as well as its defense policy. The concentration of the powers is only masking the absence of a clear vision on these policies. But where are the politics capable of having such a vision?

  3. You regret that HAL is not up to the mark. Do you know the reason behind it? Can someone tell why it is essential that Government employees must be citizens of India? Why can’t we hire great scientists and engineers from abroad? Or why NRIs are not given a chance to work in public undertakings? Instead of paying foreign companies, let us pay to the brilliant brains.
    Many countries such as South Korea and Japan are ready to collaborate with India for fighter planes. We should avail their offers. Air warfare can’t be decided by Air Force pilots alone. Many competing technologies such as guided missiles have to be considered. This has to be done by strategic experts of all wings of military.

  4. Shekhar Ji, I had a read a fawning piece you had written about the Arjun tank back when I was in my teens. We know how well that went. Regardless of the merits of this article, we have to remember that the NDA government cleaned up a messy deal that the UPA had put into place. Your article does not make that clear, and the tone of it sounds as if this was completely of this government’s making. The fact that they were partially able to salvage this deal and get our force some respite is, to me, good enough for now. We should just be buying more Sukhois anyway, that is the untold reality.

  5. Shekhar you consider yourself to be such an intellectual person and all but I cudnt understand hw handing over Kashmir to Pak and Arunachal to China solve our security issues? How cn u say v won’t require armed forces if we did so?
    Come on man! I didnt think you would be so stupid to write such a thing…
    As soon as I read tht line I came to know the “stupidity” is not in the govt handling of the Rafale deal but in your Article.

  6. Shekhar Gutha calling yhis Rafale deal “Stupid” ? Then rest assured this must be the most intelligent and bold decision by this Government. Thanks Shekhar for enlightenment.

  7. Shekar ji what you’re asking is to tell everyone that

    How many meteor , scalp missiles purchased , what electronic suites have been used as per India specific requirement and how many spares and critical equipment needed to keep the fleet at 75% availability

    These kind of questions raising doubts on scamgress and opposition parties

    Are you people working for India or you want to help Chinese and Pakistan with the Info

  8. This is very sad to see that Indians are so myopic in their views, that they are blind to see the conspiracy in not apply this episode but overall in broader context. Recently what SC ruling has made it very clear that indian scientist Mr Nambiar was falsely incriminated and is evident to any logical person that this was done to derail cryogenic technology development. Now the question is whether those 3 police officers could have had the guts to engage in such anti-national gameplan without support from their political masters. This again leads to question who was in power in State and Centre. Now the enquiry will take years and finally not give proper answers as history shows that politicians are never punished in this country, however we all know in our concious that Left people who have always supported in anti India agendas are responsible. now question is why Centre Govt did not take any strong action in supporting the scientists than, so it clearly shows there was some collision between some powerful people in Centre and State Government. Now again the question again arises why did these people help in foreign conspiracies, was any hefty payments were made to them by foreign powers.
    Now let us come to Rafael, let’s talk logically. INC tells that a single plane should have costed Ra.540 crs. I will ask you Mr Rahul Gandhi and 1 billion Indians what’s the cost of a single Boeing or Airbus plane. Isn’t is in range of 500 -1000 crores depending on model. Now compare them with fighter jets. These passanger jets fly at just 400-500 KM’s an hour, their are no armaments, no onboard electronic warfare and counter measures, overall technology is much lower in comparison to fighter jets. Now some people will tell that trucks are more expensive than passenger cars. However I have simple reply Rafael s are no marutis or Hyundai’s, they are like Lamborghini’s. If you want Maruti class, restart the assembly line for Mig 21s and induct them in 100s. But don’t waste precious time of Indian public in non sensical controversies.
    In my opinion only mistake in the deal is that Indian should have include transfer of technology and licensed for unlimited production in India, setting up a new assembly line for rafaels, as we cannot trust HAL in development of Tejas MK-2, leave alone AMCA looking at their past hoplus records.

  9. You are right in saying that we mucked up pretty much everything by not taking up the munificent Mirage package deal during the Vajpayee years when the IAF wanted to get Dassault to shift the entire Mirage-2000 assembly line to India. France and Dassault repeatedly reminded the Govt that the clock was winding down, but to no avail. After the assembly line was shut down, we asked them for a dozen odd Mirage ac as we had formed a third Squadron and needed ac to sustain it. France is not Russia-they showed us two fingers.

    However, I cannot agree with you that
    it would have had HAL ready for the Rafale. France put into words what professionals in the IAF have maintained since 1966-HAL is a gargantuan white elephant and a voracious 40,000-worker strong parasite that cannot even manufacture a mobike. DRDO is no better where ac are concerned. They are still not ready with the Tejas, 35 years after getting the go-ahead and bucket loads of money. They couldn’t even copy the GE-404 engine (that powers the F-18 Hornet) and create the Kaveri! The five
    or six Tejas flying today are using the 404 engine. (We have 54 such engines today). Russia did copy it, with much poorer metallurgy, named it the Klimov RD-33 and are using it on the MiG-29, but without the FADEC (fully automated digital engine computer).

    France is not a stupid country. They watched us screw up the Mirage 2000 Christmas Present (offer) and were willing to let go their most lucrative deal ever on principle, rather than accept a clause which stated that HAL could produce and sell the Rafale in the future.

    It is very difficult for non-defence people to understand the cost factor in a modern ac deal. And I include both politicians and your good self. The Rs. 59,000 package is not for the ac alone, but for myriad accompanying infrastructural costs. The Mission Simulator itself costs around Rs. 6,000 crore. The radar and laser labs and repair workshops will also cost a pretty package. Advanced weapons and their storage will also hit us hard.You have written about the Meteor, but you don’t seem to know about far more advanced weaponry that will follow the Rafale induction. You redeem yourself somewhat with your next line on electronics and tactics. That is a crucial must. I cannot see any space for a scam. I will stick my neck out and reiterate that this is one deal that is entirely scam free.

    Going ahead, if the 36 ac were hypothetically reduced to 24, a 33% cut, the Rs. 59,000 figure would not also drop by 33% to Rs. 39,000. It would reduce to around Rs. 48,000, an 18-19% cut. I believe that Mr Modi has struck an excellent deal, as explained infra.

    I am surprised that you haven’t figured out that all these signs indicate that we are planning to buy at least 36 more ac, which will cost about Rs. 35-40,000 core, factoring in the date, technological advances and inflation.
    There is another factor that must be considered, viz., US pressure in buying their junk F-16 or F-18 ac.

    Incidentally, the 126 ac buy was my idea. I am from the first batch of IAF pilots who were trained in France in 84-85. I had started with a comprehensive paper on the need for 88 Mirage 2000 upgraded ac, 33 two- seaters and 55 single seaters, approved by the Air Chief, but a think tank later felt that 88 would fall short and reached a figure of 126. Some ace blindly carried over this figure to the far more capable Rafale. We don’t need 126 of them. My assessment, for what it’s worth, is 84+ the standard 10% war reserve, i.e., 92. Rafale Sqns will probably have only 12 ac each, with six Sqns in the field.

    A word about the Rafale’s nearest competitor, the more expensive Typhoon. Germany had to perforce buy 128. Can you hazard a guess as to how many of these 128 are operational? Last month, the figure confronting Ms Merkel was ONE. This week, it is FOUR. Only 39 are flyworthy
    as blind bats, whereas the Rafale soldiers on comfortably, having lost only six ac in 15 years of intensive flying. So our analysts did a good job in selecting the Rafale, actually streets ahead of all competition.

    As Christina Rossetti asks: Who has seen the wind?

  10. This is very sad to see that Indians are so myopic in their views, that they are blind to see the conspiracy in not apply this episode but overall in broader context. Recently what SC ruling has made it very clear that indian scientist Mr Nambiar was falsely incriminated and is evident to any logical person that this was done to detail cryogenic technology development. Now the question is whether those 3 police officers could have had the guts to engage in such anti-national gameplan without support from their political masters. This again leads to question who was in power in State and Centre. Now the enquiry will take years and finally not give proper answers as history shows that politicians are never punished in this country, however we all know in our concious that Left people who have always supported in anti India agendas are responsible. now question is why Centre Govt did not take any strong action in supporting the scientists than, so it clearly shows there was some collision between some powerful people in Centre and State Government. Now again the question again arises why did these people help in foreign conspiracies, was any hefty payments were made to them by foreign powers.
    Now let us come to Rafael, let’s talk logically. INC tells that a single plane should have costed Ra.540 crs. I will ask you Mr Rahul Gandhi and 1 billion Indians what’s the cost of a single Boeing or Airbus plane. Isn’t is in range of 500 -1000 crores depending on model. Now compare them with fighter jets. These passanger jets fly at just 400-500 KM’s an hour, their are no armaments, no onboard electronic warfare and counter measures, overall technology is much lower in comparison to fighter jets. Now some people will tell that trucks are more expensive than passenger cars. However I have simple reply Rafael s are no marutis or Hyundai’s, they are like Lamborghini’s. If you want Maruti class, restart the assembly line for Mig 21s and induct them in 100s. But don’t waste precious time of Indian public in non sensical controversies.
    In my opinion only mistake in the deal is that Indian should have include transfer of technology and licensed for unlimited production in India, setting up a new assembly line for rafaels, as we cannot trust HAL in development of Tejas MK-2, leave alone AMCA looking at their past hoplus records.

    • Sir,
      Very strange and mindboggling !

      HAL with vast experience in this stream cannot be trusted but Anil Ambani with zero experience can be trusted just for “Offset”
      bounty ! What a sound argument and rationale ?

      Gentleman, I do not have an iota of doubt what either NaMo or Nirmala Sitharaman could not put forth in defence of the Rafale Fighter Aircraft deal you have at least said very comprehensively may be farfetched from logic !

      Therefore, you deserve MoS for Defence position as a minimum incentive for this “subjective ” stance !

      Prof PK Sharma, Freelance Journalist
      Pom Anm Nest,Barnala (Punjab)

  11. Mr Gupta so why don’t you do a start up business making arms for the defense by going through your smart phone instead of writing such a stupid article.

  12. First of all if the BJP govt in 2004 brought mirage 2000 assembly line, there would hv been no MMRCA requirement at all.

    MMRCA is here because Vajpayee govt refused to be drawn into single vendor situation , with no competitive bids, which will lead only to scams.

    Reliance is not even making a screw for IAF rafales.

    Reliance Dassault jv is for making parts to french civilian jet Falcon.

    As per off set agreements foreign suppliers are free to choose indian vendors for offset partners.

    No need for prior GOI approval.

    Approval from govt will be sought later.

    So as of now GOI hasn’t approved reliance Dassault jv

    What Mohan guruswamy won’t tell is another major offset niche is awarded to GTRE SNECMA(safron) for kaveri jet engine JV.,

    Which was rejected by UPA , under the advice of a committee headed by same Air marshal Matheswaran

  13. Modi govt has a much better record on defence deals..ill name a few..
    1 SPG from korea..manufactured by l and t..ready fr induction
    2 M777 howitzer….co production in india
    3. Apache and chinook helos…indian companies now part of supply chain
    4. Ballistic helmets for infantry..inducted
    5. Scorpenes inducted
    6. Missile tracking ship
    7. Rafales
    8. More t 90s
    9. Astra missile inducted
    10. Tejas in squadron service

    Sir its not a bad track record…
    Most of rafale scam is just inuendo..u knw it…but ull spin it this way

  14. How dare you question the Great One? The King can do no wrong ! Even Rijuju’s Nostradamus had foreseen the arrival of this Savior of 500 crore Indians ! Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do and die ! You’re guilty of sacrilege of the BPJ Hindus and of sedition of Modi’s India !

  15. The moment, I read the statement that one determine the price and details of a weapons u using a smart phone, I stopped reading further. Why then do we need an IAF and all it’s technical team.
    I realized who is stupid quickly..

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular