Indian Navy ready to deter, but country lacks full maritime capability: Ex-Navy chief

Stressing upon the importance of developing India’s maritime prowess to meet the challenges that lie ahead, Admiral Arun Prakash, former chief of Naval Staff said that the Navy was the only force having an advantage over India’s principal adversaries in the Indian Ocean region.

“In my own perception, if there is a two-front war or two-and-a-half-front war, which means a nexus between China and Pakistan, then the best that our gallant Army and very capable Air Force can do is to hold them there, create a stalemate. I doubt if we can go anything beyond that,” he said while speaking at Military Literature Festival in Chandigarh on Saturday.

“But if we look seaward, we have a tremendous advantage over both our adversaries. We dominate the Indian Ocean. We have a capable Navy. And we can certainly do harm, threaten anybody who starts a conflict with us in the waters of the Indian Ocean,” he added.

Stating that we must be more alert about our maritime security, he rued the fact that we do not understand the full implications of maritime power and speak about it lightly just because we have a competent, robust, technologically advanced navy does not mean that we are a maritime power.

“A navy is only a small component of a nation’s maritime power and we have neglected and overlooked it and there is no better example to show our lapses than to look at our neighbour China,” Admiral Prakash said.

About two decades ago the Chinese Communist Party declared that China is going to be a world power, maybe number one by 2049. But they also realised somewhere down the line that before a prerequisite for claiming the status of world power you have to be a maritime power, they were quite clear about it. So they set about becoming a maritime power in a very methodical and deliberate way, he said.

The Admiral pointed out that today, amongst the world’s best 10 ports, seven are Chinese. The Chinese shipbuilding industry is number one in the world. The Chinese navy outnumbers the US navy and the Chinese coast guard is the biggest in the world. China has 5,000 merchant ships out at sea and the Chinese fishing fleet is massive, poaching in our waters. China leads the world in deep sea exploration.

“Unfortunately in all these indices we lag behind,” he remarked. “Our ports are languishing. Our ship building industry, except for warship building is again moribund. Our merchant fleet is very small,” he said.

Admiral Prakash said that for many years, decision makers in Delhi were charged by the Navy as suffering from sea blindness. “The Indian Navy used to receive a miniscule share of the defence budget and the Navy also felt that there was a lack of comprehension of maritime issues amongst the decision makers. Fortunately, things seem to be changing and one can see a glimmer of what may be called maritime awakening amongst our decision makers,” he said.