Exploiting India’s Defense Potentials
On Saturday evening, 12 August 2006, Indonesian Ambassador to India, Donillo Anwar, invited Indonesian community in New Delhi for a meeting with a DPR delegate led by Tosari Wijaya, vice-leader of Commission I of the DPR. The delegate was in India for an official visit to study the Indian potentials, especially in the field of defense that is yet to be exploited by the Indonesia government.
The firm and steady progress of Indian government to develop its defense capabilities and to produce indigenous defense technologies and hardware to fulfill its domestic needs are examples of potentials yet to be exploited by Indonesia. Even though training of Indonesian military officers in Indian Defense College in New Delhi and vice versa has been regularly conducted, but the reluctance by the Indonesian government to pass on the Memorandum of Understanding in Defense Cooperation between the two countries signed in New Delhi, on 11 January 2001, to be ratified by the House can be seen as a stumbling block in this exploitation process.
For the record, the Indian government has already ratified this MoU and is awaiting a reciprocal decision from Indonesia. However, more than five years after the signing of the MoU in January 2001, the Indonesian government is yet to even pass the MoU to the House to be ratified and converted into an agreement. Indonesian Ambassador to India, Donillo Anwar, asked in an interview with an online Indian magazine Diplomatist of any specific reason as to why the MoU is yet to be ratified by Indonesia, said that, “Indonesia’s Department of Defense has been taking the necessary steps to fulfill internal institutional requirements that are needed to ratify the MoU on Defense Cooperation.”
But so far, these ‘necessary steps’ have not yet found any materialization in any form thus stalling the progress of the MoU into a meaningful agreement. It was on the basis of this fact that I raised the issue on the occasion to seek clearer explanation from the DPR’s delegates so as to find ways to fully explore and exploit the potentials in India, especially on area of defense.
To my dismay, my argument was “corrected” by the Ambassador. Proudly saying as a part of the team that formulated the MoU, he said that the MoU is “only” covering the field of trainings for military officers and not on any larger issues of defense cooperation such as exchange of defense technology or the procurement of military hardware. And since the defense cooperation, in this case exchange of military officers to undergo trainings in either countries, is ongoing, the Indonesian government assumed that there is no need to ratify the MoU and convert it into a more meaningful agreement in Defense Cooperation. Let’s try a different viewpoint in this matter.
Since its early days as a nation, India’s founding fathers have done great jobs in ensuring India’s capability to stand on its own through the adoption of the concept of swadeshi (self-fulfiment). From education to economy, defense and development, India has cemented this spirit successfully into the minds of its people. But how did this success story come? The answer is: indigenisation. Let’s take a brief look at the concept of India’s IITs and Department of Defense.
The concept of the IITs originated even before India gained independence in 1947. It was believed that the future prosperity of India would depend not so much on capital as on technology thus the setting up of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. To man those laboratories, hundreds of doctoral fellowships to USA under the Technology Cooperation Mission (TCM) programme were introduced. However realizing that such steps can't help in the long run for the development of India after it gains independence, a new concept of institutes that would train such work-force in the country itself was implemented. Higher Technical Institutions in the Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern regions of the country were establihed thus the creation of the IITs. It is the indigenisation of educational process that helped the successful transformation of IITs into world leading insitutes of technology.
Similary, in developing its defense technology and military hardware, India adopted this concept. The Indian Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Defense Public Sector Units (PSUs) become the backbone in this process. Through close partnership with foreign country like the then Uni Soviet, India succeeded in transforming itself from a buyer into a builder and developer of defense technology and military hardware. Self-reliance process through indigenisation over the years proved to be very effective in this transformation.
The success story of India’s defense technolgy transformation was witnessed the other day by the DPR’s delegates. Taken to tour India’s radar technological development site, the delegates were impressed and remarked that “it could be used as inputs for discussions in Jakarta.” This view echoed President SBY’s impression when he visited India in November 2005. However, it remains skeptical as to how the Indonesian government would exploit the Indian potentials, especially in defense area.
The fact that an MoU signed in 2001 was not even passed by the government for “procedural reasons”, let alone be ratified by the House, indicates Indonesia’s reluctance to consider India as important partner. India’s success story in developing a self-reliance system is yet to impress Indonesian leadership to take realistic actions in this direction. However, with the growing interests among international community to invest in India, Indonesia should not be left behind in this race.
Ratification of the current MoU on the limited Defense Cooperation could, in my opinion, be the starting point to rebuild Indonesia’s defense technology and military hardware. Training the military officers is important and expanding the scope of the MoU into wider area of defense cooperation such as exchange of defense technology or the procurement of military hardware could open up the exploitation process of India’s potentials in defense area. Indonesia should envy the success story of India’s Department of Defense.
The firm and steady progress of Indian government to develop its defense capabilities and to produce indigenous defense technologies and hardware to fulfill its domestic needs are examples of potentials yet to be exploited by Indonesia. Even though training of Indonesian military officers in Indian Defense College in New Delhi and vice versa has been regularly conducted, but the reluctance by the Indonesian government to pass on the Memorandum of Understanding in Defense Cooperation between the two countries signed in New Delhi, on 11 January 2001, to be ratified by the House can be seen as a stumbling block in this exploitation process.
For the record, the Indian government has already ratified this MoU and is awaiting a reciprocal decision from Indonesia. However, more than five years after the signing of the MoU in January 2001, the Indonesian government is yet to even pass the MoU to the House to be ratified and converted into an agreement. Indonesian Ambassador to India, Donillo Anwar, asked in an interview with an online Indian magazine Diplomatist of any specific reason as to why the MoU is yet to be ratified by Indonesia, said that, “Indonesia’s Department of Defense has been taking the necessary steps to fulfill internal institutional requirements that are needed to ratify the MoU on Defense Cooperation.”
But so far, these ‘necessary steps’ have not yet found any materialization in any form thus stalling the progress of the MoU into a meaningful agreement. It was on the basis of this fact that I raised the issue on the occasion to seek clearer explanation from the DPR’s delegates so as to find ways to fully explore and exploit the potentials in India, especially on area of defense.
To my dismay, my argument was “corrected” by the Ambassador. Proudly saying as a part of the team that formulated the MoU, he said that the MoU is “only” covering the field of trainings for military officers and not on any larger issues of defense cooperation such as exchange of defense technology or the procurement of military hardware. And since the defense cooperation, in this case exchange of military officers to undergo trainings in either countries, is ongoing, the Indonesian government assumed that there is no need to ratify the MoU and convert it into a more meaningful agreement in Defense Cooperation. Let’s try a different viewpoint in this matter.
Since its early days as a nation, India’s founding fathers have done great jobs in ensuring India’s capability to stand on its own through the adoption of the concept of swadeshi (self-fulfiment). From education to economy, defense and development, India has cemented this spirit successfully into the minds of its people. But how did this success story come? The answer is: indigenisation. Let’s take a brief look at the concept of India’s IITs and Department of Defense.
The concept of the IITs originated even before India gained independence in 1947. It was believed that the future prosperity of India would depend not so much on capital as on technology thus the setting up of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. To man those laboratories, hundreds of doctoral fellowships to USA under the Technology Cooperation Mission (TCM) programme were introduced. However realizing that such steps can't help in the long run for the development of India after it gains independence, a new concept of institutes that would train such work-force in the country itself was implemented. Higher Technical Institutions in the Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern regions of the country were establihed thus the creation of the IITs. It is the indigenisation of educational process that helped the successful transformation of IITs into world leading insitutes of technology.
Similary, in developing its defense technology and military hardware, India adopted this concept. The Indian Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Defense Public Sector Units (PSUs) become the backbone in this process. Through close partnership with foreign country like the then Uni Soviet, India succeeded in transforming itself from a buyer into a builder and developer of defense technology and military hardware. Self-reliance process through indigenisation over the years proved to be very effective in this transformation.
The success story of India’s defense technolgy transformation was witnessed the other day by the DPR’s delegates. Taken to tour India’s radar technological development site, the delegates were impressed and remarked that “it could be used as inputs for discussions in Jakarta.” This view echoed President SBY’s impression when he visited India in November 2005. However, it remains skeptical as to how the Indonesian government would exploit the Indian potentials, especially in defense area.
The fact that an MoU signed in 2001 was not even passed by the government for “procedural reasons”, let alone be ratified by the House, indicates Indonesia’s reluctance to consider India as important partner. India’s success story in developing a self-reliance system is yet to impress Indonesian leadership to take realistic actions in this direction. However, with the growing interests among international community to invest in India, Indonesia should not be left behind in this race.
Ratification of the current MoU on the limited Defense Cooperation could, in my opinion, be the starting point to rebuild Indonesia’s defense technology and military hardware. Training the military officers is important and expanding the scope of the MoU into wider area of defense cooperation such as exchange of defense technology or the procurement of military hardware could open up the exploitation process of India’s potentials in defense area. Indonesia should envy the success story of India’s Department of Defense.
Labels: Indian Defense
blog by Mas Qisa'i at 12:31:00 AM
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