Heavy reliance on Western models of warfare and the rhetoric of US- and UK-based think tanks has held back India’s strategic development.
New Delhi: Twenty years ago, the Indian Navy prepared its war doctrine for 2025, which envisaged Indians sending expeditionary forces to different parts of the world. It turned out that the doctrine drafted by an Indian Navy vice admiral was unfortunately an iteration of the American Expeditionary Force’s doctrine and was later abandoned because India, by the late 1990s, could barely afford it. ability to launch naval air strikes against world superpowers at the time. Although promoted by the Navy chief at the time, the doctrine was rejected by the Naval Command.
Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized the need to decolonize India’s thinking as part of the ‘Paanch Prans’ announced on the 75th Independence Day in 2022, the strategic thinking of India is still heavily influenced by Western terminology. This not only permeates the training institutions of the Indian armed forces and is also reflected in theses, even at the higher command level. The downside is that future Indian warriors have a Western approach to a problem that has a regional/civilizational context, which is underappreciated and seen as baggage from history India or the ancient past.
Even in high-level national security organizations or war academies, words like “maximalism”, “progressivism”, “global joint”, “kinetic and non-kinetic weapons” ” and “multilateralism” are an integral part of the common language. in American think tanks. In the higher defense establishment, the war strategists most often mentioned are the Chinese Sun Tzu or the Prussian General Carl Von Clausewitz, with or without context, not the Indian strategist Chanakya , alias Vishnugupt, of the Mauryan period.
The heavy reliance on Western models of warfare and the rhetoric of US and UK based think tanks has actually held back India’s strategic development, as we happily when modeled on Western solutions to inherently Indian problems. It is in this context that Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the Indian Navy to celebrate Chhatrapati Shivaji’s Sindhudurg Navy Day to showcase India’s maritime heritage. It is for this reason that the seal of the Maratha Emperor was included in the flag of the Indian Navy and on the Shivaji-inspired shoulder straps for Indian Navy personnel. It’s all part of clearing away vestiges of the colonial era for a maritime force that had displayed the St. George colony until the INS Vikrant was commissioned in 2022. The cross itself was replaced by the seal of the Maratha emperor. , who had the same maritime vision as the Chola emperor Rajendra Chola over the centuries.
Since India has ambitions to sit high globally, it must develop unique thinking and strategic solutions in the Indian context and not just imitate Western concepts. “Atmanirbhar Bharat” is not limited to making India a military-industrial power but must also inspire unique strategic thinking.
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