Manohar Parrikar, the current Chief Minister of Goa and former Defence Minister of India who had been valiantly fighting against cancer for some time year, passed away on March 17^th, 2019. During his long political career one of the posts that he held was that of Defence Minister between Nov 2014 & March 2017. His tenure as Defense Minister might have been a short tenure of just 28 months but it certainly was impactful in whole host of ways.

After the 2014 election when the BJP led NDA government came to power the Defence portfolio was initially handed to Arun Jaitley. Arun Jaitely in the beginning of the term was handling not only Defence (but also 3 other major ministries) Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting simultaneously. Eventually the PM decided to appoint to Manohar Parrikar as a Defence Minister to have a sole person dedicate all his time & efforts to this crucial ministry. Manohar Parrikar was initially referred to as a reluctant ‘Raksha Mantri’. Being a new comer in New Delhi (his time was all spent in local politics in Goa) he took some time to adjust to his new surroundings but eventually took like a fish (incidentally his favorite food) to water.

Rafale:

As I had written before on the Rafale debate that after the Rafale was selected for the MMCRA in 2012, the final negotiations got stuck till the UPA government demitted office in May 2014 on several issues like amount of man hours required to produce the aircraft in India, etc. Manohar Parrikar realized that they were going nowhere with Dassault in regards to the MMCRA. Since the DPP (Defence Procurement Policy) rules don’t allow India to negotiate with the next lowest L-2 bidder (Eurofighter) India was now in a quandary. So PM Narendra to break out this logjam in April 2015 signed a deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets directly from France in a G-G (government to government) deal. A few days after 36 aircraft purchase announcement was made Manohar Parrikar said this about the Rafale: 'It is a strategic purchase and should never have gone through an RFP (Request for Proposals, or a competitive tender).'

LCA Tejas Mark 1A:

After placing an initial order of 40 planes for the Tejas Mark I fighter jets the IAF was reluctant to place orders for the future enhanced Mark II version due to the slow production of Mark 1 airplanes & the Mark II being quite a few years away in the early 2020’s. So to solve the problem as suggested by HAL, Parrikar supported the initiative to have an interim Mark 1A variant (which has few upgrades over the Mark 1) & helped push through a decision which led to a decision to purchase 83 Mark 1A aircraft. Without his push the there was a possibility that the LCA Tejas program would have been shut down in absence of new orders.

Artillery:

The Indian Army has not acquired any new artillery guns since the Bofors scandal in the late 1980’s. Since then multiple times tenders had been floated just to be cancelled for a whole host of reasons. During his tenure it was decided to clear a proposal to purchase 814 artillery guns with 100 to be imported & rest to be manufactured in India (by Bharat Forge, L&T & Tata) at a cost of Rs. 15,750 Crore. The CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) in 2016 approved the purchase of two more Pinaka multi barrel rocket launcher regiments & one more regiment of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.

Ammunition, Spares & Equipment:

As per a CAG report, the armed forces stocks of certain types of ammunitions & spares had in some cases fallen to such low levels that it would last barely for 10 days in times of conflict/war. Parrikar asked the Ministry of Defence to invoke the government’s emergency financial powers to sign contracts with arms manufacturers to procure ammunition and spares to cover these shortfalls.
After a large deal to acquire 1.86 lakh bullet proof jackets was scrapped when none of the competitors met the standards laid down by the Army an emergency purchase of 50,000 jackets was done in 2016 to cover the demand.

OROP:

The OROP (One Rank One Pension) demand by the military veterans who had served in the armed forces since several years came to fruition during his tenure as the Defence Minister. He was involved deeply in the discussion over OROP: for e.g. he was involved in helping to work out the arithmetic behind the massive new outlay required to cover OROP, multiple rounds of talks with veterans (including meetings in his office) to work out the issues with OROP, etc.

Surgical Strikes:

The cross border surgical strikes in both Myanmar in 2015 & later in PoK in 2016 occurred when he was the Defence Minister. This was a paradigm shift from India’s earlier policy of not crossing the border with its neighbors.  This was to show that if India’s security is threatened India will not hesitate to cross over to inflict harm on the non-state adversaries taking shelter in other nations territories.

Defence Procurement Policy:

Parrikar appointed a committee of experts to review the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP). The committee proposed several revision to the policy such as increasing the limit on purchase amounts at which offsets are applicable, focus more on procuring locally designed & manufactured military hardware (i.e. an emphasis on ‘make in India’), allow single vendor purchases,  Strategic Partnership, etc. This Strategic Partnership recommendation by the Committee was a big decision where MoD was looking for long term strategic partnerships with private players locally to build up additional capacities in six strategic segments such as aircraft/helicopters, warships/submarine, armoured vehicle, missiles, command and control system and critical materials. The Strategic Partnership Model approval by the DAC (Defence Acquisition Council) did come about later in 2018 after he left office but discussions on it were started during his time.

Chinook/Apache:

His tenure saw the orders being placed for the purchase of 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters in a deal worth well over $2B. The negotiations for these helicopter deals which were not completed during the previous government tenure were finally completed during his time in office.

Air Defences:

Manohar Parrikar has been said to have been a voracious reader with attention for fine detail. He saw also the foresight for long term planning for the military vs ad hoc system of small and/or emergency purchases. He ordered a review of the 15 year long term plan to purchase new air defense systems up to 2027. This resulted in arriving at a determination that once India purchases the S-400 long range missile system fewer shorter & medium range air to air missile systems (~100 less as per some reports) would be needed to be purchased for air defence. This decision by itself led to a saving of Rs. 49,300 crore!

Committee of Experts (litigation & redressal of grievances):

A committee of experts was setup by Parrikar in Nov 2015 to review of service and pension matters which resulted in disputes, grievances & litigation. This was the first time after independence that a step was taken in the MoD initiated by Parrikar.

LEMOA

LEMOA Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), an India-specific version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) was signed during his time where he was involved in the discussions regarding it.

MALABAR

Originally an annual exercise with 2 permanent members India & USA, in 2015 Japan was added as a permanent member of this exercise going forward.

Manohar Parrikar had an eye for detail & was at ease with the multifaceted details of defence & strategic affairs. This is what had perplexed & befuddled many former Defence Ministers in their tenures at the helm of the Defence portfolio. His IIT background no doubt would have been useful in this regard & he was described by many as a technocrat. He understood how to navigate the world of push & pull between the armed forces, MoD, arms vendors & state run DPSUs. He formed various committees to look into the challenges facing the armed forces & do long term planning while having them submit reports quickly regarding the same.

He helped overcome some of the neglect in the upgradation & re-armament that the armed forces had suffered during the previous dispensation in New Delhi. He unfortunately was not able to push through some reforms like appointment of Chief of defence staff (CDS), increase India’s low spending on defence, new tri-Service commands for space, cyber and special operations, etc. but the positives far outweigh the negatives during his brief tenure.

He was not without controversy as he got into trouble about his off the cuff remarks like once when proposed that terror from across the border be countered with terror. Pakistan Army Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif remarked in a reply that that “Kashmir was an unfinished agenda of the partition”. Manohar Parrikar then cheekily replied back saying "I will not go into what Pakistan feels about that but unko mirchi, wo bhi Andhra ki, lagi hai (they have got the taste of chilly, that too, Andhra chilly),” At another time while speaking at a book launch while questioning India’s No First Use (NFU) policy on nuclear weapons he set the cat among the pigeons! But then he clarified that “this is my thinking” and that India’s nuclear doctrine hadn’t changed. “Why should I bind myself? I should say I am a responsible nuclear power and I will not use it irresponsibly. This is my thinking,” Parrikar said in response to a question about the unpredictability in warfare strategy.  He had even talked about using both overt & covert methods to deal with our neighbor who was spreading terror within our borders.

Sandeep Unnithan in his column eulogizing Manohar Parrikar said “A grassroots politician, Parrikar had the spartan, easy accessibility of George Fernandes and the scrupulous honesty of AK Antony, two of his long-tenured predecessors”. After the 2017 assembly elections which resulted in a hung assembly it took Manohar Parrikar back to Goa where he became CM in a coalition government. This was no doubt a big loss for the armed forces & the nation & one can only wonder how more could have been achieved if was still in office for the full 5 years. However his legacy will shine bright even years down the road with all the steps undertaken during his time as the Defence Minister. It looks likely that performance of future Defence Ministers will be compared against the high benchmarks that he did set during his tenure.

REFERENCES

https://swarajyamag.com/defence/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-rafale-deal-but-didnt-know-where-to-ask

https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/parrikar-cuts-gordian-knot-to-boost-tejas-line-115100200031_1.html

http://www.ipcs.org/comm_select.php?articleNo=5245

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/manohar-parrikars-defence-rejig-saved-rs-49300-crore/articleshow/51366381.cms?utm_source=twitter_amp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialsharebuttons&from=mdrhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/68453727.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pak-has-got-a-taste-of-andhra-mirchi-255505-2015-06-04

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/parrikar-questions-no-first-use-policy-mod-says-it-is-his-personal-opinion/story-BDtyPr5VPzd6AkjrfXlSLN.html

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/manohar-parrikar-had-the-spartan-easy-accessibility-of-george-fernandes-1480531-2019-03-18