Why Indian Army has only itself to blame for assault rifle fiasco
Time magazine had this to say on the ferocious battle of Rezang La in Ladakh in 1962 where an entire company of ill-equipped Indian Army soldiers, armed with bolt-action rifles, died to the last man resisting the Chinese. "The Indian Army soldier lacks almost everything but courage." Fifty-two years later little has changed. The Indian soldier continues to be among the worst equipped in the world. If the political leadership was essentially clueless in 1962, it remains like a distant yet indulgent parent in 2015. Always ready to promise funds for modernisation but unwilling to seek answers or demand accountability when existing funds are not utilised effectively. The Army has failed to provide the soldier with weather-proof combat boots, helmets or bulletproof vests. Now, it emerges, another basic requirement has joined this ignominious delay.
On June 15 this year, the Army cancelled a Rs 4,848 crore contract for 1.8 lakh assault rifles. This new rifle was meant to replace the vintage AK-47 and the problematic INSAS rifle currently in service.
A new rifle equipped with day/night sights that enhances the weapon's accuracy and an under-barrel grenade launcher, can change the game for an infantryman who currently uses the same weapon as his adversary.
The downstream effect of the world's second largest army buying a firearm to equip 1.2 million troops, are enormous. What the Army buys, everybody else buys. Orders from the navy, police and the paramilitary forces buy could push total production to over two million weapons.
The Army's tender, however, does not appear to have had any of this in mind. It drew up absurd qualitative requirements for this tender in 2011. It asked for a multi-calibre assault rifle (MCAR) - a cutting-edge weapon bought in small quantities even by specialist units like Delta Force and the Navy SEALS - to equip the entire Indian army. A super-expensive weapon capable of firing both INSAS and AK-47 ammunition by swapping barrels. But which cost six times the older guns. Not to talk of the logistical nightmare of carrying different barrels and different ammunition. All this for a soldier whose only requirement has been a simple, reliable and effective assault rifle fitted with day/night weapon sights. The tender amused weapon manufacturers. Two of the biggest, Germany's Heckler and Koch and Belgium's FN Herstal did not even respond. Possibly because they held their sides laughing. The five foreign firms that did participate - two of them rushed prototypes for the contest - must rue the day they did. Delhi's arms dealer circuit was abuzz with talk of the contract sparking off a battle between two arms agents, one of whom had allegedly got the rifle requirements tailor-made to help a gun he was hawking.
After a painful three-year process clearly doomed from the start, Army chief general Dalbir Singh was clearly left with no other option but to cancel the tender. It will now take between three to five years for the soldier to get a new weapon. This is an excellent opportunity for the Army set its house in order. It needs to bring in the professionals to look for a reliable weapon which will serve its soldiers for the next 20 years. Because if the Army cannot buy itself a basic requirement like a battle rifle, it raises serious questions about its ability to procure the other more complicated hardware like tanks, gunships and artillery on its wish list.