Lone Ranger & Tonto

Lone Ranger and Tonto

Amongst the sea of bad news ranging from Rahul Gandhi’s characterisation of poverty as ‘a state of mind’, to the impunity with which Pakistani commandos kill our soldiers on our territory; the launch of the hull  and basic ship to be outfitted as a 40,000 tons aircraft- carrier and the nuclear reactor on the India built ‘Arihant’ submarine going critical, is most encouraging.

The Indian Defence Industry could be the great white hope of our resurrection as an economy if the private companies are allowed to power on into this space as announced recently, but alas, not for the first time. If one is in the habit of holding one’s breath when it comes to policy implementation in India, one could easily die of asphyxiation!

Meanwhile, the Lone Ranger film starring Johnny Depp as the weirdly portrayed Tonto, the Red Indian Scout, has apparently bombed at the box office. But some news has surfaced simultaneously on the real life Lone Ranger.

The beloved fictional character of the comic books and early days TV serials, with the leather eye mask, was apparently modelled on a 19^th century black slave, Bass Reeves from Arkansas,  who was a fantastic shot, became a US Deputy Marshall, and apprehended thousands of criminals.

In the comic books, TV serial and ever more thereafter, the Lone Ranger has been indubitably White. Besides, the very popular Mr. Depp, who plays Tonto in his latest airing, implies he is a natural, and has long claimed some Red Indian blood flows in his veins.

Acceptability in social manners and mores, attitudes and prejudices, all change in time, so one does not have to guess, particularly, even if a black man does come to dinner these days.

And so it can conceivably not be a stretch to one day see Indian naval ships and nuclear submarines and indeed missiles and aircraft carriers, as billions of dollars- worth of desirable purchase by countries who cannot make such things.

Instead of a single- minded devotion to the US and European made alternatives, that is. But then this is about very serious GDP bending money, but nothing that can’t be finessed by the right arms agents.

America’s balance of payments position literally depends on its high-tech exports of military hardware/software as well as civilian aircraft and super computers. They have long ago outsourced the manufacture of all the simple stuff to China, making their fortune in turn.  India, Bangladesh, The Philippines, parts of South America, sundry others, are also in on the act to a lesser extent.

And in a way, this high-tech and armament export does their credit rating and ability to borrow such formidable sums of money, a world of good. With the world ever eager to buy US Treasury Bonds in trillions of US debt, confident about its ability to repay and festooned with a AAA rating.

The US has great leadership in such areas, awesome R&D, and the wherewithal to keep excelling in this arms race. Europeans such as the British, the French, some of the South European countries, Russia and Israel, make up the rest of the relatively short list of global arms manufacturers and merchants. India and China are just starting in on this invincibly lucrative pie.

But when it comes to a war, do combatants want made in India armaments or Chinese aircraft? Not if they can afford the Western alternatives, and not until the Indian and Chinese arms are properly tested in the battle-field as worthy of being called alternatives at all. Let us hope they are not tested on each other, or on proxy interference as in Pakistan.

And yet, it is not inconceivable that the world could buy Indian military hardware/software. If it was, India and China and even Pakistan would not be nuclear powers today.  

We, in India seem to be moving not only to the much talked about ‘Triad Capability’ in the launch of nuclear weapons from platforms on land, sea and air, from fixed and mobile targets, simultaneously if necessary, in devastating retaliation for any first strike against us.

A first strike that will not however have the ability of knocking out our capacity to retaliate with the force of total destruction.

And we seem to be moving in the direction of self-help for most military needs going into the future. This will secure our own strategic interests most satisfactorily, and give us the wherewithal to preside over a GDP fixing arms export capability of our own.

So until demilitarisation is a reality in this troubled world, the viable dream of military deterrence and self- sufficiency will just have to do.

We may be years away from this in actualisation terms, but Mr. Narendra Modi has shown a keen interest in promoting the Indian self-defence industry. He wants to incorporating private players for speed of execution, requisite finances including FDI and joint- venturing in this sector, and technology induction and further development indigenously.

From an economic point of view this might save us a lot of money for our own ever growing military upgradation needs, and set us up to serve the military requirements of other countries, at least in our South Asian neighbourhood if not farther afield.

(867 words)

August 11^th, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee