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TThe ever-increasing range, speed, accuracy and destructive power of firepower has been on continuous display in the Russia-Ukraine war for nearly eight months. The lethality of weapons is often demonstrated through their effect on civilian infrastructure – collapsed buildings, cratered roads, twisted power poles and civilian corpses. Missiles, drones and artillery are the dominant vectors that bring destruction and damage to permanent structures that can be easily identified and targeted.
The effectiveness of firepower and the degree of difficulty of defense are inversely proportional to the distance to the target. This is certainly not a new lesson for India’s national security planners as they decide on the location for strategic infrastructure. But there seems to be a growing tendency at the national level not to give such decisions the weight that national security imposes. Two recent decisions of the central government are perhaps revealing as both relate to the siting of strategic infrastructure facilities in the state of Gujarat.
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Strategic importance of Gujarat
Gujarat is a frontline state that shares both land and sea borders with Pakistan. The state has historically been a major industrial and commercial hub of the country which continues to attract major projects. Its industrial products include pharmaceuticals, chemicals, refineries and petrochemicals, ceramics, textiles, automobiles, cotton, diamond cutting and polishing among others. In agriculture, Gujarat is a producer of cotton, groundnut, dates, sugarcane, milk and milk products. Several ports on its coast act as channels for national and international trade. The strategic importance of Gujarat as an economic hub is obvious. Such importance also hides a strategic vulnerability due to its proximity to Pakistan – one that will only increase as Pakistan develops a greater capacity for long-range firepower from China. It is a process that is already underway and can be expected to continue.
It is certainly the case that all strategically important assets in all parts of the country can be expected to be within range of China and Pakistan through land-based or ocean-based vectors. But strategically, if distance can provide relatively better protection, it must also play a role in ‘location’ decisions. Undoubtedly, there are other major factors to consider, such as the availability of human capital, as well as the support of industrial and natural ecosystems. Commercial considerations play a major role, but cannot be allowed to become the overriding factor affecting decision-making power if strategic vulnerability prevails. Essentially, this decision-making perspective must encompass a much larger space that goes beyond the advantages given to any particular state.
It is not known whether a policy has been framed to guide the location of strategically important infrastructure. In any case, under existing guidelines, when a decision on such matters has to be taken, the ministry/department handling such cases is required to consult the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) which provides services to the National Security Council (NSC) and is overseen by the Agency for National Security (NSA). However, it appears that such consultation was not always carried out. On October 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded his ministers and secretaries to analyze the strategic point of view while making policies. He even pointed out cases where NSHS notes were not given importance.
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Gujarat’s vulnerability demands attention
The strategic vulnerability factor in Gujarat does not seem to have received the kind of attention it deserves, especially when one considers the recent decisions regarding the location of a large semiconductor and aircraft manufacturing facility. Both would certainly qualify as infrastructural elements falling under the national security basket due to their strategic impact on India’s national security if damaged or destroyed.
The Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture plans to invest nearly Rs 1.5 crore to set up a semiconductor manufacturing unit, a display manufacturing unit and a semiconductor assembly and testing unit in Gujarat. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was recently signed with the state government and efforts are underway to identify around 1,000 hectares of land that meets certain stringent criteria. This includes requirements such as distance from highways to prevent vibrations caused by the movement of heavy vehicles. Procedurally, such MoU should be signed only after consultation with the Center and after taking inputs from NSCS. Unless, of course, the consultation was deemed necessary because it had no national security implications. If this is the case, there is nothing to prevent the NSCS from dealing with the matter.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) signed a Rs 21,935 crore contract with Airbus Defense and Space for 56 C-295 transport aircraft to modernize the Indian Air Force’s fleet by replacing the aging Avro-748 aircraft, first inducted in the 1960s. . This marked a major milestone in the much-vaunted journey of the Atmanirbharta, as it was the first time that a private consortium was to manufacture a military aircraft in India. On October 30, 2022, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for a manufacturing facility set up by the Tata-Airbus consortium at Vadodara in Gujarat. The decision to locate the facility in Gujarat instead of Maharashtra is part of ongoing political unrest in the state, with the opposition accusing the current Shiv Sena-Bharati Janata Party government of being asleep at the wheel while Gujarat walked away with the investment cake. There is reason to wonder whether the strategic implications of its location in terms of long-term vulnerability have been considered.
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Sensitization of security planners
The answers to the above questions, including those related to Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductors, will be buried in the classified files of the central government. But there is no reason not to ask parliamentary questions about the existence of a political document on the installation of strategically important infrastructure. Why were semiconductor and transport aircraft projects awarded to Gujarat despite its relative vulnerability as opposed to exploiting India’s continental depth?
It can also be expected that the answer to the MP’s question will hide more than it reveals. But it can at least provide an impetus to sensitize security planners to take appropriate actions to improve strategic decision-making. At the very least, it could facilitate the expression of professional opinions on the file that the political leadership may be reluctant to reject. Because it is never easy, at least on paper, for narrow political views to strangle the interests of national security. Most politicians would shy away from a paper trail that betrays their domestic compulsions.
If there is nothing on paper about these two projects being passed through the strategic sieve, then it would be unacceptable from a strategic and security point of view, as well as from a liability point of view. More caution is definitely needed in these matters.
Lt. Gen. (Dr) Prakash Menon (Retd) is Director, Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institution; former military advisor, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @prakashmenon51. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
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