HIGH HOPES, LOW YIELD

Military transfer of technology is tricky business and the latest defence deal with the US has failed to meet expectations

- SANJIB KR BARUAH

In 2001, the first of the T-90 tanks rumbled along on Indian soil. It was powered by engines made in a tractor plant in Chelyabinsk, in west central Russia, and assembled in a Uralvagonzavod factory. It was bought on condition that the subsequent batches would be mass produced at the Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi, Tamil Nadu, under a transfer of technology regime. But, it was not that smooth.

Though the handover began in 2001, the documents were in Russian. They could all be translated into English only by 2007, causing a critical delay in absorbing Russian tank technology. There were murmurs in South Block that it may have been a ploy to delay technology handover, despite the traditionally close relationship with Russia. In some critical T-90 tank assemblies, documents were not transferred till July 2013.

Similarly, the Russian-origin fighter aircraft Sukhoi Su-30 first appeared over Indian skies in 2002. Even after more than two decades of being operated by the Indian Air Force and despite being mass produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, there are areas of aero-engine technology Russia has withheld.

In a nutshell, in defence deals, the selling nation’s strategic interests rule and there is reluctance to share military know-how with the buying state. That is why the June 22 defence deals between India and the US—in the backdrop of growing bonhomie—have an inevitable business-like ring to them.

Hopes were high in New Delhi of a generous transfer of technology (ToT) because of the US interest to prop up India as a “strategic partner” in the Indo-Pacific to counter China and the fact that the deals were to be wrapped up during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, which followed US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s June 4-5 India tour.