Mohammad Jamil
According to a story published in The Print, India’s nuclear-powered submarine, INS Chakra, the only operational nuclear-powered vessel, has suffered damage to its sonar dome in an accident and could require substantial repair work to get it back in shape. For the last one month, the attack submarine obtained on a 10-year lease from Russia is berthed at its home port of Visakhapatnam for repairs. While details of the incident are not known, sources said that the damage could be the result of either a collision at sea or accidental scraping while entering the harbour. Repair work on the submarine is likely to be complicated given that the sonar dome is made of titanium, a metal that requires both specialised machinery and manpower to work on. The Visakhapatnam harbour has recorded incidents in the past when warships have touched the bottom while navigating the tight water channel.
Inducted in April 2012, INS Chakra is a modernised Russian Akula-II class submarine, known as one of the stealthiest in the world after American vessels of similar class. Chakra was taken on a 10-year lease in 2012, and is negotiating with Russia for another nuclear-powered submarine. With two such submarines, how Indian Army (IA) Chief of Staff General Bipin Rawat said that his country must be prepared for a simultaneous “two-front war” against neighbouring China and Pakistan? Speaking at a seminar at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi on 6 September, Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said: “Despite all three countries possessing nuclear arms, warfare lies within the realm of reality along India’s northern and western borders with China and Pakistan. China has already started flexing its muscles by trying to nibble away at Indian territory in a gradual manner to test its threshold limits.”
It has to be mentioned that one of two BAE Systems M777 155 mm/39-calibre lightweight howitzers (LWHs) acquired by the Indian Army this May malfunctioned on 2 September during field firing at Pokhran, in India’s northwestern state of Rajasthan. India faces challenge in the form of strategic encirclement by china. Now, china has 68 submarines. 6 of them are SSBN (nuclear powered, ballistic missile submarines). China already has at least four type 094/094A ballistic missile submarines and at least five Type 093/093G attack submarines, so it is speculated that the new facility is to build the successor third-generation classes of Type 096 ballistic missile submarines and Type 095 attack submarines. The new submarines will be built using modular fabrication techniques. The projection is made that Chinese nuclear submarine production will double its rate within two to three years.
China currently has about three submarine production lines and can build 5 to 6 submarines at one time. On the other hand, India has 15 submarines and 1 of them is an SSBN on lease from Russia and another is newly inducted INS Arihanth an SSBN; but this cannot match the China’s capabilities. In 2009, India had revealed its intentions about preparing for a possible `two-front war’ with China and Pakistan. According to a newspaper’s report, “Indian Army is now revising its five-year-old doctrine to effectively meet the challenges of war with China and Pakistan, deal with asymmetric and fourth-generation warfare, and enhance strategic reach and joint operations with IAF and Navy. Work on the new war doctrine – to reflect the reconfiguration of threat perceptions and security challenges – is already underway under the aegis of Shimla-based Army Training Command.”
The head of the then command Lt. General AS Lamba had gone so far as to say that a massive thrust in Rawalpindi to quiet Pakistanis within 48 hours of the start of the assault. He bragged that the armed forces have to substantially enhance their strategic reach and out-of-area capabilities to protect India’s geo-political interests stretching from Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait. But India has disputes with almost all the neighboring countries. Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are wary of India’s interference in their internal affairs. India has row over territory with China, which claims some 90000 square kilometer of Arunachal Pradesh, which was once a part of Tibet. But India takes the plea that it is part of India, which it inherited from the British Raj.
The first Chinese Premier Zhou En Lai had written to Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru rejecting latter’s contention that the border was based on 1914 treaty of Simla Convention, adding that Chinese government had not accepted McMohan Line as legal. It appears that Asia is going to be the next theatre of war, thanks to the US and the West’s machinations as well as India’s ambitions to be a regional power rather world power with their support. But India can never be a regional power in the presence of China; and it should be kept in mind that geography cannot be changed.
