Asserting that there is a great need to allot a large chunk of national budget to Defence, former Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. (Dr.) N. S. Malik said the India’s defence preparedness had been at the lowest since 1962.
He said the nation needed to spend at least 3 per cent of its GDP on Defence whereas UPA reduced it to 1.7 per cent. If all the black money was brought back it would meet the expenditure, he said. Warfare is now multi-faceted without a shot being fired as powerful neighbouring countries could resort to cyber war and space war.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Malik said the Army itself had been without a gun since 1987 when it had 400 Bofors guns against a requirement of 1,600. Now it needs 3,000. The air force needed 126 aircraft. The Navy needs to upgrade its ships in view of the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean.
He said national security was not safe at the hands of the UPA government. There was need for a strong leader such as Narendra Modi at the Centre, he said.
The NDA government had appointed the Subrahmanyam Committee to go into the few lapses of the Kargil War and constituted groups of ministers under four heads. The UPA I and II governments did nothing in spite of firm demands for implementation of the recommendations and only appointed the Naresh Chandra Committee.
Lt. Gen. Malik said the way in which the Navy Chief’s resignation was accepted without his meeting the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to help understand how things went wrong had shown the sorry state of affairs. It was the Defence Minister who should have resigned, he said. Answering questions, Brig (Retd) Raj Bahadur Sharma said China and Pakistan would rehash their policies after the elections and India had to respond on terms of equality and not that of saturation or surrender.
