I have often been disappointed with discussions here concerning India. Most topics and nations can be discussed here in a generally productive manner. Unfortunately it is clear that many of the posters who frequent the India threads here do so not of out any genuine interest in the status and ongoing development of India's armed forces, industry, or economy, but solely in order to mock India's (lack of) achievements, the gap between rhetoric and action. A kind of "bad faith" engagement is the rule, rather the exception, and that is regrettable.
For those of us who are willing to discuss Indian matters in "good faith", the difficulty arises in that there is indeed much to criticise about India's MIC. The LCA saga perhaps rightfully takes top billing, but there are no shortage of other examples of programs being subject to astonishing delays coupled with endless reworks, leading to self-inflicted harms. To take just one other current example, we see the ongoing deterioration of India's conventional submarine capabilities while foreign vendors are declining to engage with an RFP that apparently asks vendors for "everything and the kitchen sink" in technology transfer, while guaranteeing the performance of Indian companies sub-contracted under the program, and with dubious requirements such as mature, operational AIP that both halves the field of potential vendors, and which India ostensibly has access to courtesy of its own development efforts anyway! So now the latest indications are that the can is going to be kicked further down the road yet again, and India will probably eventually end up extending the Scorpene contract, no doubt on terms that are very favourable to France, in order to avoid a ruinous crash in the inventory. My point is, it is difficult to watch these sagas play out for any length of time without becoming deeply skeptical and cynical, and it is difficult to the avoid the conclusion that India is held back more by its own delusions of grandeur, kafkaesque institutions, byzantine bureaucracy, and a political class that is apparently both too distractible and too corruptible, than by any lack of technology or of funding. Real progress is being made, and in the long-term I do believe that India's achievements will be more than sufficient to disturb the established powers of this world (many of whom seem to be under the illusion, just as they were with China, that India will stay in its box forever), but surely this must be one of the ugliest races that has ever been run.
I guess the reason I am writing this, in light of how things have unfolded these past few pages, is because I do not wish to be associated with the kinds of posters who only wish to see India fail, and I regret if my recent posts have been interpreted in that vein. I would like to see a healthier atmosphere in discussions of Indian matters here, an atmosphere where questions and criticism are motivated by good-faith attempts at understanding, rather than by scorn and hostility, but I don't know if that is possible.
