As an Indian Navy board of inquiry investigates the Feb 26 disaster on board Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhuratna, a shattering twist has surfaced throwing up enormous questions for Navy and government leadership and their culpability. Just 96 hours before the accident, navy officer Lieutenant Manoranjan Kumar, one of two officers who perished on board, had spoken to seniors about how operating the INS Sindhuratna and her sister submarines was like 'sailing on a bomb'. A serving Indian Navy officer, one of the last to speak to Lt Manoranjan on shore before he departed on his final voyage, has blown the whistle on that final, disturbing conversation in which the ill-fated young officer is stated to have ruefully accepted his fate as a young officer with no choice but to set out to sea on a submarine that could well be his tomb. The officer, whose identity is being protected for obvious reasons, currently serves at the Western Naval Command, and has written in detail about his chance encounter with Lt Manoranjan on Feb 22 at the Naval Officers' Mess, an e-mail currently doing the rounds within the Indian Navy.
On condition that his identity be protected, the whistleblower officer has spoken in detail over the phone to Headlines Today about Lt Manoranjan's disturbing and prophetic conversation on shore before he set sail to test the INS Sindhuratna at sea before re-induction into the operational fleet. His conversation to Headlines Today and his e-mail to seniors in the Indian Navy, make for the most disturbing commentary on the unacceptable dangers being imposed on Indian submariners during peacetime, beyond the inherent risks of the job.
"Just last week, I sat opposite a dashing, flamboyant, square-jawed Lieutenant wearing a Submariner badge alongside a Divers' badge. Polite conversation done, I asked him about the submarine arm. His reply, typically direct of military youth, 'We sail on a bomb, Sir'", the serving officer has told Headlines Today. The officer quotes Lt Manoranjan as having said, "The batteries are so old that despite the ten times effort to maintain, they still produce ten times the gas. The hydrogen burners simply can't cope."
More disturbingly, when the officer asked Lt Manoranjan why he hadn't flagged the issue up the naval chain of command, the young officer is quoted to have said, "Sir, everybody is aware. It's a point at the Commander's Conference attended by the entire higher military leadership - navy and civilian," adding, "Battery pit fires are the order of the day sir."
As reported first by Headlines Today, it was expired batteries that likely caused the fatal gas leak in the battery pit and emergency response system that entombed Lt Manoranjan and fellow officer Lt Cdr Kapish Muwal into a compartment on board INS Sindhuratna, leading to their deaths from suffocation.
The whistleblower officer, has enunciated his shock and pain too. Speaking over the phone to Headlines Today, he said, "Later on I got a message that it was Lt Manoranjan Kumar who had died. It was a shock to know. Frankly speaking, I was shocked in a sense. Why did I wish him luck? I was shocked to remember the conversation. I felt terribly bad. I didn't sleep for two days. I had tears in my eyes. I had this conversation. [Lt Manoranjan Kumar] knew that an issue was there. Still he went there and laid down his life for the country. Plus I had the burden of this conversation where he describes, 'Sir, we are just... anything can happen, anytime'."
The officer has also told Headlines Today that his anger is shared by several in the navy who cannot, for obvious reasons, step up and speak out. He indicated that his encounter with Lt Manoranjan just four days before a death he had virtually foretold, was simply "too much to keep silent about".
"Some part of the accountability should be with the people seated at the Command and Naval Headquarters, where they are equally responsible. The ministry of defence is an integrated headquarters, but unfortunately they don't share the responsibility. I think it is the collective responsibility from the bottom, from the electrical officer who should have said that you can't sail, to the minister or the headquarters who are responsible for supplying these weapons. I think everybody down the chain is responsible," the officer said.
Also, as reported, a dramatic warning by the Navy in 2010 to the Defence Ministry on the dangerous state of affairs in the submarine arm, has been almost meticulously ignored for four years now.
While death is always an occupational hazard in military duties, the demise of Lt Manoranjan and his fellow officer has had a particularly grave effect on the naval rank and file.
In a paragraph that should concern the naval and Defence Ministry leadership, the officer says, "It leaves a personal - professional turbulence: personal touch and professional void. Should Lt Manoranjan, like every government official, have followed the 'laid down procedure' and evacuated when the alarm must have been sounded or was it laudable that he stayed back in the crammy battery pit to fight? I don't know. Is our nation capable of proving better? I don't know. Is the military hierarchy to blame or should the civilian chain also share the responsibility of this decay? I don't know. Is it the 'all's-well' people within the service or the unsympathetic and uncomprehending fools outside who killed him. I don't know!... Neither did Manoranjan. We just obey. Should we continue to just obey? I don't know."
The officer signs off with a deeply emotional declaration on responsibility: "One thing that Manoranjan knew was that we are sitting on a bomb. Should we keep it that way? And drown each boom with three volleys fired at the cremation ground. I don't think so. Mostly, the sentiment is that we get paid for it. Arguably, a little less, but offset by a tot of rum to compensate for it. In drinking for Lieutenant Manoranjan tonight, I drink for every Indian Naval Sailor who ventures out into the unknown storm. Whether this tempest be nature's fury or man-made, I salute Manoranjan. I extend apologies for my part in the collective responsibility of his death."
