While India’s defence budget has slid to an alarming figure of less than 2 per cent of the GDP, its neighbours Pakistan and China continue to spend between 4 to 6 per cent of their respective GDPs on defence.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s Budget may have won accolades and many a sobriquet—mother of all budgets, a common man’s budget, everybody’s budget, election year budget—on the defence expenditure front, however, any hopes of a departure from the mundane and staid announcements of the previous years have proved to be thoroughly misplaced. Two-liner pronouncements were a jaded repeat of the previous years: the customary 10 per cent hike (primarily to counter domestic and international inflation) and a vague assurance that, if required, more funds would be provided to meet defence needs. Fact is, for the first time in over the last four decades India’s defence budget has plummeted to less than 2 per cent of the GDP. A similar dip was seen in 1962, the year India suffered an ignominious and shameful defeat at the hands of the Chinese. That was also the time when India’s political leadership had refused to address the country’s military vulnerabilities. India lost to the Chinese not because the Indian armed forces failed to measure up to the adversary, but owing to the refusal of the ruling establishment to acknowledge ground realities. Like last year, the UPA Government has once again failed to realise the need to spend a fair amount of the GDP on defence. When computed as a percentage of GDP, defence expenditure provides a clear indication of the investment a country is willing to make to meet its security concerns. This is a clear yardstick and a universally accepted norm.