A close examination at the Indo-Russian partnership reveals that while the special relationship in defence cooperation still exists between the two countries, India no longer enjoys the earlier advantage of soft loans and easy NCR payments

India was the mainstay of The Soviet Union’s post World War II desire to foster closer relations with the then Third World countries. The relationship began with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to the Soviet Union in June 1955 and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s return trip to India in the fall of 1955. The cordial relations were cemented into a state of perpetuity when Khrushchev, while in India, announced that the Soviet Union supported Indian sovereignty over the disputed territory of the Kashmir region and also the Portuguese coastal enclaves. The Soviet Union went a step further by declaring its neutrality during the 1959 Sino-Indian border dispute and the Indo-China war of 1962. India received substantial economic and military assistance from the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev period.

In 1962, India suffered a debilitating military defeat and humiliation at the hands of the Chinese, accentuating the need for a hitherto peaceloving and non-violent nation to build a military machine capable of safeguarding its security interests. On account of multitudinous factors least understood by the capitalist Western world—the stated policy of non-alignment seeking friendship with all and conflict with none; a democratic form of governance promoting socialism with a highly controlled economy—India was excluded from the coterie of the developed world that was in direct ideological, political and military confrontation with the communist Soviet Union. Denied access to modern military technology by the West following the Sino-Indian conflict, India turned to the Soviets who welcomed the opportunity with open arms, offering the latest weapon systems and technologies on highly favourable terms. For instance, the Soviet Union agreed to transfer the technical knowhow to license-produce the MiG-21 jet fighters in India, which it had earlier denied to even China. The net result, after four-and- half decades of partnership is that a bulk of the inventory of the armed forces of India worth billions of dollars and defence production capability are of Russian origin.

The most outstanding features of the Indo-Soviet defence cooperation included near friendship prices for the defence equipment, soft loans with very low interest rates, and easy non-convertible rupee (NCR) payments. All defence equipment was bought through government-to-government deals without tendering and while the equipment was demonstrated in the host countries, no trials were held in India prior to the final selection. This highly favourable arrangement prompted India’s defence planners to move headlong into acquiring a variety of Soviet combat equipment. All three wings of the armed forces were flooded with offensive and defensive weapon systems. If the Indian Army had most of its armour, guns and missiles of Soviet origin, the Indian Navy was afloat largely on the Soviet platforms—be it destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and even missile boats. That is not all; its sub-surface fleets were also almost fully made up of Soviet submarines. The Indian Air Force (IAF) went one step further by acquiring the entire range of MiG fighters starting from MiG-21s and then moving on to MiG-23s, MiG-25s, MiG-27s; all the way up to MiG-29s. In addition, Su-7 strike aircraft were also inducted in the late 1960s, which lasted for almost two decades before their retirement. The IAF also acquired transport aircraft such as the IL-14, An-12, An-32, and Il-76 in large numbers. Even the rotary wing force predominantly consisted of the Soviet models such as the Mi-4, Mi-8, Mi-17, Mi-26 and Mi-25, and so on. The picture was no different in the defencive equipment arena with all surface-to-air missile systems and most of the radar systems comprising Soviet brands.

However, the longlasting Indo-Soviet defence matrimony came crashing down with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The disintegration of the Soviet empire was also a turning point in the history of the Russian defence industry. The Russian economy was in complete disarray, and the defence production facilities were fragmented and scattered in the different republics no longer tethered to Moscow. The end of the Cold War also eroded the market for Russian weapons among the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries, pushing the Russian defence industry to the brink of collapse. At this stage, it was India that rose to the occasion inspite of all constraints to not only bailing out the Russian defence industry by placing fresh orders for new equipment but also agreeing to the Russian demand of all transactions to be conducted in hard dollar currency. India even went a step further to accommodate Russia’s somewhat unjust but desperate demand of payment of even the ongoing loans from the NCR mode to dollar payment. The IAF selected the top-of-the-line combat aircraft from Sukhoi, the Su-30, a developed version of the Su-27 platform. The version customised for the IAF was designated Su-30 MKI (‘I’ denoting India). The Indian Army went ahead to acquire the T-90 S tanks and the Navy ordered a multitude of surface and sub-surface vessels to bolster up its fleets.