A Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) is a type of Deep Submergence Vehicle used for rescue of downed submarines and clandestine missions
On the 50th anniversary of the Navy’s submarine arm, a wake-up call on acquiring dedicated rescue vessel
by C Uday Bhaskar
Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba provided the appropriate context for the 50th anniversary of the Indian Navy’s submarine arm, which falls on December 8, when he indicated that the steadily shrinking force levels of the ‘boats’ would be augmented in a significant manner over the next two decades.
Acquisition Plan
Admiral Lanba detailed an ambitious acquisition plan for the Indian Navy that includes six diesel electric Scorpene-class submarines; three SSBNs (nuclear-propelled submarines equipped with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile) to follow INS Arihant; and six SSNs (nuclear-propelled submarines) used in an attack role. When all these boats are operationally inducted, India will have a very credible underwater capability with a judicious mix of conventional and nuclear-propelled submarines.
India acquired its first submarine, the INS Kalvari, on December 8, 1967, six years after the Navy acquired its first aircraft carrier in 1961. In the intervening decades, the nation and its Navy have graduated to designing and indigenously building SSBNs — the INS Arihant. Concurrently, the Navy is also invested in building conventional boats in India through partnership programmes with foreign suppliers. For the record, India is the first country in the world to move straight to designing and building an SSBN, without moving up the scale from conventional boats and then SSNs.
This level of professional accomplishment in the underwater domain has been realised against many odds and much of this has been possible due to the dedication and rigorous professionalism of the human resource that lies at the core of the submarine arm, from its formative years to where it is now poised. Thus it is appropriate that the President’s Colours will be presented to the dolphin arm on Friday in Visakhapatnam.
Submariners the world over are aware that they have chosen what may be the most hazardous and high-risk military specialisation and have internalised the ‘iron-coffin’ syndrome. This is the unstated anxiety of the stoic submarine captain every time a boat dives that if it is unable to surface, the closure is the iron-coffin at the bottom of the sea. To prepare for such an exigency, every submarine-operating navy also invests in a deep submergence rescue vessel (DSRV) or has access to the same with navies that have such a capability.
Accidents and tragic incidents do occur and the Navy’s submarine arm has the ignominy of losing a boat in harbour. The most recent accident is that of the Argentine Navy’s submarine, the San Juan, first reported ‘missing’ on November 15 and now deemed to have been lost with 44 crew members on board, including a lady officer. Sadly, the Argentine Navy did not have a dedicated DSRV and there is considerable speculation if this tragic loss of lives could have been averted had there not been such an inventory void.
It merits notice that the Navy does not have a dedicated DSRV even as it enters its 51st year and this void will be filled only later in 2018. The long-delayed DSRV acquisition symbolises much of the systemic ineptitude that characterises the Indian military machine and its many inadequacies.
Why the Delay?
Without sounding like the bad fairy at the party, the inability of the Indian higher defence management ecosystem (from the Cabinet Committee on Security downwards) has resulted in denying the Navy’s submarine arm a critical rescue capability for decades and had a worst-case exigency ever occurred, the price paid would have been very high.
This complacency in decision-making and fecklessness in critical policy formulation have adversely impacted the growth of the Indian military profile in many ways. The submarine trajectory is illustrative. Indigenous submarine-building capability got off to an encouraging start in the mid 1980s with the West Germany yard, HDW. Two boats were acquired from abroad and two were to be built at Mazagon Dock, Mumbai, as the foundation for an indigenous submarine program.
However, allegations of financial impropriety in the HDW deal led to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi peremptorily cancelling the whole program – and the indigenous submarine program was set back by three decades. Insulating core national security interests from the vagaries of mercurial political/electoral compulsions is a matter that warrants the most serious and urgent deliberation by legislators. Alas, this kind of legislative commitment and nurturing the integrity of decision-making remains an institutional void.
Anniversaries have their own ceremonial symbolism and sanctity and the 50th milestone is to be cherished, but the substantive policy-related issues should not be glossed over. An objective review of lessons learnt for the CCS’ consideration in relation to the Indian submarine story is called for. On a personal note, a hat-tip to the intrepid submariners who shaped my formative years.
C. Uday Bhaskar, a retired Commodore, is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi