Indian Defence Review

A recent movie about an Indian soldier and his tank squadron during the Bangladesh war of 1971 has garnered much attention in India for depicting a key battle that eventually led to a victory in the liberation of Bangladesh.  The film, premiered on Amazon Prime (Nov. 20^th)  titled PIPPA, is a tribute to the Russian-made amphibious tank but the main character in the film is one Brigadier Balram Singh Mehta who wrote a book about his real-life experiences as a tank commander during the 1971 war.

The book titled The Burning Chaffees: A Soldier’s First-hand Account of the 1971 War (2016), recounted the Battle of Garibpur fought between the two nations’ tank squadrons during the Bangladesh war.  The book written by Brigadier Mehta was made into a film featuring the famous PT-76 tank fondly called Pippa by the Indian soldiers. Since the amphibious tanks could float on water, a nickname was given by thetank squadron members to the Russian PT-76 tanks: ‘Pippa’ (Palavushi Tanka in Russian).  In Punjabi ‘Pippa’ meant a ‘floating tin can’ and hence the name for the tank and of the movie. The Battle of Garibpur, the run-up to the war, would have been forgotten forever had not Brigadier Balram Mehta written his book at the urging of his regimental mates.  The Burning Chaffees was an ode to the bravery of fellow soldiers who fought the 1971 Indo-Pak war and the book was written in tribute to the tank regiment that led Indian army to a victory.

The battle was a turning point in the war.  The 45th Cavalry Indian tank squadron led by Brigadier Mehta (then a Major) took the Pakistani tank squadron by surprise.  On November 21st, 1971 troops of the 14th Punjab Regiment along with the 14 Russian-made amphibious tanks of the 45th Cavalry armored regiment moved into the village of Garibpur by crossing the river Kobadak.  The PT-76 amphibious ‘Pippas’, enabled the Indian soldiers to cross numerous rivers and rivulets of Bangladesh which came as a complete shock to the Pakistanis. In one swiftly maneuvered swoop, Pakistan’s 3rd Armoured squadron with 14 American-made

M-24 Chaffees were completely annihilated along with two infantry battalions of the Pakistani army, and three Sabre F-86 fighter jets. This was a decisive victory for the Indian army and it showed India’s resolve to stop the genocide against the Bengalis by the Pakistani armyand to liberate the people of East Pakistan.  The Russian-made tanks were a major contributor to the winning of the Bangladesh war. The war was short and swift.  Pakistan declared war on 3rd December 1971 and surrendered on 16th December 1971.

Historically, India has a long standing relationship with Russia regarding defense contracts and armament purchases.  Defense cooperation remains a cornerstone of India-Russia relationship. It recently signed a deal to purchase S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russiaand made a separate deal to manufacture small arms in India. At the  Dubai Airshow (2023) India signed a contract with Russia to purchase Igla-S Portable anti-aircraft missile system.

Over the past many decades, Russia sold or jointly developed with India MIG-21 jets, Sukhoi fighters, Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles, T-90 tanks, BMP-2 infantry combat vehicles, anti-aircraft guns (OSA, Pechora &Streta), Konkur ATGMs, Dragunov Sniper rifles and AK series rifles.  The Indian Navy got a nuclear submarine and an aircraft carrier.India and Russia have a strong nuclear, space and defense ties and in addition to these they are developing IT, cybersecurity and smart cities cooperation.  Earlier in 2023 both nations explored cooperation in bio-technologies, AI, quantum technologies, cyber-physical systems, oceanography, medical sciences and fundamental physics.

Currently with India’s geo-political shift in favor of the West, Western arms and weapons exporter are gaining ground.  Although India is procuring arms fromthe US, UK, France and other Western nations, India’s main goal is to become self-reliant in defense production, either jointly or on its own.Being self-reliant in defense is India’s ultimate goal since there are high chances of military conflictwith the two bordering countries: Pakistan and China. India feels it can no longer rely solely on a foreign source for its defense needs if a conflict or a war erupts.Nations in the Global South fear dependence on foreign technologies for economic growth as the balance of power tends to be in favor of the weapons providers who tend to weaponize their technology when the relationship between the nations goes sour.   

India’s ‘Make in India’ program facilitates manufacturing of key armaments to be built in India like the C-295 transport planes, MQ-9 Reaper Drones, GE-414 and Safran aviation engines in conjunction with major global arms companies.

India’s defense production for the year 2022-23 was over $15 billion (Indian Defense Ministry).  India is currently manufacturing some of its own planes, guns and ships like the fighter plane (Tejas), submarines (Scorpene and Arihant class), tanks (Arjun), artillery guns (Dhanush and ATAGs), corvettes, frigates, missile destroyers, and even an aircraft carrier.  DRDO now produces a whole range of ballistic missiles including ICBMs (Agni series), SAM (Akash), MRSAM (Barak-8), Anti-Radiation (Rudram) and air-to-air missiles (Astra) to name a few.

Interest in in India’s defense products has grown in certain regions, especially from the Middle East (UAE), Philippines and Indonesia.  At the Dubai Airshow (2023), India built light aircraft Tejas and the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile were promoted and showcased.  They proved that India can successfully produce defense products indigenously.  Tejasis a product of India’s  collaborative efforts and capabilities of its defense industryand Brahmos missile system clinched an order of US$375 million with Philippines.

Jaishanker, India’s External Affairs Minister, once called the relationship between India and Russia as one of the steadiest in global affairs. Recently he also said that the “relationship has saved us at times.” The ties between the two countries over a period of 60 years has certainly ’saved’ New Delhi at critical junctures, mainly because as Jaishankar described, the relationship between the two countries has been “extremely steady” and mutually beneficial. Consequently, India’s trade, commerce and investment with Russia has expanded. Even though India’s dependency on Russian arms has been reduced, Delhi still imports at least fifty percent of itsrequirements from Russia. Bilateral trade between the two countries have crossed US$45 billion which is amazing in such a short time.

India being in the BRICS collection of nationsis quietly moving away from uni-polar world order to a more multi-polar system and seems to be in-sync with Russian policies as we see on multiple issues from Syria, Afghanistan, Iranian nuclear pact and currently on Ukraine.India’s staunch ties with Moscow have been challenged and often denigrated by the US and the West. Western countries want India to decrease its dependency on Russian energy and weapons to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine war. Nevertheless, Washington is reconciled to the position that India will continue its connection with Russia  in its nations self-interest.

During the Bangladesh War, India was ‘saved’ by the Russian PT-76 tanks, leading it to a victory in the liberation of Bangladesh.  As the book and the movie suggest, the Bangladesh War (1971) was an eye-opener for the West and showed that the Russian built tanks, guns and technology were a notch above the rival’s armaments and weapons.  India is unlikely to disconnect from Russian defense cooperation and arrangement in the near future. Even then as it is now, Russian arms, missiles and weaponry prove that they are much advanced to those of the Western-NATO ones as the war in Ukraine clearly demonstrates.