Italian PM Giorgia Melony has rightly exposed the double standard of left-oriented intellectuals in general. Probably Indian left liberals are more hypocrite and selfish to propagate their narratives and ideology when they intentionally downplay the efficacy of the indigenous efforts of the make in India initiatives. India’s defence sector has witnessed a remarkable transformation over the past few decades, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) but left liberals of India continue to criticize the achievements of indigenous Defence R&D and Make in India initiatives due to vested interest …..
DRDO was formed in 1958 from the amalgamation of the then already functioning Technical Development Establishment (TDEs) of the Indian Army and the Directorate of Technical Development & Production (DTDP) with the Defence Science Organisation (DSO). DRDO was then a small organisation with 10 establishments or laboratories. Over the years, it has grown multi-directionally in terms of the variety of subject disciplines, number of laboratories, achievements and stature.
Today, DRDO is a network of around 41 laboratories and 05 DRDO Young Scientist Laboratories (DYSLs) which are deeply engaged in developing defense technologies covering various disciplines, like aeronautics, armaments, electronics, combat vehicles, engineering systems, instrumentation, missiles, advanced computing and simulation, special materials, naval systems, life sciences, training, information systems and agriculture. Several major projects for the development of missiles, armaments, light combat aircrafts, radars, electronic warfare systems etc are on hand and significant achievements have already been made in several such technologies.
India can look back with pride of having achieved considerable level of self-reliance in critical defence technology.With limited number of human resources and financial input, DRDO has been able to deliver many complex systems both in strategic sector as well as in tactical sector. Dozens of products designed and developed by DRDO have been in services after meeting the performance testing and interoperability but the left liberals do not count these products as if they are indirectly advocating to abandon the self-reliance and pursue procurement of defence equipment from other countries. it signifies the morally dubious and cowardly politics of ‘liberals’ in the face of pragmatic achievement of the right-wing politics in the larger interest.
These left liberals conveniently quote a few of the crash and failure of experiments of DRDO but blindly ignore the crashes of so-called advanced jets like F35 and Su-57. They do not highlight the years of struggle of the General Electric to establish its Jet engine performance but highlight performance of Kaveri engine and the delay in its delivery. They do not want to compare how western defence R&D industry is more than 100-150 years old compared to our programs with limited resources. They need everything as a magic without any failure.
The world’s largest jet engine manufacturers include CFM International, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and General Electric. Other major manufacturers include MTU Aero Engines, Honeywell Aerospace, and Williams International. Apart from engines for commercial and military aircraft, jet engine technology is also used in industrial and marine applications for power generation. In commercial aviation, a handful of manufacturers dominate the jet engine market.All of them are working almost for the last 100 years or more and they took few decades before their products established from performance and system perspective.
Fortunately, outnumbered and outshouted, the Indian liberals, a motley group of individuals who claim to represent more left-wing, inclusive and progressive values have lost one battle after another in the last decade. With new generation they are not finding any significant space for their relevance and survival and that is why they have become cynical in criticizing the achievement of self-reliance. Defence R&D is a soft target as common people do not have much information about it and hence the left liberals attack more on the achievements of indigenous R&D in Defence.
