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Modernisation of Chinese forces a lesson for India: Roychowdhury

Former chief of the army staff General Shankar Roychowdhury has cautioned that India would suffer if it did not take cognisance of the modernisation programme undertaken by the Chinese armed forces.

Its effects would become apparent not before the first decade of the 21st century, the former army chief said while delivering the Gen B C Joshi memorial lecture on 'India: Renaissance 2000' in Pune last evening.

Although Sino-Indian talks have been progressing reasonably well, the former army chief felt that diplomacy must be backed with military capability.

"Strength respects strength," he said, adding that he did not foresee any threat from China. After the 1962 conflict there has been no physical aggression between the two nations, he pointed out.

The retired general, however, foresaw no smooth resolution of India's relationship with Pakistan. The 1971 defeat has reinforced the traditional hatred in the Pakistani sub-conscious, he said, adding that the low-intensity conflict sponsored by Pakistan was the equivalent of an undeclared fourth war between the two neighbours.

He cautioned against the emergence of Wahabi Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan which was bent upon waging a jehad against the tolerant Sufi sect in India. Pakistan has been nurturing such fundamentalist forces, posing a threat to the secular fabric of India, he said.

He felt the danger had increased, following the Chagai Hills nuclear tests by Pakistan that had made it the only nuclear Islamic state.

He felt that instead of projecting herself as a sofa democracy, India must project herself as a hard zero-tolerance republic.

He lamented that despite having developed a rich research and development base in the form of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Indian Space Research Organisation and others, indigenous research and development had remained, by and large, neglected.

Rather than relying on indigenous facilities, the private sector, which has hardly any independent research facilities of its own, has been largely dependent upon obsolete technology from the West, he rued.

He also felt public sector units must be improved by providing the right type of management. The public sector, which had done remarkably well initially, were later neglected and provided with no reasonable chance to prove themselves, he said.

UNI

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