Chapter 4
1. India has had a rich maritime tradition. The spread of Hinduism and Buddhism overseas, e.g., Indonesia and Japan, was possible partly due to this. Same holds true for our trade with ancient Rome and other ancient civilizations. Several centuries before Christ, the Maurya and Andhra dynasties devoted themselves to becoming the lords of the eastern seas. Sailendra’s maritime empire lasted a full five centuries. More recently, Calicut and the Marathas fought at sea against the hordes of Europeans pouring into our subcontinent. But it was the British Navy that defeated all others and helped establish the Raj for two centuries.
2. For a vivid description of the teething troubles that our navy faced, see A.K. Chatterjee, Indian Navy’s SubmarineArm, New Delhi: Birla Institute of Scientific Research, 1982.
3. Government oflndia, Ministry of Defence Annual Report 2000–2001 ,Delhi: Ministry of Information, 2001.
4. pakistanidefence.com, accessed 14 July 2001.
5. The Military Balance, 1996–97, London, reported 55,000, including 5,000 naval and air personnel, and 1,000 Marines
6. Although the Viraat has been retired, it was replaced with the Gorshkov.
7. Between 1405 and 1433, the eunuch Admiral Cheng Ho’s seven voyages across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and Africa were undertaken not merely for trade but also for expansionist purposes. They landed in Calicut, Cochin and Ceylon, and declared these territories as China’s vassals. The expeditions involved a force of 15,000 troops, a number hardly needed for trade alone. However, following the capture of the Ming emperor by Mongols, the Chinese decided to concentrate on teaching them a lesson. They, therefore, concentrated on land expansion and abandoned their overseas imperial ventures.
8. NBCi, 2000.
9. ucdavis.edu, accessed on 26 March 2001.
10. Stephen Trimble, ‘China Releases New ‘White Paper on National Defence Strategy’, Janes Defence Weekly; 2January 2007, and Deep K. Dutta-Ray, ‘Looking Seaward’, Times of India,18 January 2007, p. 16.
11. Times of India,28 June 2003, p. 7, however, reports different figures: 24 MiG-29Ks and 6 Ka helos.
12. There is a humorous side to the Gorshkov story. After it had burnt out in 1994, a US firm approached the former superpower with the offer to buy the Gorshkov and turn it into a floating casino off southern Florida. See themoscowtimes.com, 20 September 1995; Strategic Digest,New Delhi, Vol. 34, No.3, March 2004, pp. 458-9.
13. indiainfo.com, accessed on 9 March 2004.
14. The USS Trenton, named after the state capital of New Jersey and commissioned in 1971, ran the motto ‘No Greater Gator’.
15. Strategic Digest,New Delhi, Vol. 36, No. 12, December 2006, p. 1611.
16. However, there seems to be two controversies surrounding the 300-km Sagarika mis-sile. First, does it exist at all? Former Admiral Bhagwat of the Indian Navy reportedly 881 denied outright the existence of the project in the late 1990s. The other one is equally baffling. If there were a Sagarika, is it an SLBM or an SLCM, a ballistic or a cruise missile? The US Air Force, according to one commentato; considers the Sagarika an SLBM with 290 km range, expected to become operational in the current decade. It reportedly benefited from Russian assistance in 1995, but this is denied by Moscow. See Rahul Roy-Choudhury, ‘Equipping the Navy for War on Land’, bharatrakshak.com
17. armedforces.nic.injnavy; Vishal Thapar, Hindustan Times,4 July 2003.
19. bbc.co.uk 29 February 2000.
20. Vijay Sakhuja, ‘Indian Ocean and the Safety of Sea Lines of Communication’, Strategic Analysis,IDSA, New Delhi, August 2001, Vol. 25, No.5, pp. 689–702; Satish Kuma;Reassessing Pakistan as Long Term Security Threat, Strategic Digest,IDSA, New Delhi, Vol. 33, No.3, March 2003, pp. 229–42.
21. vic-info.org, 10 November 2003.