India’s Military Modernization Efforts Under Prime Minister Modi

Dr. Ladhu R. Choudhary

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Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government has launched ambitious and far-reaching proposals for military modernization. Yet, a close examination reveals several limitations and challenges. This memo traces Modi’s initiatives and inherent structural debilities within the higher defense management. It examines the reforms’ nature, impact, and scope, highlighting how Modi’s military modernization programs complicate the Indian military’s integration/jointness drive. The memo also traces the financial support, pace of implementation, and legislative changes to expose the organizational fault lines within the system, arguing that until the Indian political class takes its military governing roles seriously, organizational reforms will fail to achieve intended goals. It concludes with alternative ways to improve the Indian military’s effectiveness.

Financial Support for Military Modernization Initiatives

Since 2014, India has initiated unprecedented military modernization.1 Modernization aims to sharpen synergy within the Higher Defense Organization (HDO), India’s apex defense management system comprised of political executives, civilian bureaucrats, and military organizations (see Appendix 1).2 Modernization programs have three main goals: the first is to improve defense preparedness in the face of complex national security challenges, enabling India’s military to support its foreign policy; the second goal is to revitalize defense acquisition policy and procurement procedures, to streamline and rationalize the acquisition and allocation of scarce resources; and the third is to develop a defense industrial ecosystem, which is necessary to meet any exigencies and sustain India’s global rise. In 2021, India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh released a booklet of 20 reforms designed to make India a military-industrial power,3 indirectly pointing to these three goals. The Modi government’s priority for building up India’s military-industrial complex is in large part due to Modi’s vision of India as not simply a regional power but a rising global power.