The India Today cover story had pointed out that at a time when the world is moving towards third and fourth generation warfare, India is still struggling
Former Indian Army chief General VP Malik has said the country is leaving its soldiers with no choice but to fight with inadequate and vintage equipment.
Responding to India Today's cover story 'The Army is Broke' (May 14, 2018), General Malik wrote to India Today: "You have nicely summed up what ails India's higher defence control organisation and what I and several other chiefs have been shouting from the tops for the last two decades."
Recounting the hardships faced by the army during the Kargil war, he said, "Like in Kargil, we are leaving our soldiers with no choice except to fight with whatever is available in times of crises."
"That [equipment with the army] has always been vintage as well as inadequate," he said.
At the height of the Kargil war, General Malik inspired his troops by saying that the army will fight with whatever it has. Over the years, his quote has come to encapsulate the shortfall of equipment faced by the Indian Army. In the past two decades, army chiefs have repeated what General Malik said about army's preparedness and the weapons that are its disposal.
Furthermore, speaking about the state of the defence ministry, General Malik said, "An organisation which works without a vision, does not change with times, and plans in a void, becomes dysfunctional. That is the state of the defence ministry today."
He also expressed concerns about the future of the Defence Planning Committee. "The newly formed Defence Planning Committee will meet the same fate as other committees in the past, unless there is major restructuring of the Defence Ministry and change in the attitude of its civilian staff. Can we expect that from our present political leadership?" he asked.
The India Today cover story had pointed out that at a time when the world is moving towards third and fourth generation warfare, India is still "struggling, confusing military modernisation with a shopping list of weapons, waiting patiently for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to deliver the magic bullet".
In comparison to China which is all set to become the world's fifth largest arms exporter, the cover story said, India, meanwhile, has failed to produce an effective rifle.
It added that even the locally made Arjun tanks cannot be used on the sensitive China or Pakistan borders because of performance issues; and after three decades spent developing our own light combat aircraft, India has now put out a tender for 110 warplanes.