On 12th of June a decade ago was launched the BrahMos cruise missile from India’s eastern coast interim range of Chandipur-on-sea. The day also marked Russia’s National Day. The spirit behind the selection of the day for the launch of the missile, and also the selection of the name of the missile (a combination of two famous rivers in India and Russia – Brahmaputra and Moskva respectively), perhaps in a way surpassed the immediate objective of the developing the missile jointly and pointed the resilience and renewal in bilateral defence cooperation in an overarching framework of strategic partnership despite oddities. Hence, when the celebrations commence to mark one decade of the launch of the cruise missile, it is natural to find the enthusiasm on part of the countries to appreciate the success story of the BrahMos, which needs to be emulated in crafting agreements and developments in other sectors of defence cooperation such as fifth generation fighter aircraft and multirole combat aircraft and other such ventures.
BrahMos was built by BrahMos Aerospace, which is a joint venture established in 1999 by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia. The BrahMos project has to its name many firsts which perhaps many India-Russia arms deals lack. It was the project, which transcended the earlier relationship of buyer and seller, and enjoined the countries to research, develop, produce and market advanced systems not only in respective countries but also in friendly countries. The current CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, A. Sivathanu Pillai has predicted that within a decade, the joint venture will capture twenty percent of global missile market, currently dominated by the US and France. Countries from Latin America and Middle East have already expressed interest in buying the missile… Besides, BrahMos’ success story is characterized by its hassle free nature and without any hurdles as in cases of some other projects such as Gorshkov. BrahMos is the missile which can be launched from land, water and also air as its modern versions are going to be developed, and as the CEO of the BrahMos asserts that ‘its competitor is yet to be born’ as ‘its speed and devastating power has made it unparalleled.’
Hence, it is understandable, when officials went in jubilation mode to call it a ‘shining example’ of bilateral defence cooperation. India’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Moscow, Ajai Malhotra observed that the missile is a shining example in bilateral relations as it has benefited India from access to technology and materials towards its security and development, while ‘Russian industries in these sectors have prospered from having India as a reliable and preferred partner.’ To quote further him, “it (BrahMos) captures several aspects of our defence cooperation, which has moved from a buyer-seller relationship into one involving joint research, development and production of advanced and world-class systems.” He also rightly pointed out that the joint venture has benefited industries located in cities such as ‘Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in India as well as those in places such as Orenburg, Miass, Reutov, Perm and Safinova in Russia.’
In view of the success story behind the BrahMos, it is but natural and in expected lines that both the countries will develop the spirit of joint venture in other sectors of defence cooperation. While celebrating the decade long venture, some of the innovative ideas were also pronounced. Two Chairs, in the name of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and H. A. Yefremov at the Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow in honour of the two outstanding scientists who were behind the inception of the project, will be established. The Chairs will build centres of excellence for high speed aerodynamics at the two institutes. Abdul Kalam who participated in the celebrations exhorted the scientists to develop hypersonic version of BrahMos which can be reused, implying that the missile should be able to deliver its payload and return to base. This will, argued Kalam, ‘help in maintaining our leadership in this arena.’ BrahMos Aerospace Director Alexander Maksichev also reiterated the same spirit. Participating in the celebrations, he declared that the scientists are ‘planning to start work on a hypersonic missile, Brahmos-2.’ He outlined the expectation ‘to start the tests of BrahMos missiles launched from aircraft (currently from land and sea). Various types of aircraft, including Su-30 MKI fighters, are expected to be armed with these missiles.’ There are many crucial projects like fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA), modernisation of MiG-29, upgradation of Su-30MKI, which are in pipeline to further boost bilateral defence cooperation.
It needs emphasis that India enjoys exclusive privilege to have a supersonic cruise missile developed in a joint venture with Russia. At present the missile has a range of 290 km, has a top speed of 2.8 Mach (about three times faster than the US Tomahawk cruise missile), and it can carry warhead of up to 300 kg. True that some of the contentious issues persist in bilateral defence relations, and for which both countries need to rise above pointing fingers and visualize how the defence cooperation can be maximized to the mutual advantage. The Soviet era cooperation was phenomenal, almost 70 percent or more of India’s defence hardware were of Soviet/Russian origin; though it may not be possible to revert to same kind of defence relations, but the potentials of defence cooperation are enormous despite all the oddities. The competitive atmosphere will unlikely dampen the defence cooperation. It is now a fact how the high sounding pronouncements during India’s Obama visit last November frittered away within less than six months, almost questioning the basis of those pronouncements. Despite shortcomings and difficulties in defence relations, perhaps India-Russia relations are resilient enough to transcend the hurdles on the way of cooperation.
