Friday, July 26, 2019


Ramucchettan (Ram Menon) remembered
On the 17th of July (2019) I was in a car heading for Kolhapur when the message reached me that Ramucchettan passed away peacefully at 10.56AM in the Aster Aadhar Hospital where he was admitted a few days earlier with breathing problems. The next 3 hours or so were the most miserable time in my life for many years. Who am I to grieve for this man? As far as family ties go, he was the son of my grandmother’s first cousin. If that is not far enough he was one of the doyens of Kolhapur industry, a very rich businessman. Figuratively speaking if I am a piece of ice, Ram Menon was the North Pole! The closest I came to him in ‘status’ was being on the Board of an export company of which he too was a director. That was in 1984.
My family was closer to his thanks to my Grandmother Parukutty Amma’s special relationship with her cousin Kunjukutty Amma. In fact we were not in the habit of visiting other relatives living in the ancestral Thottappillil house (tharavaadu) less than hundred meters away, I remember. Thereby hangs a tale, which presently I am not going into. When I was a high school student I used to go to fetch excess milk they had for us. I remember Ramucchettan’s uncles Karunakaramama and Parameswaramama, and their late mother’s sister, Narayanivalliamma; Parameswaramama I remember lived with them in his last years in the house. The house we called “Ullisseryil” for reasons I didn’t bother to verify, belonged to Chandrancchettan, Ramucchettan, their sister Vishaluchechi and her two daughters –Vijaya and Vasanthi. They had an Ashoka tree, in front (east) of the house - not too tall - but with dense foliage and full of orange-yellow and red flowers. I remember Ramucchettan’s “marriage party” coming to that house wading through water on the submerged ‘varambu’ (bund between paddy fields on either side). Edathiyamma’s father A P Menon was incidentally my Class Teacher; he wrote the details in my SSLC book in his own hand-writing. Since I scored high marks in his subject – English- he had a special liking for me which I thought must have increased with his daughter getting married into our family! Years later, it was from his obituary that I learned the before joining Panangad High School, Sri. A P Menon had retired from Jaffna College, in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) as a professor.
Chandrancheettan who used to be called Chandran by elders in my family, particularly Valliamman, my mother’s eldest brother, and Ramucchettan who used to be referred to as Ramakrishnan were later known to me as big industrialists in Kolhapur, making diesel pumps for the purpose of irrigation. One such diesel pumpset was gifted to my grand uncle, Kunhunnimootthammaman (T.Kunhunni Menon) when I was staying with him for my college education. That is when I realised that Chandranchettan and Ramucchettan also used to stay with him for higher studies (Chandranchettan for His Mechanical Engineering Diploma) when he was employed in Peirce Leslie Company Ltd, Kozhikode, just as I did, because he had no children. Several generations of youngsters from our family used to stay with Mootthammaman. Chandranchettan and Ramuccettan had high regards for him. I remember the letters Mootthammaman dicated to me to be sent to Chandranchettan used to be addressed to “T C K Menon” – that was before the brothers shortened their names to Chandran Menon and Ram Menon, I suppose
Once Chandranchettan on vacation came to see Moothammaman, and found his eyesight was poor. He immediately took him to a doctor in Ernakulam and got medicines and spectacles. Mootthammaman who couldn’t tell a decent lie all his life, or even exaggerate anything reasonably, was so impressed by Chandranchettan’s magnificent, winged Plymouth car that he went on telling people about how “Chandran’s car could carry twenty-five people” to my great embarrassment when children of his in-laws poked my ribs asking whether it wasn’t a mini-bus!
I had no interaction with the “Menons of Kolhapur” (as a business magazine described putting them on the cover page) for years till one day Ramucchettan came to my office in Nariman Point accompanied by Raghavachettan (P.Raghavamenon) husband of one of my first cousins. (I realised later that whenever he found time, Ramucchettan liked seeking out relatives and getting connected!) I was sales manager in a small private company then. He saw me sneezing and I told him about my allergic cold. He told me he had the problem too and found relief in a medicine he got from Bangalore, and promised to send it to me. It came soon with a messenger. I suspected there could be some steroid in the powder because I had done extensive reading about common cold, allergic cold and associated respiratory issues since I lost IPS selection due to inadequate chest expansion during the crucial medical examination on account of these. I didn’t dare use the medicine though its efficacy was endorsed by Ramucchettan. Later when we met he told me it was indeed a mistake: it had some steroid in it and the guy treating with it was in trouble with the law.
I went to Kolhapur and met him in person in 1983 after our wing of Thottappillil family established a trading company called ‘Menon Impex Limited’ and had an export order worth over Rs.2crores from a Soviet Government firm and found no money to execute it. My cousin Dr.Raji Menon who did his medical studies in Moscow was behind the venture. We set up an industrial unit in Kandla Free Trade Zone (KAFTZ) in Gandhidam, Gujarat where we could import components for sewing machine motors from japan, assemble and export to the Soviet Union. Roughly seventy per cent of the order’s worth was import bill. I went around meeting known and unknown managers of various banks and it struck me for the first time that the banks do not lend exactly by the rule books I had studied in the management course in the Mumbai’s (then Bombay) prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies! Export order from a foreign government and a Letter of Credit to boot was of no attraction to Public Sector bankers. They wanted you to prove to them you were rich enough not to need their help!
After a week of hunting for bank finance, we thought of our rich cousins in Kolhapur. Rajan wouldn’t go to them because over a commercial dispute with ‘Hong Kong Gopicchettan’ (Ramucchettan’s daughter’s father-in law) it was an order given to Gopitex earlier taken back by him to our new company! I spoke with Ramucchettan over the phone and was invited to Kolhapur for discussions. I went, and met Chandranchettan and Ramucchettan in their house ‘Kairali’. Obviously the brothers had discussed the matter. Chandranchettan’s words were clear and emphatic: “I am a manufacturer by profession. Trading is not my line of business. Ramu seems to have a different view. Let him decide!” I go with Ramucchettan to his “workshop” (till the last he used to call his huge factory employing some 500 people “workshop”, because that was how they started out in Kolhapur! In his well-appointed room in ‘Menon Pistons Limited’ we hold talks. His uneasiness was about how Gopicchettan would take it. I volunteered to draft an appropriate message for him to telex to Gopicchettan in Nigeria the latter would find difficult to reject! Gopicchettan must have been right there to read it and pat came his reply, quoting words from the message he received: “you have my permission and blessings. Please go ahead!” Ramucchetten becomes a Director in MIL, and finances the venture through his Janata Cooperative Bank, and City Union Bank, if I remember right.
I remember dealing with him was very easy; he knew all aspects of business, contingencies and all. RD Dixit was introduced to me. He was Technical Director of MPL. He was a soft-spoken man, meticulous and systematic to perfection. Vijayapalanchettan (now no more) was Director Administration. He was a cousin of Edathiyamma and had also married from Thottappillil. He could be adamant about cash transactions anybody in his place would be. But Ramucchettan would call him over and persuade to part with lakhs of rupees in cash legally. Ramucchettan would tell me in private in appreciation of the calibre and loyalty of the two deputies “these guys catch on to a given responsibility like our Udumbu (monitor lizard); will never let go off it till the job is accomplished! After successful completion of the first business Ramucchettan gave me a gift parcel. I declined to accept it. He said he had given similar gifts to all the key persons involved in the business. I maintained that as a director of MIL I cannot take a gift for my work. But a couple of months later he came to my Borivli residence, and persuaded me to accept it, saying “Ramucchettan is giving you this; it is a mark of my affection for you!” It was gold ornaments for my wife. An elderly lady who was like a sister and lived above our flat in Mathews Mansion told her it weighed easily 10 sovereigns.
An interesting facet of Ramucchettan was his style of functioning. He believed in complete delegation of responsibilities as well as power. Astonished by his month-long vacations, enjoying relaxed travels abroad, Rajan (Raji Menon) asked his how could he go away for so long leaving so much responsibilities behind? His answer was that he had put the right people on all the jobs. If there was some course-correction required in policies, he was  available on the phone for consultation! At the factory in the morning, after half-an-hour or so in his room, he will take a walk in the factory. So many times I had accompanied him on these rounds. He will stand next to every machines, and talk to the technicians on their duties, and ask them about the work, machine and his personal problems if any. He told me how some of them are simply brilliant. He told me about one such, one Kulkarni, if I remember right, who could design a lathe which was superior to the best from HMT. He he was eventually promoted to the position of a DGM. 
In 1986 I shifted to Chennai where we set up operations to the newly established Madras Export Processing Zone. MIL operations were independent of Racucchettan’s financial help and he resigned from our Board. But he had a bigger association with us as Dr.Raji Menon was able to procure huge orders for pistons and piston rings from the Soviet Union for Menon Pistons. I remember, after making arrangements for execution of the first order of piston rings for a couple of crores of rupees, Ramucchettan telling Rajan: “look here,Raji, don’t come after this with orders worth ten and fifteen crores! I simply cannot handle such large orders with my existing facility!” Rajan tried to be persuasive: “Ramucchetta, make this a complete export-oriented unit. Forget local business. You don’t have to worry about marketing, dealerships, etc. There is no need for inventories, no waiting for payments; not even taxes! Execute large orders, bank your profits!” Ramucchettan said firmly and still smiling, I recall: “What would happen if one day exports dry up? I can’t go back to the Indian market because there are very capable competitors in the line of business like India Pistons, Mahle, several others. What would I do with this factory, and my employees? I will never be able to do that. I can have maximum two production lines for export. The rest will have to cater to the OE market and spares which are our bread and butter. He was farsighted indeed. Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 completely without a trace. Exports to the country literally dried up!
It was in 1995 that I called him for a personal help. We were in Chennai and my son Dileep had passed out of Plus-2 and wanted to do engineering studies. We went for group ‘counselling’ in Chennai, gave the Demand Draft for admission; and I suddenly snatched it back. The Counselling Officer asked me “what happened?” and I replied simply that I had changed my mind. It was my fear of “ragging” that made me reject the admission. The previous year, Madras University Vice-Chancellor’s son was ragged leading to his death when he resisted thinking, “what the hell, my dad is the VC and these chaps are trying to do this to me!” but someone gave a karate chop on his neck in the melee, and the boy died instantly. What happened next was weird: they chopped his body into pieces and threw it in an irrigation canal. The culprits were eventually caught... My worry was about Dileep being a big and strong boy, and “quick to draw”. I thought of the mob lynching he might invite in the college hostel if he resisted ragging. I called Ramucchettan and asked him whether he could get him a seat in Kolhapur Institute of Technology of which he was Chairman. His reply was music to my ears: “If our boy can’t be given a seat, who else would get it?”
Dileep becomes a student in KIT and a regular visitor to Ramuvalliacchan’s house where he befriended both toddlers and the elderly as was his uniqueness. A couple of times Sachin dropped him in college which sent Dileep’s stocks sky-high. In KIT also there was ragging since it was not legally banned then. But the ‘Menon boy’ was unaffected. My worry later was about my boy being a leader of the ragging gang next year onwards! However, he passed B.Tech with Distinction.  
Ramucchettan’s business acumen was exemplary. He established separate factory for piston rings and bearings. After the death of his elder brother, he became the leader of his family group which is one of the largest in Kolhapur. Like Vijay Menon took charge of his father Chandran Menon’s industries, Sachin Menon took charge of Menon Pistons and Nitin Menon, of Menon Bearings while Ramucchettan remained as Chairman. My contacts with him were few and far between. But we kept in touch. After my retirement when I settled down in Thiruvanchikkuam, he came to see me driving himself along with Narayanankuttychettan (now no more) who was my grandfather’s nephew, and his companion in Kerala. He called us next day for lunch in Thottappillil House just one kilometre from where I lived. His niece Vijaya lived there with her husband Dr.Rajagopal who was Ramucchettan’s brother-in-law.
While in KIT Dileep fell in love with a Maharashtrian Jain girl. The girl, Arathi was born in the same year and on the same day he was born. For a girl in any Indian community, it was the age to get married. Her parents pressed me for an immediate marriage when Dileep completed his engineering degree course and returned to Kerala. We had an engagement ceremony done first. Ramucchettan with family, Chandranchettan’s family all joined me because I couldn’t bring my people from Kerala. Ravicchettan and edathiyamma from Pune represented them. Within six moths I had to get Dileep married breaking the record in our family which was (late) Ajit’s which was at 25! Racuccettan stood by me throughout, wearing the traditional turban as my elder brother with the entire Menon family of Kolhapur, including some other cousins of mine attending! After couple of years working in Pune Dileep wanted to go to the US to do MBA. Ramucchettan instructed Sachin to do all the help to make a student Visa available without any difficulty. But for that help, which involved in a Corporate Sponsorship letter, Dileep couldn’t have got the US Visa in the first attempt.
After 5 years Dileep came back from the US to help his father-in-law’s business. That was how Neelu also went to do her MBA in KIT, staying with him to do the course. When Neelu got first rank in three semesters, I was happy that my children were doing Ramuvalliacchan proud! Neelu passed MBA with the highest marks in the University. When my daughter was getting married to my old Mumbai friend Madhavan’s son, I talked to Ramucchettan. The marriage was in Guruvayoor Temple and the “reception” in Mumbai. Ramucchettan told me who were all to be invited from the Kolhapur families, and even gave me phone numbers to call. I remember Mini and Chandru in particular. He had himself called them and they all came for the Mumbai event to bless Neelu and her groom.
When I shifted to Pune, he came once to stay at his daughter’s Balaji Park residence in Aundh, and called me. We met him in Savita’s house. Months later once when he came, Edathiyamma called to say they were in Savita’s place, and I said I would come over, because I had heard he had by then the onset of Parkinson’s. I was told he insisted on coming to my place, I went down to receive him, thinking that he might need help to get out of the car, but, no, He sprang to his feet and came with me. Later I realised it was his speech that was getting affected. He came in person because he wanted give Neelu’s little daughter Trisha a gift! 
It could be said that Ramucchettan lived a full life. He travelled extensively in India and abroad. He attended all the ceremonies and events he was invited to. He took me one day to a power glider fest in Kolhapur. Once I went to an exhibition of printing machines with him. Another time it was a painting exhibition of a Gabriel Marketing manager whose name I don’t remember. He had drawn pencil sketches and paintings of rocks of various shapes and sizes. Both of us were flabbergasted because the exhibition varied completely from our concept of art. At the end he was supposed to write his comment as a guest. I wrote something from my training in literary/art criticism which made it easy to read meanings into quite meaningless things; and Ramucchettan signed! In Mumbai once he dragged me to watch a movie in the New Excelsior theatre. He was a movie buff and I was not. He told me he found relaxation in movies and drama - particularly Marathi plays. This particular movie was a Russian one dubbed in English. It was a horribly un-interesting movie and when I turned to Ramucchettan, he was seen fast asleep. I didn’t wake him up. After the movie Ramucchettan said with a chuckle: “Russians can’t make crime thrillers and action movies! Maybe, because their system doesn’t allow such things. They should learn from the Americans how to make thrillers!”
He was a foodie, he once told me. The occasion was when we went to a restaurant. When he asked me to order food, I requested him to do it with the explanation that if I did, I always ended up asking for familiar menu. Astonished, he commented “Ayye, what’s the fun then?”He explained in detail that part of the fun in travel was enjoying new and different food. “I I go to a new restaurant whether in India or abroad, I ask the chef what was their speciality, what was new; and taste it.” Then he described to me a hilarious situation in a Hon Kong restaurant after ordering an unfamiliar dish of fish. “After 20 minutes of waiting I saw large trolley coming towards me with something huge. I thought it can’t be for me. It was very large in size. But it stopped at my table and as the waiter was transferring the large fish onto it, I lost my cool. I asked him, why is this so large, didn’t you know I was alone, and possibly can’t eat even a quarter of it... and a lot more almost in one breath; and the boy politely went on repeating “but sir, you ordered it” even as my voice rose in anger. I called for the manager, and he came. He was an Indian who only could find a solution to my problem by sharing my meal!”
When I was only a few weeks in Chennai (1986) Ramucchettan came for some business meeting. In the evening he called and went to Taj Coromandal where he stayed. He suggested “let us go for a south Indian meal; I want to have sambar and rice!” I said for that we didn’t need to go to a restaurant; Though Sulu and children were in Kerala, I had a reasonably good cook who had made sambar because it was one curry I had every day. “No, let us go somewhere.” So we went looking for a south Indian restaurant on the Mount Road (now Anna Salai). I was not yet come across the innumerable Hotels like Palm Grove, Savera, DasaPrakash, Woodlands.. I remembered having read that a Keralite, Purushotthaman had a Hotel on the Mount Road – Madras International. We went there. Ramucchettan said, “I want sambar and rice!” The waiter said there was no sambar and rice available in the evening. “Then what do you have, perhaps Dosa and sambar?” “No sir, no Dosa either. We have chappathi, poori, bhaji...” Ramucchettan was shaken. The first response was in pure Malayalam, turning towards me: “Ithippo poannedom poannu pullukanhi ennuparanhapolay aayallo!”(Translation: it appears the millet porridge has followed me here too!) “I am running away from chappatthi and poori, do you know, I come from Kolhapur!” The waiter was a bit more helpful at this stage offering to get us dosa, but instead of chutney and sambar, we had to make do with tomato-sauce! We rushed out and went home to have rice and sambar.
The saddest were our last meetings. He had completely lost his memory. You love and respect a person for most of your lifetime and he just can’t remember you. This change has happened to several other people in our family. What makes people who lived an active, disciplined and healthy life to lose their memory? It had happened to my Valliacchan, Bhaskaran Uncle (poet), VB Chettan, Vijayapalan Chettan. At the national level George Fernandes, AB Vajpayee, Nani Palkiwala, Nissim Ezekiel – brilliant and active people in different walks of life- all were somehow affected by loss of memory. Fate took away Thottappillil patriarch Ram Menon’s memory too. But he did leave behind a lot of good memories! Tears well up in my eyes as memories of Ramucchettan flood my mind. I fervently hope I don’t lose my memory, because the most beautiful things in life are memories and moments!




Tuesday, June 18, 2019


Bhima Koregaon
The last battle of the Anglo-Maratha war (1818) which established the firm hold of the British Empire in India was fought at Koregaon village on the banks of Bhima river near Pune. The British erected an obelisk at the battle ground in the memory of those who died for the Empire. Of the 49 names on the monument, 22 were those of soldiers belonging to the Mahar community leading to their leaders taking great credit from it for their gallantry. The British however, stopped recruitment from Mahars to their Army in 1893, after a reassessment of “martial races” in India, said to be following the Indian uprising of 1857. Ramji Ambedkar, father of B R Ambedkar was one among the Maha leaders who requested the British to continue recruitment of Mahars to no avail.
B R Ambedkar is said to have created a socio-political myth painting the Battle of Bhima Koregaon as a battle of Mahar soldiers against their caste oppression in Peshwa rule, very much like the Communists in Kerala painted their Punnapra-Vayalar “Revolution” as a violent struggle against the Travancore State against its intention to carve a country out of the Union of India! In the fertile land for identity-politics after decades of a “soft state” created by Congress rule, the myth created by Mahar leaders solidified into a quasi-history in latter years, bringing many Dalit organisations with obvious fundamentalist Muslim and Maoist help to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bhima Koregaon battle as a campaign to launch an attack on an imaginary Hegemon, which they paint as the new Peshwai, the rising “Brahmanic” rule of the Hindutva forces! The charade culminated in into an Elgar Parishad (conference) at the Shaniwarwada at Pune on December 31, 2017. Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of B. R. Ambedkar and President of an outfit called Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi floated by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi, has tried to give a larger dimension to Elgaar Parishad theorising that it is formed to bridge the growing divide between Marathas, OBCs and SC/STs.
Interestingly many critics of the “Hindu Nationalist party, BJP” seem to ignore that the narrative around the war memorial at Bhima Koregaon is at variance with the national history of war! It was a clash between the British and the resistance to their rule. The regiment that defeated the Peshwa army 200 years ago had members of all castes. It was the final blow to an imperial Indian resistance to the British and the solidification of their Raj. Obviously the British cunningly manipulated the inimical caste equations to bring down the indigenous Maratha empire. Besides, the entire narrate in along the lines of Brahmins and Dalits, the Maratha empire and caste discrimination is historically wrong.
Come to think of it: every year, on 1 January, lakhs of Dalits across Maharashtra gather at the war memorial of Bhima Koregaon, 40 kilometres from Pune to commemorates the victory of the British Army, over the Peshwas! The motive of the battle was not to strengthen Dalits, but to dethrone the Peshwas as perhaps the last barrier to establishing British rule in India. I fail to understand why the Mahars and now other Dalit communities too, celebrate the victory of British army which looted, raped and murdered our people, using our own people? If their purpose is to “make a statement”, I am worried about that statement because it cuts at the root of our national sentiment, the pride of having defeated the British colonial rule in a long-drawn non-violent battle of sacrifices; the unity of India amidst its diversity! A contingent of well-equipped of local mercenaries defeating their Kings army for the British who later ignored them, took them out of the recruitment policy altogether! I wonder whether the British were rejecting subjects who could easily change loyalties!  


Wednesday, March 20, 2019


Creating a Bofors equivalent to beat Modi!
Arun Shourie, former editor of the Indian Express, and a posterboy of the BJP, author, and a member of the A B Vajpayee cabinet can be assumed to have become totally unhinged due to personal tragedies and frustrations in his life. His son Aditya suffers from cerebral palsy and wheelchair-bound from childhood; and his wife Anita from Parkinson's disease lately. His latest (?) book 'Anita Gets Bail' ("for a house we never built on a plot we did not own" in a case registered against her Haryana State Pollution Control Board during the UPA rule!) is heart-renting! The man who painted such an the ugly picture of India's justice-dispensing system is seen now arguing a case in the Supreme Court with an ugly mind and motive against the Narendra Modi still blames the Judiciary for granting him only a little more than a minute to speak against the “illegalities” and possibly corruption in the Supreme Court.
Many of the points are just fussy and pedantic fault-finding of a deal by its nature cannot be discussed much in detail and delayed for observing niceties, considering the IAF has been under-equipped for considerable length of time. However, since the allegations of the Prime Minister causing a "massive loss" to the exchequer, and also having "jeopardized national security" comes from the likes of Shourie, one has to examine the case truthfully.
First of all, the IAF’s fondness for the Dassault Rafale is acknowledgedly in order to simplify the Indian Air Force’s logistics chain by choosing an aircraft from the maker of the IAF’s Mirage-2000 (Dassault Systemes) which were made and are being upgraded by the same major companies (Thales, Safran etc.) that make the major components for the Rafale was a major consideration. The competition which gave some technical points to an Opposition leader with a notoriety for lack of intelligence and even poor memory only wanted to throw a spanner in the works hoping to delay the procurement of Rafale F3R, Advanced Multirole Combat Aircraft by India to re-enter the scene in case of a controversy of a massive corruption created can effect a change in government!


Secondly, there were indeed talks on the cost of some India specific upgrades between the IAF and Dassault during the UPA regime which had never progressed to conclusive cost negotiations between Dassault and HAL which was supposed to build Rafales in India!  The end result is that it is IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous to compare the per-piece cost of the Rafales being acquired now and the Rafales being negotiated for earlier.
The final price for the whole package was brought down by stringent negotiation to 7.1 billion Euros from the 8.6 billion Euros that France asked for the 36 plane contract. The price works out to 262 million Euros for Qatar as compared to roughly 197 million Euros for the IAF. What Egypt bought at 217 million was the older F3 standard.  The 7.1 billion Euros for the Rafale includes the weapons, logistics cost (infrastructure & spares for 5 years-a benchmark is that a fighter consumes five per cent of its worth in consumables and spares each year), performance guarantee, additional 13 India Specific Enhancement (ISE) etc. which all come up to about half the 7.1 billion. It may be noted that the 7.1 billion Euros also includes climate controlled hangars for the 36 jets, setting up of support facilities, and pilot training. The version of the Rafale, F3R, Advanced Multirole Combat Aircraft in fly-away condition India has decided to procure has 14 improvements in its configuration were which are India-specific upgrades, over the previously down selected F3, ordered specifically on the request of the IAF according to Air Chief Marshal Raha. The Meteor air-to-air missile, considered to be the best in the world, is part of the new deal. Other special options include a low band jammer, towed decoy system, upgraded engine, additional modes in the radar and higher resolution in the Front Sector Optronics, the Israeli HMD sight and its integration, Israeli Litening Pod and its integration, radio altimeters, cold start for high altitudes, Doppler radar (all special to India), the nuclear capable Scalp cruise missile, spare parts and engines and the stringent availability requirements. There is a significant upgrade involved in making everything compatible with the Meteor and Scalp missiles being acquired. Targeting and other symbology specific to these weapon systems is being integrated into this helmet mounted sight.
These options, while being great war capability providers, add significantly to the cost of the whole deal. A Meteor missile for instance, is not only the best air-to-air missile, but also one of the most expensive at about a million Euros each.
The Opposition politicians are laying the worst dirty trick possible because of the Catch22 involved. The Government is being arm-twisted details of a defence purchase whose war capacity in a combat cannot be released! The Judiciary knows it, the media knows it, our intelligentsia know it, but it has become a political game which some of the smartest people have decided to play to bring down a Government which has had a corruption-free good governance record to its credit for the first time in India! The mandatory secrecy involved made the government make a few mistakes: it never presented a complete picture even to kill the Opposition political campaign. It was Senior journalist and editor Minhas Merchant who really presented the government’s case comprehensively in a newspaper article! I had personally appealed in several tweets to the PM/MoD that the details may be handed over to the President and the Supreme Commander of our Armed Forces to be passed on to CJI Dipak Misra who had no hostility towards this government) to scrutinize. It wasn’t done till the SC under CJI Gogoi sought details as a follow-up action on petitions before it alleging corruption. Doesn’t a stitch in time save seven?
A huge misinformation used in political campaign against the deal is that the HAL has been replaced by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group in the new deal. ADAG hasn’t replaced HAL. Not a single component of the 36 Rafale fighters ordered by this government is being procured from ADAG. ADAG is presently making components of business jets for Dassault in a JV whose chairman is the chairman of Dassault Aviation! These components go into their global supply chain and those operations have nothing to do with the Rafales coming to India. If India decides to buy any more Rafale fighters, they may be made in India in future, but that will be under a separate agreement. There is another c component in the $2.9 billion contract – the offsets. The UPA had talked about an offset of 30% whereas under the negotiations concluded by Modi Government, 30 per cent offset commitment for military aerospace research and development programmes and 20 per cent for making components of Rafales!
Another allegation is that the HAL was dropped from the local manufacturing of Rafale fighters as if it was a foregone conclusion! Domestic assembly of foreign aircraft is not cost effective, the cost of the Su-30MKI made in India by HAL is known to be more than twice the cost of procuring it direct from Russia. HAL’s manufacturing capability is a joke as they have with difficulty agreed to manufacture 8 Tejas Mark-1 per annum due to pressure from the IAF. Tejas Mark-2 is only on the drawing board yet! No wonder, Dassault Aviation flatly refused to be associated with HAL in any manufacturing operations!
As many as 20 Indian companies, big and small, will get businesses worth over 3.5 billion dollars in the enhanced scheme of offset manufacturing, providing a great opportunity for indigenous manufacturers under Make India project in developing world class technology within the country. Samtel Avionics, Reliance Aerospace (of the ADAG), L&T, Mahindra Group, Kalyani Group, Godrej & Boyce, Tata group etc. are some of the companies listed as participants in the offset manufacture programme. The Opposition insinuates Anil Ambani is a major beneficiary because he is currently weaker of the two Ambani bothers. But he had been associated with the SP, not the BJP! It is a calumny to say that “Anil Ambani owned company has been benefited in the deal” as messrs Arun Shourie, Yaswant Sinha and Prashan Bhushan say! The Defence Research and Development Organisation, is also in the loop to benefit from French know-how in stealth, radar and thrust vectoring for missiles technologies in an ongoing and futuristic cooperation with Dassault.
Meanwhile a side-story has surfaced revealing part of the animosity towards Reliance Aerospace: there was one application which was not considered worth being included in the offset manufacture – that of “Offset India Solutions (OIS) Group” (owned by Sanjay Bhandari, alleged to be an associate of Robert Vadra) set up in 20018 as a defence consultancy and liaison services business for execution of offsets obligations for foreign armament companies! Bhandari’s main business is said to be importing somehow duty-free BMW, Mercedes Benzes and high end Maseratis and Lamborghinis and selling naturally, cheap to rich people! OIS-Advanced Technology Private Ltd, which ventured into manufacturing military radars! Sanjay Bhandari manages to swing a jet trainer deal for Swiss company Pilatus thereafter! This is no secret now, with TV News channels Times Now, Zee News and others publishing a mail trail our investigating agencies have unearthed. It was in the news lately that Sanjay Bhandari funded purchase of a property worth Rs.19 cores in London for his patron Vadra!