The Armed Services and the Indian Defense Budget

Abstract

COMPETING CLAIMS to India's scarce economic resources require that the defense sector convincingly justify its program against proposed civilian programs that may provide direct economic benefits to the population. Consequently, while external threat conditions may seem like the main arbiter of the size and specifics of Indian defense budgets, domestic political and economic conditions play an equally important part. To a considerable degree, the size and specifics of Indian defense programs depend on the internal political strength of various actors, both civilian and military, who are demanding a larger share of the national budget. At the stage when the Indian Ministry of Finance is considering allocations to various sectors of the economy, the claims of the Ministry of Defence must be weighed against the claims of other ministries such as Food and Agriculture, Industries, Commerce, and Health and Family Welfare. Until the appointment of V. K. Krishna Menon as Defence Minister in 1956, the claims of defense generally received less attention.1 This was partly due to the lower threats perceived by India's national leaders during the immediate years following the 1948 Indo-Pakistan war over Kashmir. The first three defense ministers-Baldev Singh, Gopalaswami Ayyangar, and Kailash Nath Katju-also tended to be comparatively less influential with Prime Minister Nehru than other Cabinet Ministers such as Maulana Azad and Govind Ballabh Pant.