Aiming without arming: The message from the latest defence budget

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Editor's note: “I know that today’s era is not the era of war,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting last September. Though most Western officials hailed the Indian leader’s words, many others believed Modi was making a rhetorical point in order to create the right optics before the Bali G20 summit in November. But that statement seems to have been lent some credence by the Union Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who gave defence short shrift and not even a perfunctory mention in her 87-minute-long speech on 1 February. Of the central government’s Rs 45,03,097 crore expenditure planned for FY 2023-24, the defence ministry has been allocated Rs 5,93,373 crore, or 13.2% of the total. This is just 1.97% of India’s estimated gross domestic product, and if one excludes the allocation of Rs 1,38,205 crore for defence pensions, it comes down to less than 1.5% of GDP. The parliamentary standing committee on defence has cried itself hoarse in recent years asking for a defence budget of at least 3% of GDP, this being …