Five years after the Badin raid, the IAF set about searching for a deep penetration strike aircraft to replace its ageing Canberra fleet—an aircraft that could hit targets deep inside Pakistan, until then sheltered by distance, without exposing its pilots to the incredible risks they faced.
Leaked United States diplomatic cables, purporting to show Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi acted as an “entrepreneur” or middleman for Swedish manufacturer Saab, have now sparked off a furious debate about how that critical aircraft acquisition was actually conducted. The cables also record speculation that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, was fronting for the BAC-111—a commercial jet then competing for a lucrative Indian Airlines contract.
For all the media fuss, though close reading of the cables shows they don’t actually tell us that much. Saab lost out on the combat jet deal, and the BAC-111 to the Boeing 737. There is lots of smoke, but no fire—not even, so to speak, the hint of a cigar.
The Saab cables consist of the kind of gossip and innuendo that swirls around all big business deals. In the October 1975 cable naming Rajiv Gandhi, for example, a Swedish informant tells the United States embassy that the “decision would be between Mirage and Viggen”. The very next month, though, in November, 1975, a British high commission official told his United States counterparts that “the British Jaguar is still very much in running”. In January, 1976, Defence Minister Bansi Lal discussed terms and delivery schedules with British high commissioner Michael Walker. Though Lal underlined the French were still in the running, he did not mention Saab. Now, according to the United States embassy, the Swedes were “the least optimistic”.
Washington decided in August, 1976, it would not allow Saab to sell to India, objecting to Sweden handing over the “advanced United States technology represented in the Viggen’s aerodynamic design, engine and flying controls, navigation system, electronic components and weapons systems”. It’s clear from the January, 1976, cable, though, it’s clear Saab was already pretty much out of the race by then.
The cables—which were actually been declassified since 2006, as their right-hand columns record, and have since been available on microfilm—also do not assert that Rajiv Gandhi was fronting for Saab.
In one cable, a Swedish diplomat tells the United States mission in New Delhi that that the “main Indian negotiator” was “Mrs. Gandhi’s ol[d]er son, Rajiv Gandhi”. Swedish diplomats, the cable records, “understand the importance of family influences in the final decision”. Based on this information, the cable’s author observed that this was the first time the United States embassy had heard of Rajiv Gandhi acting as an “entrepreneur”. “We would”, it adds “have thought a transport pilot [is] not the best expert to rely upon in evaluating a fighter plan, but then we are speaking of a transport pilot who has another and perhaps more relevant qualification”.
These remarks are editorial comments on information—snark, if you wish. They demonstrate an arguably prescient contempt for Rajiv Gandhi’s capabilities and probity, but nothing more.
France, the United States and Sweden all believed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her sons would make the final decision on the contract—not the Indian Air Force. New Delhi-based French diplomats asserted Indira Gandhi would make the decision on “polio cal [political?] grounds”. For France, this was good news: a long-standing Indian ally, it was seen by New Delhi as relatively independent of the United States. It should also have been good news for the Swedes if they had Rajiv Gandhi behind them—but the United States embassy’s Swedish informant “expressed irritation at the way Mrs Gandhi is personally dominating the negotiations”.
The totality of the cables, though, show the British assessment was the closest to the truth: the IAF was calling the shots. Walker, for one, was certain that the Jaguar was “the favourite of the IAF”.
Perhaps, like any shrewd negotiator, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, fed competitors with rumours about their prospects, inducing them to better their bids. Her strategy, if that was it, worked.
To understand the IAF’s thinking, context is key. The race for a Canberra replacement had begun in 1970, when the Soviet Union offered India the Tupelov-22—a medium-range supersonic bomber which had just entered service in 1962. The aircraft was capable of carrying up to 9,000 kilograms of ordnance almost 5,000 kilometres at speeds of up Mach 1.42. The Indian Air Force had earlier flown the Tu-22’s non-supersonic predecessor, the Tu16, using it as a modified VIP transport for Indira Gandhi. Her relationship with the Soviet Union was excellent; the Soviet Union, moreover, accepted rupee payment. In 1971, though, air-marshal Shivdev Singh visited Moscow to study the Tu-22—and found it wanting.
Not all in the government were happy with this call—but the air force judgment proved correct. The Tu-22 suffered from a number of technical problems, as well as serviceability issues. More than 70 of the 311 Tu-22’s produced crashed.
The war of 1971 hammered home the need to move forward, and fast: the Canberras, though excellent for their time, were too exposed. From 1973 to 1976, the air force studied the options. The gold standard, at the time, was the General Dynamics F-111, but India’s fraught relationship with the United States meant that option was closed. With the Tu-22 out of the race, three combat jets were left in contention—the SEPECAT Jaguar, the Saab Viggen, and the Dassault Mirage F1.
Each aircraft had advantages. The F1 had better air defence capabilities—something appreciated by Canberra pilots, who had been forced to fly hugging the ground at night to avoid Pakistani missiles. The Saab was the first aircraft to incorporate both afterburners and thrust-reversers. From the air force point of view, says retired Air Vice-Marshal Kapil Kak, the Jaguar was however the top pick. Its two engines, like the Canberra, gave it range and payload advantages.
Three successive IAF chiefs—Om Prakash Mehra from 1973 to 1976, Hrushikesh Moolgavkar on 1976 to 1978, and IH Latif, from 1978 t0 1981—all backed the Jaguar. Their pressure proved decisive. Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who came to power in 1977, gave the final go-ahead In February 1979, a team visited the United Kingdom to firm-up the deal. The United Kingdom agreed to hold back equipping its own combat squadrons to meet India’s needs. Eighteen Royal Air Force Jaguars were loaned to the Indian Air Force, until production aircraft came off the assembly lines. The first two loaned aircraft became operational on July 27, 1979.
In 1980, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi briefly threatened to review the deal, amidst swirling rumours that Prime Minister Desai’s son, Kanti Desai, had received kickbacks. She never went through with the threat, though.
So what do the cables tell us? For one, the New Delhi of the mid-1970s was a lot like New Delhi today: connections, or the appearance of connections, mattered. They also tell us, though, that connections didn’t always swing things. Saab didn’t ever have a real chance of winning the deep penetration strike aircraft contract, and the Boeing 737 sailed through into the Indian Airlines fleet. It is entirely possible any of the winners would have passed on kickbacks to the ruling party—leaving it free to purchase the best equipment on offer.
There is one important thing, though, that the fallout from the release of the cables shows: how little evidence it now takes to persuade Indians that wrong-doing has occurred. The media nudge-nudge reporting must get blame for this frenzy. However, Prime Ministers from Indira Gandhi to Manmohan Singh must share the bigger part of the blame for engendering this culture of suspicion.
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