April 6, 2025: An Indian firm, Bharat Electronics Limited or BEL, has developed and produced a Battlefield Surveillance System or BSS called SANJAY, The Indian BSS is being installed in all Indian army brigade, division, and corps headquarters as well as the army high command by the end of 2025.

The BSS depends on the existing military communications system as well as communications links deployed by brigade and higher units when they deploy for training or actual operations. The BSS provides improved situational awareness and enables commanders to view real time operations as they unfold and order changes or new orders based on what they detect. Developmental tests of BSS revealed shortcomings and opportunities that were tended to. This monitoring and adjustment activity is continuous to monitor the accuracy and reliability of the BSS.

BSS will be updated as new computer and sensor technology is developed. For the government the best part of the SANJAY BSS is that it was developed and manufactured in India by local firms without any dependence on foreign sources. India has long been dependent on foreign imports to obtain the latest military technology. For over half a century Russia was the main supplier, over the last decade Western suppliers have been replacing Russian systems.

Arch-enemy China has created a world-class arms development and manufacturing industry. India has not and overcoming this shortcoming has been a major goal for Indian government, military and manufacturing officials. Progress has been slow but SANJAY was an encouraging new development.

Indians are mystified at their inability, as the most populous nation in the world, to build their own military equipment. The Indian GDP is $3.9 trillion, the fifth largest worldwide, after the U.S., China, Germany and Japan. The Indian defense budget of $72 billion is the fourth largest after the United States, China and Russia. Despite these numbers, India still has to import most of its weapons and remains unable to develop a domestic arms manufacturing industry befitting the nation with the third largest defense budget. This is exceeded by China with nearly $300 billion and the United States with nearly $900 billion.

Efforts to create domestic defense industries have been crippled by specific portions of the bureaucracy. The worst of these is the Defense Research and Development Organization or DRDO. Alas, DRDO became a monumental example of bureaucratic inefficiency, wasting billions of dollars and decades of effort on weapons systems that never quite became operational or when they did, they really weren't. DRDO was created in 1958 to provide government support and guidance for defense related research. But the network of research and manufacturing facilities DRDO established since then were more about patronage and plundering the taxpayers than in actually creating competitive defense industries. Even DRDO efforts to create low-tech weapons like assault rifles and other infantry equipment were failures, with sloppiness and inefficiency resulting in very uncompetitive weapons.

Worse, many major DRDO weapons development projects have failed because bad politics ensured that bad ideas kept getting funded, and those efforts rarely produced anything the military found acceptable. There have been some new ideas and opportunities. One of the most alluring is the growing number of private firms in India that can handle defense work. Currently non-government Indian firms get about a quarter of the contracts. Foreign defense firms can make deals with these private firms who can then go after Indian defense contracts. But standing in the way are the Indian defense officials. The Indian bureaucrats have a well-deserved reputation of gumming up the works and preventing needful things from getting done. This makes it difficult for private companies, especially when the main customer is the government.

Getting rid of DRDO and its 30,000 employees is difficult. Over 20 percent of them are scientists and engineers unable to compete in a free market economy with many of the rest being obstructionist bureaucrats who cripple the efforts of commercial firms competing with DRDO. Eliminating DRDO is extremely unpopular with most politicians. Yet in the last few years senior elected officials have made some decisive moves to end the bureaucratic deadlock. This involved something as simple as ending the ban on former military personnel taking key jobs in the Defense Ministry and shutting down state-owned arms factories with long records of failure.

This situation is tragic and a growing number of Indians realize it. India, a regional superpower and the world’s largest democracy now finds itself in a very rough neighborhood and military efficiency is becoming a necessity, not just a worthy goal. To deal with that, India has always maintained large armed forces and one of the largest armies, with a million troops, on the planet. But keeping these troops equipped to handle combat has proved to be very difficult. The army keeps falling behind in replacing aging weapons like artillery and obtaining new technology like missiles, smart munitions, and night vision equipment. Getting the money from the government has been the least of their problems. The biggest hassles are with corruption and failed efforts to develop local weapons production.

The latest government moves to change all that are not revolutionary, but evolutionary. As has long been observed, democracies always do the right thing, but often only after trying everything else. India still has not reached the end of the everything else list.