Reflections

What the Indian reality is
Early this month, Time magazine had, as its cover story,'Super India – The Next
Military Power'. Certainly, we have come a long way because not so long ago, India
was taken notice of by international magazines, only when there was famine or
communal killings.
Among the informed, it was common knowledge that we had the fourth largest
standing army in the world and that after 1972, the fire power and mobility of our
army had dramatically increased. Our air force outclassed Pakistani air force both in
numbers and its penetrative ability and if the Chinese had more planes, we had the
more modern ones with greater striking power. And the Pakistan navy was no match
to ours.
We also knew that we could hold the Chinese on our northern borders and if they
could occupy bits of our territory because the terrain in certain areas suited them, we
were capable of doing the same to them. And, if Zia of Pakistan did not pour venom
like Bhutto before him, it was because as a wise general, he knew that his Indian
counterparts are quite capable of giving him a bloody nose.
But what many of us did not know was that we have been the largest importers of
arms in the world since '86, spending 80 billion rupees in '87, and what is most
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