The Indian Navy celebrates Navy Day on December 4 to commemorate its successful sea-borne attack off Karachi harbour during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.
What is the importance of Indian Navy?
According to warship replacement programme, Indian Navy (IN) has to maintain a force level of at least 120 ships with an average life of 20 years.
It has to induct at least six warships annually.
Over the years the IN has developed skill-sets to build warships for tropical conditions characterised by high temperatures, humidity and salinity that creates a corrosive climate.
Therefore, IN warships are export-worthy marine platforms to other Indian Ocean littoral countries.
The IN is also an instrument of maritime diplomacy.
It involves goodwill visits by warships to foreign ports, naval exercises, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, besides persuasive deployment.
What is the problem?
Over the years the army and air force has been accorded priority to counter landward threats.
This has constrained IN only to warship replacement programmes.
But there is a strategic shift towards China with the recent stand-off at Doklam and the presence of Chinese warships in the Indian Ocean.
The Indian and Chinese navies come into contact with each other either in the waters of the Indian Ocean or the South China Sea.
In June 2016 a Chinese spy ship tailed two Indian Navy warships in Japanese territorial waters east of Okinawa.
Similarly in 2012, another Indian warship, the INS Airawat, was challenged by Chinese navy boats while sailing along the coast of Vietnam.
So, the naval firepower is critical for India to consolidate its strategic interests in the IOR & SCS.
