Indian Might

There are some quarters in Trinidad and Tobago that have worked assiduously to ensure that the Indo-Trinidadian is not fully represented in the armed forces. In Trinidad and Tobago, Indians are under-represented in the Police, Fire Service, and Army. There have been many calls in the past that the government should take steps to have the demographics of the nation reflected in the armed forces. A 1992 paper by Professor Kenneth Tracy on the Defence Force, now incorporated in a book published by the UWI Centre for Ethnic Studies called Ethnicity and Employment Practices in Trinidad and Tobago, showed statistically the insignificant percentages of Indians in the forces.

In fact retired regiment Commander Colonel Andrew Dalip in a 2001 media interview revealed the strategy of not recruiting Indians to the armed forces. Dalip stated it is not enough to say that East Indians are not attracted to the service. “Traditionally, people who were attracted to the Army would naturally have come from the north because that is where the army was based. Most came from the East-West Corridor. You attract people to an organisation by advertisement and word of mouth. So if there were already a majority of Africans in the service, then still more Africans will know about it.........If you want to attract young graduates, you must go to UWI. If you want businessmen, go to the Chamber of Commerce. If for some reason you want a number of Africans, you can go to the East-West Corridor. So if you want East Indians, then...You go into the East Indian areas to recruit.”

In this light the Indian High Commission must be commended for arranging for an Indian Naval vessel to visit Trinidad and Tobago [6th to 8th June 2004] to be part of the Indian Heritage Month celebrations. It surely must have taken all the diplomatic skills of High Commissioner Virendra Gupta to have a new Indian Naval ship detour from Russia to India to visit Trinidad and Tobago. The Royal Indian Marine participated in the First World War and expanded considerably. But the end of the war brought severe retrenchment and the Royal Indian Marine was reduced to a very small force capable of only defence duties of a few ports.

The maritime defence of India was entrusted to the Royal Navy depriving Indians of valuable seafaring experience. On the insistence of some prominent citizens, the British relented to introduce a small fighting force in the name of the Royal Indian Navy. Bombay became the HQ of the Royal Indian Navy and it was agreed that in due course it will predominantly be manned by Indians. Recruitment of officers into the Royal Indian Navy started in the early 1930s. With the start of the Second World War in 1939, the Royal Indian Navy expanded rapidly and some merchant ships were also converted into men-of-war. More and more Indians were inducted into the service and they gave a very good account of themselves in maritime combat. Quite a few were given gallantry awards.

In 1950 when India became a Republic, the term ‘Royal’ was dropped and the nomenclature was changed to just Indian Navy. Now India has a modern fleet operated by a competent navy. The INS Tabar (Indian Naval Ship Battle-Axe ) was one of three frigates India ordered from Russia in November 1997 to supplement Indian shipbuilding efforts. The ships were built at the Baltisky Zavod shipyards in St` Petersburg. Commissioned on April 19 2004, the INS Tabar is the last ship in the 3-ship Talwar class, which is a heavy modification of the erstwhile-Soviet Krivak-3 class frigate design of the 1970s. Using the basic hull and propulsion of the older ship, India and Russia collaborated on the final design and a compact, high-tech. and potent vessel emerged - displacing some 3620 tons standard and 4035 full-load. INS Tabar is densely packed with state of the art weapons and sensors, whereby she can operate in a multiple threat environment.

She possesses the capability to handle several threats in all the three dimensions of Battle Space - Air, Surface and Sub-Surface. The ship is built for stealth, and is 125 metres in length and displaces almost 4000 tons. It is capable of speeds in excess of 30 Knots. INS Tabar has an impressive array of Indian and Russian sensors, which amongst others include, the indigenous advanced sonar HUMSA and the communications suite CCS Mk II manufactured by M/S Bharat Electronics. The ship’s weapon suite includes vertical launch long-range Surface to Surface Missiles, a 100 mrn gun, long-range Surface to Air Missiles, Advanced Torpedo Launch, Anti Submarine Rocket Launchers and Anti Missile Defence Systems, amongst others.

The ship will also operate the state-of-the-art KA 31 helicopters for Airborne Early Warning. INS Tabar will join the Indian Navy, as a multipurpose frontline warship, operating at the cutting edge of weapons technology, with very high weapons and sensor density and enhanced stealth features. At present, these ships are the most potent in the Indian Navy but will be eclipsed by much more sophisticated ships currently under construction at Indian shipyards as part of the Project-17 programme. While much of the electronics and sonars are Indian, the weapons systems are entirely Russian in origin. Reliable information reveals that that there may be a follow-on order for 3 more ships of her type. The Russians build faster than Indian shipyards at present.

The ship will sail from Baltyisk, Russia in end April 2004 and will arrive in India at the end of July 2004, after making visits to twelve ports enroute. The port visits include, Rostock (Germany), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Brest (France). Port-of-Spain (Trinidad and Tobago), and other ports in the Caribbean, South America (Rio de Janeiro) and Indian Ocean (Reunion and Mauritius). INS Tabar is commanded by Captain AG Thapliyal and is manned by a crew of 28 officers and 232 sailors. The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha has been invited by the High Commission of India to participate in particular aspects of this historic visit. This includes having SDMS schools visit the ship and the SDMS hosting the captain of the ship for a lecture.