On Wednesday (28th August), the CEO of a major Indian defence company, Vivek Krishnan expressed disappointment and discontent over the fact that the Ministry of Defence awarded another order for the procurement of assault rifles from the American firm instead of prioritising ‘Made in India in Defence Sector’ and indigenisation of defence hardware.
Notably, this comes a day after American weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer announced on Tuesday that India’s Ministry of Defence has placed an order for 73,000 SIG716 rifles. The US firm said that the company is honoured to announce a second procurement contract with the Government of India, Ministry of Defence to supply an additional 73,000 SIG716 rifles. This is India’s second procurement order awarded to US firm Sig Sauer in the last five years. The Indian government previously ordered 72,400 rifles from them in 2019. Now, once their new deal is completed, the Indian Army will have more than 1.45 lakh Sig Sauer SIG716 rifles in service.
While this new order will fulfil the much-needed requirement of guns for Indian armed forces, this has been seen as a major setback for the government’s own make-in-India in defence sector initiative. While India now manufactures fighter planes, helicopters, tanks, artillery guns and many other equipment, local production of small arms has been less than expected.
In 2019, there was a lot of buzz about two new snipper riffle prototypes developed by an Indian company, SSS Defence from Bengaluru. It was expected that the company would supply to the Indian Army, as the army was looking to acquire sniffer riffles. Now, the recent order has meant that the company has missed out on the opportunity this time.
Now, responding to this development, the Indian Entrepreneur Vivek Krishnan has written a long post on X stressing that India needs indigenous weapons, especially when it is surrounded by hostile neighbours. Krishnan is the CEO of SSS Defence, a new age Defence company that is backed by 70 years of manufacturing excellence, as per the company’s X (Twitter) bio. Their focus is manufacturing small arms, ammunition, high-end optics & military accessories.
In his post, the Indian Entrepreneur exhibited confidence in Indian defence manufacturers and posed a challenge stating that indigenous weapons can be tested against global benchmarks, alluding that they will be at par with their global competitors.
While expressing confidence in the capabilities of Indian defence manufacturers, Krishnan, however, lamented by pointing out what he called “a lack of self-esteem”. He explained by saying, “…we brown skinned Indians have always found that we’re respected by our own global peers before the country wakes up. It’s a self esteem thing…”
He noted that he has reacted to this development as he was getting a lot of messages asking “his” opinion about this procurement order of assault rifles from the US firm.
He said, “Well, we knew this was coming. So, just went about our work. But some plainspeak is well worth it.”
Afterward, he raised several points in his post, while displaying raw emotions –
Major points raised in his post
Krishna outrightly mentioned, “I wish the govt had not acquired more of these,” referring to the repeat order for SIG716 rifles. He argued that India could have gotten more contenders in the race had the govt insisted on Indian design and content.
He noted that despite the order going to the US firm, his defence company SSS Defence will continue “to be the most fearless dog in this business”. He added, “We shall still have a weapon for each caliber and the user to us is still the man in uniform. We will be global”.
Highlighting the need for patience to see the success of Make in India for in defence, he said, “What about Make in India for defence? There are a handful of guys really doing good work in the small arms space. There’s commitment from them and all it’ll take is patience. With our neighbourhood, only a fool can imagine doing without indigenous weapons. They’ll have to come and buy from us”.
He asked, “What about pride in Indian stuff?” adding that we lost pride a long ago by building substandard weapons in the government-controlled space which the private sector is trying to regain.
Lamenting about the lack of pride in Indian talent, he added, “But making good weapons & getting them accepted is a difficult task. We know since going global has taught us that. In any case, we brown skinned Indians have always found that we’re respected by our own global peers before the country wakes up. It’s a self esteem thing…”
He concluded by demanding a fair test in which the indigenous weapon is tested against the global benchmark.
He said, “Here’s the challenge – we’ve heard from the buyer for a long time that “we’re not there on metallurgy” or “our designs are behind time”. I say put an Indigenous weapon of ours against a global benchmark in each caliber and test out. Make the results open like real serious armies do. Test protocols are clearly defined. It would be the best for both sides. How difficult is that ?”
SIG716 vs Sniper rifles developed by SSS Defence
As per the Live Mint report, the SIG716 rifle is said to be an improved version of a rifle in the ArmaLite Rifle (AR) platform chambered 7.62 NATO. It has a higher recoil and higher calibre, meant to shoot-to-kill targets at 600 metres. This assault rifle reportedly has a higher range, more lethality, and higher recoil than the INSAS and the AK-47, which fires a smaller round.
It features a 16-inch barrel, an M-LOK handguard, and a 6-position telescoping stock. According to the statement released by the US firm, it designs and builds rifles for the Indian Army and various other clients in the United States.
Based in Bengaluru’s Koramangala, SSS Defence is reportedly India’s first private firm in defence production. In 2019, it had designed and developed two sniper rifle prototypes meant for the armed forces, indigenously. Back then, it was gunning to put its two weapons on trial with the special forces.
As per the Times of India report, it had developed two rifles: Viper which uses .308/7.62x51mm cartridge, and Saber which fires .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge. While Viper has proved its accuracy from a distance of more than 1,000 metres, Saber has proved it on a 1,500 metres range. The Minute of Angle (MoA), which is used to measure the accuracy of rifles, the firm claimed, is the best in the class, comparable to global weapons.