New Delhi, December 04, 2005, Sujan Dutta (The Telegraph)

A joint Indo-Russian venture to export the Brahmos cruise missile to “friendly countries” has run into diplomatic hurdles and the defence ministry has now urged the ministry of external affairs to add ballast to its effort.

The Brahmos — named after the Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers — is being inducted into the Indian Navy, seven years after the joint venture was formed. Last month, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee was told in Moscow that Russia was working on fitting the missiles to some of its warships.

Russia and India have identified countries in Latin America and Africa to whom the missile can be sold, said Sivathanu Pillai, chief controller of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and head of the Brahmos programme.

“I cannot disclose the names. But the list has been drawn up carefully after studying the diplomatic considerations of both India and Russia. We were told in Moscow by (Russian defence minister) Sergei Ivanov’s team that they were very interested in exporting it. The export consideration has been part of the Brahmos programme since the agreement was reached in 1998,” Pillai said.

Pillai has himself been at the head of efforts to promote the missile. But the response of Indian missions abroad was not encouraging. On a visit to a Southeast Asian nation, for instance, the Indian ambassador had to be coaxed to attend the DRDO’s stall at an exhibition when a military delegation from the host nation was scheduled to visit.

Pillai and his team are promoting it as the only missile in its class. The Brahmos is a supersonic cruise missile. Launched from a ship, it flies at 2 mach (twice the speed of sound, making it supersonic) with a conventional warhead weighing up to 200 kg. It is said to have a range of 290 km, a little less than the Missile Technology Control Regime ceiling of 300 km. It can be fired from multiple platforms (ship, land, submarine and air).

The Indian naval ship, INS Rajput, has been equipped with the missile. The Russians and Indians are now working out the techniques to arm Amur (diesel) submarines with it. The Indian Army will induct a road and rail mobile version by 2007 and a short air force version will arm the Sukhoi 30 fighter aircraft by that year.

But despite the defence establishment’s belief that the Brahmos can be a starting point for the Indian defence industry to probe the global military market, the foreign ministry has been less than encouraging so far. Delhi does not want to be seen as a proliferator of weapons, goes the argument.

But Pillai countered by saying India has an impeccable record and it has its own laws against arms proliferation. Besides, the Brahmos is a corporatised entity that enjoys more flexibility than Indian ordnance factories.

DRDO officials are now visiting international military hardware exhibitions equipped with slide shows and audio-visual presentations to demonstrate the missile’s efficacy.