“It’s the economy, stupid.” The iconic phrase that guided Bill Clinton’s victory over George H W Bush in the 1992 presidential election in the United States has unleashed itself on the Indian military three decades later.
More than half of the Indian government’s defence expenditure of $70.6bn – the third highest in the world after the US and China – goes towards pensions and salaries for Indian military personnel. It was shooting upwards by the year and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government was unable to initiate a substantive reform within the existing structure.
