Girish Linganna
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its annual report on international armaments transfers for 2023 in March 2024. The much-anticipated lists of exporters and importers from SIPRI have raised a serious question about India’s ambitious claims regarding its expanding military-industrial complex.
According to government data, India’s arms exports for fiscal 2023-’24 totalled Rs 210.8 billion rupees (approximately $2.5 billion), representing a 32.5% increase from Rs 159 billion rupees in FY 2022-’23. According to SIPRI’s 2021 report, India achieved the 23rd position among the top 25 arms exporters. India anticipated that the success of its arms exports would enable it to reduce its reliance on foreign aid and boost the domestic arms industry in order to meet the military requirements of the Indian armed forces and sympathetic governments or friendly foreign countries.
Nevertheless, India was omitted from the top 25 arms exporters list in SIPRI’s 2022 report with the status unchanged in 2023 despite the increase in arms exports. In the interim, India maintained its status as the number one importer of arms, accounting for 9.8% of the total imports from 2019-’23, up from 9.1% of total global arms imports in 2014-’18. More than that, India’s imports went up by 4.7% from 2014-’18 to 2019-’23.
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