The UPA Government was reportedly thinking about postponing multilateral naval exercise Malabar with the US to appease the Left, but deferred it over fears of losing credibility abroad.
By Sudhakar Jagdish
New Delhi, Aug 23 : The UPA Government was reportedly thinking about postponing multilateral naval exercise 'Malabar' with the US to appease the Left, but deferred it over fears of losing credibility abroad.
According to sources in the Defence Ministry, "The postponement would have made India an unreliable country, internationally."
The Left is planning to stage massive protests along the eastern coast of the country against the naval exercise since it views that the exercise highlights India's growing strategic alliance with the US.
The Malabar exercise, where ships and frigates from Singapore, Japan and Australia will be participating along with 13 US and a dozen Indian ships off the Andaman and Nicobar coast in the Bay of Bengal, will also for the first time witness three aircraft carriers- USS Nimitz (US), USS Kitty Hawk (US) and INS Viraat (India)- and nuclear powered submarine participating. here were suggestions from the political quarters within the ruling UPA to suspend the mammoth naval exercise in view of Communists' growing ire against the Congress-led Government over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister A K Antony is said to have sought navy's opinion on postponing the exercise.
According to sources, the Navy stated that it would be 'difficult' since the ships had left the shores.
The naval exercise was planned a year ahead and it was finalised after three stages of preparations that included discussions on availability of logistics and ships.
However, Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta today refused to confirm the development and said that he was unaware of the postponement move.
He justified Indian Navy's engagement with the US and added that apolitical armed forces of the country work in the national interest.
"It is in the national interest to engage with navies of other countries, not only with the US, but we have engaged with countries like Sri Lanka, Russia, the UK, China."
"We have worked with Chinese in China," Admiral Mehta asserted referring to the recent anti-terror naval exercise that two ships of Indian navy had with Chinese ships in Qingdao in China.
Meanwhile, US Pacific Command Chief, Admiral Timothy J Keating, who is here ahead of the naval exercise, said that he was unaware of postponement, and said that besides interoperability US was looking forward to sharing of information and databases to counter terrorism globally.
The six-day exercise beginning September 4 will mark the tenth year of the Malabar joint naval exercise with the US where dozens of ships will prepare themselves to face any 'multi -threat scenario'.
One of the new manoeuvres that would be adopted in this exercise is the component of Air Defence part in which Jaguar aircraft of Indian Air Force and P3C Orion aircraft from Japan and the US side will be taking part.
The Malabar exercise has grown in scale and complexity over the years.
In 2006, the 14-day long joint naval exercise in the Arabian Sea had seen participation of US ships like amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, Guided Missile Destroyers USS Benfold and USS Howard, Guided Missile Cruiser USS Bunker Hill and US Coast Guard Ship Midgett.
US' nuclear powered submarine SSN Providence, also took part in the 2006 exercise, but never before three aircraft carriers took part simultaneously, which is the star attraction this year.
ANI