Putin is true friend of India due to…, it helped at every step in making of….. but what is China connection?
During Operation Sindoor, the Brahmos missile wreaked havoc on Pakistan’s airbase. But there is a huge credit which goes to Russia who helped in making of the supersonic missile. Russia did not just help with raw materials for the making of the missile but also with its expertise thus strengthening defense cooperation between India and Russia.
A. Sivathanu Pillai, a renowned Indian scientist and the father of the Brahmos missile, has praised Vladimir Putin’s contribution in the making of the missile He said that Putin showed interest in the Brahmos missile program at a personal level and got all the obstacles in it removed himself.
Pillai, who was the CEO and MD of Brahmos Aerospace, also said that Vladimir Putin had clearly refused to give technology to China. The Brahmos missile is currently an important weapon of the Indian Army. It is being exported all over the world.
Talking about developing the Brahmos missile Sivathanu Pillai said that after the 1991 Gulf War, we realised that India would also have to move forward in missile technology. In such a situation, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and he decided that India needed a supersonic cruise missile. After this, talks started with Russia on Brahmos. His team in India also started working quietly.
Why Russia refused China?
Pillai said that when Russia agreed to give cruise missile technology to India, talks began on developing the Brahmos missile. President Vladimir Putin personally supported this partnership. Pillai revealed that the Chinese President also visited Russia when he came to know about the Brahmos project. He told Putin that if you have given technology to India, then give us supersonic technology too. Putin clearly refused to China and said that this is an agreement between two governments and we cannot break it. It is not possible to give you this technology.
Pillai said that at that time there was NDA government in India and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM. Putin himself had told Vajpayee that China had also approached him for this technology but he refused. Vajpayee told this to the then Defence Minister George Fernandes after returning from Russia. After this Fernandes told Pillai that China was also trying to get missile technology from Russia but Putin had refused them. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also helped India in this project.
Where did the secret work start?
Dr Pillai revealed that his team started working on the project secretly from a house in Vasant Vihar, Delhi. The design work had started even before the agreement in 1998. Later funds were sanctioned and Indian teams were sent to Moscow. He said that Brahmos was designed to be universal i.e. the same missile could be adapted for land, sea and air.
Dr Pillai also said that Brahmos has shown its power to the world but India’s cruise missile ambitions have not stopped. Work is underway on Brahmos-NG (Next Generation), which is a smaller, lighter and faster version. It will be able to be deployed from many platforms. This also includes light fighter aircraft like Tejas. Apart from this, research is also going on on Brahmos-II, which is a hypersonic version.
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