With only two years to go before the Indian Navy is to transform itself to a blue water Navy—an elite club comprising mostly of the P5 countries—a string of incidents give clue to how unprepared the force is for it.Consider the following:

• Last month, the sonar dome—an anti-submarine device—of the guided missile warship Talwar, got seriously damaged after the ship’s anchor was accidentally dropped on it.

• In April, missile corvette Prahar sank after colliding with merchant ship Rajiv Gandhi.

• In December 2005, a speeding INS Trishul, another Talwar class stealth frigate, collided with a commercial ship, Ambuja Laxmi, outside the Mumbai harbour.

Coming at a time when the Naval Headquarters is already under a cloud for leakage of classified information from the Directorate of Naval Operations, the accidents do not bode well for the force that prides itself on its strategic long legs—stretching all the way from Gulf of Eden to Malacca Straits.

It is obvious that there is a lack of discipline in the force and the leadership is still at odds to resolve it.

On their part, India’s strategic planners—despite an overt Nuclear Triad doctrine—have not yet been able to transform this “Cinderella Force” into an expeditionary force that can project dominance thousands of miles from the mainland.

But that transformation is the only way ahead. After all, The last time Indian Navy lost one of its men in action was in July 2000, when marine commando HS Tyagi took on militants in the Kashmir Valley. And before that, one has to dig into the annals of 1971 conflict to find out the last time the Navy got blooded in a conflict.

... contd.