Chapter 191: The True Reckoning
18 February 1975 — Naval Headquarters, New Delhi
(before reading chapter,pls keep in mind finance is the thing i am worse in so if i make any baseless budget just skip that as my noobness, many readers are good in economic policies and financial policies ,so do comment if you have very good economic policy that real india had no balls to do)
The morning papers were calling it a victory.
They had been calling it a victory for days, ever since the framework signing on February 13th. The newspapers had produced that specific, earnest vocabulary that newspapers default to when a nation has done something extraordinary—India Holds the Line, Indian Ocean Stays Indian, New Delhi Stands Down Washington—headlines that managed to strike a register of both triumphalism and gravity, the specific hallmark of Indian journalism.
The photographs had already made the cover of Time: the INS Beas in Port Louis harbour, a small Indian frigate in the foreground with the Enterprise's towering island superstructure looming over the harbour entrance in the background. The composition communicated, without need for a caption, the lopsided relationship between small and large that had defined the confrontation.
Karan read the papers on the morning of February 14th, while the Enterprise was still at sea and the Stein was still being refuelled. He did not read for the headlines; he read for the gaps—the details the press could not print because they only saw what was visible: the harbour, the flags, the legal posturing, and the UN veto.
The newspapers did not know about the S-35 Tejas, the Trinetra radar, or the Astra datalink. They did not know about Commodore Gupta's primary weapons management system dropping data at 0347 on February 12th, or the fourteen-second window where the Oldendorf's 5-inch gun was locked on the Beas, or the precise, desperate mathematics of INS Karanj's battery-cycling in the outer harbour.
The newspapers were calling it a victory. Karan had a different assessment.
He had been developing it since February 7th, the moment the Enterprise first broke the Port Louis horizon. By the 14th, the assessment was complete. He had captured it in his notebook over four quiet evenings, showing it to no one, waiting for the right room.
The right room was the Naval War Room at Sena Bhavan. The agenda, circulated by Rear Admiral Banerjee's office, was stark: Post-Mauritius Crisis Strategic Naval Assessment. Attendance: the Chief of Naval Staff, the Commanders-in-Chief of Eastern and Western Commands, the Directors of Naval Operations, Design, and Intelligence, the Defence Minister, the Defence Secretary, and Karan as the Shergill Industries representative.
Karan arrived at 0845, fifteen minutes early. The room was empty, save for the maps. The Indian Ocean charts on the walls had been updated; the coloured markers from the crisis were left in place—the Gan Island position, the Peros Banhos strip, the Port Louis anchorage, and the Enterprise's erratic track. They were not mere logistics; they were evidence.
He stood before the chart, measuring the distances.
The Enterprise task group reached the southern Indian Ocean in seventy-eight hours, he thought. India arrived forty-eight hours earlier only because Ganesh-1 gave us warning the Americans did not know we had.
If the SIGINT had missed the US departure—if the traffic analysis had been a second slow, or if the Americans had maintained better radio discipline—we would have arrived behind them. We would have been spectators watching their "humanitarian mission" establish itself in the harbour, rather than the ones holding the perimeter.
The Mauritius Crisis was won by a forty-eight-hour intelligence lead and a move-fast mandate that broke every historical precedent. It was won by specific individuals—guerrilla-level improvisation at a naval scale. These are not strategic methodologies; they are margins of error. The next crisis will not give us forty-eight hours. The next crisis might give us nothing.
He sat down at the long table, opened his notebook, and waited for the room to fill.
They came in over the next twelve minutes.
Admiral S.N. Nanda, Chief of Naval Staff, came in first—sixty years old, the man who had been running the Indian Navy through this crisis and who carried the specific gravity of a senior officer who had just endured an extraordinary experience and was now performing the professional act of assessing it clearly rather than celebrating it excessively.
Rear Admiral P.K. Banerjee, Director of Naval Operations, followed—the man who had been in the February 3rd briefing when Nanda had laid out the options, who had been at the operations room for the duration of the crisis, and who had been awake for more consecutive hours in the past two weeks than was strictly advisable.
Commodore Vikram Nair, Director of Naval Design, arrived next—the engineer present at the INS Viraat announcement, who had read the Project Orel design documents with the intensity of a naval architect finally seeing what a real carrier looked like from the inside.
Rear Admiral D.K. Joshi, the Director of Naval Intelligence, arrived—not the Vikrant's Captain Joshi from the previous chapter, but the man who had been running the analysis of the Soviet and American movements throughout the crisis.
Vice Admiral R.K. Sharma, CINC Western Naval Command, completed the military contingent—the operational commander who had authorised Gupta's deployment.
Then came the civilians: Jagjivan Ram, Defence Minister, and K.B. Lall, Defence Secretary. Both carried the demeanor of officials who had steered through a political crisis of major proportions and were now beginning to process what the settlement required in terms of future commitments.
Karan sat at his end of the table and looked at the men who had just lived through the same ten days from a different vantage point. They have each been thinking the same things I have, he thought. The question is whether they are thinking it clearly enough.
Nanda opened the meeting. "The purpose of this session is to conduct an honest post-crisis assessment of Indian naval capability and capacity, and to produce an actionable set of recommendations for the future development of the Indian Navy." He paused, looking down the length of the table. "I want to begin with something I said to the Minister on February 14th, and that I want everyone in this room to hear clearly. We won. But what we won was a positioning contest in a specific harbour, with a specific set of forces, at a specific moment. We did not win a naval war. We won an intelligence race and a speed contest. The question this room has to answer is: what happens the next time, when we are not forty-eight hours ahead of the Americans?"
The room went silent.
"That question," Nanda said, "is what the next three hours are for." He looked at Banerjee. "Proceed."
Banerjee stood. He had prepared the presentation with the rigour of an officer who had spent fourteen days living with the data. His presentation was built around a single structural argument: the Mauritius Crisis had been won because India possessed three advantages that were specific and temporary. Unless built into permanent capability, they would not survive the next crisis.
First: the Ganesh-1 intelligence read. "This advantage exists because our SIGINT processing is currently ahead of what the US expects from us," Banerjee said. "It will not be ahead forever. The Americans are already asking how we knew. When they answer that to their satisfaction, they will adjust their communications discipline. The next departure will be quieter."
Second: the forward positioning at Gan Island and Peros Banhos. "We occupied those positions because we had the paratroopers, the engineers, and the airlift to move fast. We got there first. In the next crisis, the geography may be different. The forward positions may not be unoccupied."
Third: the people. "Commodore Gupta, Commander Sharma, Flight Lieutenant Krishnaswami. Exceptional performance by exceptional individuals won this crisis." Banerjee paused. "Exceptional individuals are not a strategy. They are the margin that turns an adequate system into a winning one. India's system was, in this crisis, barely adequate. Next time, 'barely adequate' may not be enough, regardless of who is in the cockpit."
Banerjee turned to the projected numbers. "The Indian Navy in February 1975 comprises: one aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant—19,500 tonnes, commissioned 1961, max speed 22 knots, with an air wing of twelve S-22 Makara aircraft and four Sea King helicopters. Three Leander-class frigates. Two Petya-class corvettes. One Kamorta-class corvette. Four Foxtrot-class submarines. Supporting logistics."
He pointed to the counter-projection. "Against this, the USS Enterprise task group comprised: one CVN, four Spruance and Knox-class escorts, one combat stores ship, and—we assess—one or two submarines we could not track. The Enterprise is one of fourteen carriers in the US Navy. She is nuclear-powered, unlimited in range, and can sustain operations for thirty-plus days without resupply. She carries eighty aircraft."
"India has one carrier," Banerjee said. "The United States has fourteen. The Soviet Union has four. The Royal Navy has three. France has two. India's home ocean is currently maintained by one carrier that is fourteen years old."
He sat. The room was heavy with the numbers.
Nair stood, moving to the charts to present the shipbuilding status.
"The Vizag shipyard is currently producing two ship classes," he said, chalking the specifications onto the board.
"The Type 28 Shivalik-class frigate. 124 metres, 3,400 tonnes full load, max speed 28 knots on a CODAG plant—combining our Marine Kaveri gas turbines and Pielstick diesels. She's armed with a 114mm dual-purpose gun, twin Seacat surface-to-air launchers, and triple torpedo tubes. She carries a hull-mounted 3.8-metre sonar array and has provisions for variable-depth sonar. She carries a single medium helicopter in an enclosed hangar. Unit cost: ₹38 crore."
He stepped to the next column. "The Type 41 destroyer. 142 metres, 5,000 tonnes, max speed 30 knots. Her plant uses four Marine Kaveri gas turbines and two Pielstick diesels for higher sustained output. Armed with the 114mm gun forward, 40mm Bofors aft, six Kaumodaki Mk 3 anti-ship missiles, twin Seacat launchers, and torpedo tubes. Her primary defence contribution is the Thomson-CSF long-range air search radar—180-kilometre range. Unit cost: ₹61 crore."
"Current production rate," Nair continued, "is two Type 28s and one Type 41 per year. We are operating at sixty percent capacity. At full theoretical throughput, we could push three frigates and two destroyers annually." He paused. "The current programme calls for four more frigates and two more destroyers over the next three years. Total programme value: approximately ₹274 crore."
Nair looked around the table. "Under this current trajectory, by 1978, India will field a destroyer and frigate force of seven Type 28s and three Type 41s. For context: the US Pacific Fleet alone operates forty-seven surface combatants above corvette class."
He sat. The room went quiet, the weight of the math hanging in the air.
Then, Karan spoke. "I want to speak."
He stood. He had his notebook open, the assessment he had been drafting for six days laid out before him. He looked at the room—at the admirals and the ministers—and he said exactly what he had been building toward since the Enterprise first appeared over the Port Louis horizon.
"I want to tell you what the Mauritius Crisis actually was," Karan said. "The newspapers call it a victory. It wasn't."
He looked at the admirals.
"The Mauritius Crisis was India winning a chess match against a grandmaster because the grandmaster didn't know we'd read his opening move," Karan said. He paused, letting the words hang in the stagnant air of the war room. "The grandmaster didn't know we had a Ganesh-1 mainframe in the DIAC processing his radio traffic. He didn't know we could intercept and analyse a 340 percent surge in Pacific Fleet encrypted traffic at eleven PM, hand an assessment to the PM by four in the morning, and have paratroopers wheels-up before midnight the same damn day. He didn't know about Peros Banhos because no one in their right f*cking mind expected an Indian force to land on a coral island in the middle of the Indian Ocean in twenty-four hours with an engineering company, fighters, and nuclear warheads."
He let it sit.
"None of that f*cking capability belongs to the Indian Navy," he said, his voice dropping into a cold, dangerous register. "The SIGINT analysis is a civilian product running on ISMC hardware. The paratroopers are Army. The Peros Banhos engineering was a Marine Commando hack job. The nuclear warheads are Strategic Command assets. The S-35 Tejas with the Trinetra radar that intercepted the Camden? That was an Air Force bird we begged, borrowed, and stole because the Navy's own S-22 Makaras were sufficient for the first interception, but they would have been cannon fodder if the Enterprise had actually sent up an F-14 escort."
He paused, looking each man in the eye. "The Indian Navy contributed three Leander-class frigates, two Foxtrots, and the Vikrant battle group as a deterrent. Those were essential, yes. But they weren't the decisive elements."
The room was suffocatingly quiet.
Vice Admiral Sharma shifted in his seat. "With respect, Karan—"
"Let me finish, Admiral." Karan's tone left no room for interruption. Sharma subsided with a curt nod.
"The decisive elements were a civilian computer, an Army airborne unit, a Marine engineering company, an Air Force fighter, and the nuke. The Navy was just the f*cking platform. The Navy, as it currently exists, is a glorified taxi service for capabilities that other branches actually own." Karan's gaze sharpened. "The Navy didn't win the Mauritius Crisis. India won, and the Navy was just one of several instruments we happened to have in the kit."
He looked directly at Nanda. "Admiral, this isn't a critique of the sailors. Everyone who served performed at the ceiling of their capability. Gupta is the finest frigate commander we've got. Sharma's submarine battery management was a f*cking masterclass in survival. Krishnaswami's interception? Pure brilliance. But my criticism is of the system. The Navy is not currently capable of independently controlling this ocean. We rely on allied intelligence, on classified civilian programmes, and on the specific, fortunate fact that we had forty-eight hours of warning we won't get next time."
He turned to the map, his hand sweeping across the vast expanse of blue.
"Four million square kilometres," he said. "The most strategically important ocean on Earth. Our trade, our oil, our future. Two-thirds of the world's petrochemical flow passes through this water. Our exports from Barmer and Jamnagar move right through this theatre. And India controls exactly none of it."
"We control—" Banerjee started.
"We demonstrated we can position assets faster than the Americans in a lucky window," Karan snapped. "That is not control. Control is the ability to enforce India's will at a time and place of our choosing. On February 7th, we were 340 metres away from a US carrier group. We had nukes on a coral strip and a submarine cycling batteries in a harbour. And it was enough, barely, because the Americans chose not to fire. Our entire strategic position relied on the adversary making a rational choice. Adversaries don't always make rational choices. And if they decide to fire, we don't have a navy—we have a graveyard."
Jagjivan Ram leaned forward. "What are you recommending?"
"A naval budget that builds a navy that doesn't depend on the adversary's goddamn rationality," Karan said.
He flipped to the next page of his notebook. "Here is what India's navy looks like in ten years under the current, pathetic programme. By 1985, we have INS Viraat commissioned—85,000 tonnes, nuclear propulsion. Great. We have the Vikrant limping along. We have twelve frigates and destroyers. We have four, maybe five Foxtrot submarines. Now, look at the US Pacific Fleet by 1985: three Nimitz-class carriers, two Enterprise-class, fifty surface combatants, thirty submarines. The gap isn't closing. In some areas, it's widening into a f*cking canyon."
He let the numbers sink in. "The Viraat changes the game, sure. A nuke carrier with an S-35N air wing is a regional power-projection asset. But a carrier without an escort screen, without organic submarine protection, and without the logistics to sustain a fight for thirty days? A carrier in that state isn't a deterrent. It's a very expensive, very visible target."
He let this land.
Nanda leaned back, his eyes narrowing. "What specifically are you asking for, Karan? You're talking like a man who's already got the budget approved."
"I'll get to the numbers," Karan said. "But first, look at the f*cking map. You need to understand the geography of what we're actually defending."
He stood and walked to the wall, pointing a finger at the vast, dark expanse of the Indian Ocean.
"India needs to control three operational zones," he said. "The Arabian Sea—our western throat, the gateway to the Gulf. The Bay of Bengal—our eastern flank, the entry to the Malacca Strait and the trade routes to East Asia. And the central Indian Ocean—the connecting water between our two flanks. That is the transit zone. Any power wanting to project force into our waters has to pass through the centre."
He tapped a finger on Peros Banhos. "This is the lynchpin. We proved we could take it. We're working the legal angles through the Chagos process, but I'm not waiting for a bunch of f*cking bureaucrats to decide who owns a pile of coral. I'm building a navy that makes Diego Garcia irrelevant. If the Americans want to keep their base 1,800 kilometres south, let them. My navy will make that base a tactical absurdity."
He turned to the room, his gaze hardening. "To hold the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the central corridor simultaneously, we need the ability to operate three carrier battle groups. Not one. Not two. Three. One for each zone. INS Viraat is the first, coming online by 1980. The real question is what follows."
He walked back to the table and flipped his notebook open to a fresh page.
"The programme. Four elements. Element one: the surface combatants."
"Right now, Vizag is a joke. Two Shivaliks and one Type 41 a year. That's not a navy; that's a coastal hobby. I want to triple the output and expand the line to a heavier combatant class." He looked directly at Nair. "Commodore, what's the absolute, theoretical maximum throughput for the Vizag yard if I provide the capital to blow the current infrastructure wide open?"
Nair didn't blink. He'd clearly been doing his own math since the crisis. "With our current slipways? We're capped at three frigates or two destroyers. If you add two more covered slipways—a capital injection of about ₹45 crore per slipway—we can push six Type 28 equivalents or four Type 41s annually."
"Then we build the slipways," Karan said, his tone final. "I'll front the capital expenditure myself to get the construction started tomorrow. I don't give a f*ck about the red tape, Commodore—I want those slipways operational before the year is out."
"The capital investment—"
"Is not the f*cking constraint," Karan snapped. "Tell me what six frigates a year at ₹38 crore each costs."
Nair ran the numbers, his brow furrowed. "₹228 crore per year."
"Per year," Karan said, pacing the length of the map. "Over ten years, that's sixty Shivaliks. Add four destroyers per year—another ₹244 crore—and you're looking at forty Type 41s over the same decade. 100 major surface combatants. One hundred f*cking hulls, Commodore. The total cost is ₹4,720 crore. That's roughly $550 million a year. That is not a budget; that is a drop in the bucket for the security of our trade routes."
He looked around the room, his eyes hard. "That isn't what I'm asking for. That's just the baseline for a navy that doesn't get pushed around in its own home waters. This is one element of a much larger programme."
Jagjivan Ram leaned in. "What's the total ceiling you're aiming for, Karan?"
"I'll get to the final tally, Minister. But you need to see the whole board first." Karan flipped his notebook. "Element two: the submarine programme."
The room grew suffocatingly quiet. Karan didn't look at his notes; he looked at the men who held the fate of the ocean in their hands.
"Element two: the submarine programme," Karan said, his voice dropping into a cold, dangerous register. "And let's cut the 'ten-year' bullshit. I'm not here to build a museum piece. I'm here to build a fleet. The Foxtrot is a first-rate diesel boat, and Sharma proved at Port Louis that a top-tier crew can do extraordinary things with one. But let's be real—Sharma's management of the Karanj's battery cycle was a f*cking miracle, not a strategy. He spent five days snorkelling in the dark, praying the Oldendorf didn't get a lucky ping. That isn't hunting; that's surviving."
He pointed at the notebook. "The Foxtrot is a death trap in the open ocean. You've got ninety-six hours of battery life before you're forced to surface and present a radar signature to the enemy. In the next crisis, we won't have a harbour to hide in. We need nuclear boats. Not in ten years. Yesterday."
The room went still. Everyone knew about the Gorshkov agreement and the VM-4 documentation that had been flowing into the country for months, but hearing Karan talk about it like a common procurement item was a different beast entirely.
"The VM-4 is a 180-megawatt plant," Karan said. "It's compact, it's integrated, and it's adaptable. I don't want a 'design study,' and I don't want a five-year feasibility report. I want a dedicated team working on an indigenous nuclear submarine. I don't need the Soviets for the design—I need them for the propulsion data, which we already have. We aren't doing R&D, Admiral. We are doing high-velocity manufacturing."
Nanda leaned in, his voice tight. "Karan, we have never operated a nuclear pressure hull. The metallurgy alone—"
"The metallurgy is solved," Karan cut him off. "We have the Vsmpo-Avisma forge tech. We have the titanium. If the pressure hull is the bottleneck, we don't 'design' it. We manufacture the Soviet-grade hull sections using their own specs, modified for our Kaumodaki launch tubes. We skip the 'experimental' phase and go straight to the first-in-class unit. We build the boat around the crew, not the other way around. If the Vizag yard can't handle the nuclear integration, I'll build a dedicated facility at the Goa site by the end of the year. I want the first hull in the water, under steam, in thirty-six months."
"Thirty-six months," Nanda whispered, the weight of the timeline hitting him. "That's an insane schedule."
"Insane is watching a US carrier group sit in our backyard for a week while we pray they don't open fire," Karan said. "Thirty-six months is the only schedule that keeps us relevant."
He didn't give them a second to digest that. "Element three: Logistics."
"A navy that can't sustain itself at sea is just a ferry service. The Mauritius Crisis almost went to hell because of fuel math. The Stein was running on fumes, the Camden was bottled up, and we had the only forward base in the area. We got lucky. Next time, the Americans will have the base, and we'll be the ones with the empty tanks."
Nair tried to interject. "The Type 28 and 41 ranges—"
"Are a liability," Karan cut him off. "At economical speeds, you've got 4,500 to 5,000 miles. From Vizag to the central Indian Ocean and back, you're at 4,200. You're pushing the f*cking envelope just to get to the fight. You need to refuel every four days at operational speed. Without dedicated replenishment ships, your destroyers are just coastal toys. I want four 15,000-tonne fast replenishment vessels. Fast, fully equipped for at-sea transfer of fuel, ammo, and stores. We build a logistics tail, or we don't bother building the navy at all."
He paused.
"Element four," Karan said. "The programme that makes all the other elements mean something. The budget."
The room was still. Karan looked at Jagjivan Ram. The Minister had been in the bunker for the last ten days; he knew the difference between the headlines and the reality. He was a man of cold, hard political experience, and he could smell the ambition in Karan's proposal like ozone before a storm.
"Minister," Karan said. "India's current naval budget is roughly ₹1,800 crore. At current rates, that's roughly $210 million. To put that in perspective: the Royal Navy spends over $3 billion. The Soviets, $15 billion. The Americans, $30 billion. We are responsible for four million square kilometres of ocean and two trillion dollars in trade, all while operating on the budget of a f*cking local police precinct."
He let the numbers sit.
"$210 million. The USS Enterprise cost $450 million in 1961. Inflation-adjusted, she's a billion-dollar asset. Our entire annual budget is a fraction of the cost of one enemy carrier. The ship that challenged our sovereignty in Port Louis cost nearly double our entire annual budget to build—and they have fourteen of them."
Sharma started to speak, a bureaucratic defense already forming on his lips. "The budget constraint is a government—"
"Yes, it's a government decision," Karan cut him off, his voice ice. "And it's a f*cking disaster. Minister, Defence Secretary—the Navy's budget has to be brought into line with our maritime requirements. I'm not asking for a 'balanced budget.' I'm asking for the minimum required to keep this nation from being a vassal state."
He paused, letting the figure drop like a lead weight.
Karan let that number hang in the air.
"To build a blue-water navy from scratch, Secretary," he said, his voice level, "we are not talking about line-item adjustments to the annual naval budget. We are talking about a fundamental shift in the nation's capital allocation. ₹45,000 crore isn't just money. It is an industrial mobilization on a scale this ministry has never conceptualized."
He walked over to the map, his hand sweeping across the Indian Ocean.
"You look at the Royal Navy's budget—$3 billion—and you see a goalpost. I look at it and see a baseline. The Soviets are spending $15 billion annually on their fleet, and the Americans are pushing $30 billion. We are currently trying to police four million square kilometres of ocean, protecting two trillion dollars in trade, while operating on the budget of a local police precinct. We are trying to win a global poker game with a handful of copper coins."
He tapped the spot on the map where the Enterprise had loomed in 1971.
"That ship alone cost nearly half a billion dollars to build in 1961. Today, it's a billion-dollar asset. Our entire annual naval budget is a fraction of the cost of one single American supercarrier. And they have fourteen of them. If we continue to view these procurement costs as 'expenses' rather than the price of sovereignty, we won't just be poor—we will be irrelevant."
Lall looked at the Minister. The sheer audacity of the math—₹45,000 crore—wasn't just a challenge to the budget; it was a challenge to the entire philosophy of the Indian state. It turned the Navy from a defensive coastal force into an instrument of hard, projection-based power.
"You aren't suggesting a procurement plan," the Defence Minister said, his voice low. "You are suggesting we turn the entire Indian economy into a naval shipyard."
"I am suggesting," Karan said, "that we stop pretending we can afford not to."
"That is five percent of India's current GDP," Lall said, his voice rising in alarm. "The entire defence budget is ₹3,200 crore. You're asking for a naval allocation fourteen times larger than the entire armed forces budget combined."
"Yes," Karan said, his tone flat. "And I'm doing it because our fiscal position has fundamentally shifted. The Barmer field is pushing 1.2 million barrels a day. At $13 a barrel, that's $15.6 million in revenue every single day. That's $5.7 billion annually from one field. Jamnagar adds another $2.5 billion. We have $8 billion in annual petroleum revenue right now, and the reserve base is being developed. By 1980, we will be looking at $25 billion annually."
He leaned in, his gaze fixed on Lall. "This is not a fantasy. It's 60 percent of our current annual petroleum revenue. It's affordable. The question is whether the government has the vision to stop treating oil as a tax-and-spend slush fund and start using it to build a strategic reality."
Ram stared at him. "You're proposing we build a Naval Development Fund. Using petroleum exports as the source."
"I'm proposing a mechanism that doesn't exist in our policy, but it's the only way this works," Karan said. "You take a fixed percentage of every barrel exported and dump it directly into a protected naval account. You insulate it from the annual budget fights, the committee reviews, and the f*cking political whims. It's a sovereign fund for strategic survival."
Karan gestured to the map. "Nobody has tried this model yet—not at this scale, not for this purpose. But the world is changing. The Gulf states have the oil, but they don't have the industrial base. We have both. The Indian Ocean made this revenue possible. If we don't use it to secure that ocean, we're just holding the money for someone else to come and take."
"The room was quiet.
Nanda said: 'At $5 billion annually, what is the programme?'
Karan didn't just answer; he attacked the silence. 'At $5 billion annually, the programme is absolute dominance. We aren't just "building" ships; we are manufacturing a permanent, self-sustaining naval industrial machine that will bury anything the Americans can sail into our waters.'
He walked to the map and began to lay out the carnage of his industrial plan. 'Here is the ten-year output. Five nuclear-powered supercarriers—INS Viraat, Akashvani, and three others—at $1.5 billion a piece: $7.5 billion. Eighty Type 28 frigates: $344 million. Sixty Type 41 destroyers: $408 million. Twenty nuclear attack submarines: $8 billion. Ten fleet replenishment vessels: $500 million. That is $16.75 billion in pure, lethal hardware. The remaining $33.25 billion is the engine of the programme. It covers the four new mega-shipyards in Gujarat, Goa, Mumbai, and Paradip. It covers the 24/7 labor shifts, the foreign engineering talent we're poaching from the Soviets and the West, the missile production lines, and the deep-sea sonar arrays that make our home ocean a glass bowl for us and a blindfold for everyone else.'
He sat down, the weight of the numbers crushing the air out of the room. Fifteen seconds ticked by. Then, the room exploded.
'The production rates—' Sharma started, his face flushed.
'The nuclear integration at the yards—' Nair countered, frantic.
'The budget—' Lall's voice rose over the others.
'Quiet!' Jagjivan Ram barked. He turned to the Defence Secretary. 'Lall, speak. The petroleum numbers.'
Lall, usually a pillar of bureaucratic caution, looked visibly stunned. 'Mr. Shergill's revenue analysis... it's correct. Finance is already projecting those exact windfalls from the Barmer and Jamnagar fields. Allocating that revenue to a dedicated Naval Development Fund is a massive departure from protocol—but on the numbers, Minister? It's not impossible.'
Ram turned back to Karan, his eyes narrowed. 'You're an industrialist, Karan, not a politician. Answer me directly: Is $5 billion your "opening bid," or is it the absolute floor?'
'It's the floor,' Karan said, staring him down. 'You want to negotiate me down to $4 billion? Fine. Take the remainder and dump it into your pharmaceutical programs or rural electrification. I don't give a f*ck. But don't touch the $4 billion. Because at $3.9 billion, you lose the carrier follow-on. You end up with one carrier in 1980, nothing in the pipeline, and a fleet that's just a target waiting for the next Enterprise to roll into our backyard.'
Ram leaned forward, his gaze intense. 'Then let's see the floor. What is the Minimum Viable Programme? If you have to cut the fat, what do you keep to ensure India doesn't get pushed around?'
Karan stood again, his eyes locking onto the Minister's. 'The Minimum Viable Programme is this: We don't cut the carriers, and we don't cut the nuclear subs. Those are our teeth. If you want the lowest acceptable budget, we scale back the escort volume. We settle for 40 frigates instead of 80 and 30 destroyers instead of 60. But we do not touch the capital core. We do not touch the shipyard expansion. And we do not touch the 36-month timeline for the Akashvani nuclear project.'
He looked at Nanda. 'That is the minimum, Admiral. Anything less, and you aren't building a navy. You're just spending money to delay the inevitable.'"
"At $3 billion," Karan said, his voice dropping to a low, serrated edge, "we have a navy that can hold the Indian Ocean if, and only if, we get forty-eight hours of warning again. It holds if we deploy faster than the adversary again. And it holds if we again have the specific people performing at the specific, suicidal level that Gupta, Sharma, and Krishnaswami just performed."
He looked around the table, meeting every pair of eyes.
"That is not a strategy. That is a prayer. You are asking if $3 billion is enough to buy us luck. And the answer is yes—if you are willing to bet this country's entire maritime future on the hope that our luck never runs out."
He leaned over the table, his shadow stretching across the charts of the Indian Ocean.
"How many more times can we count on all three of those conditions being met? Once? Twice? Because the moment the Americans realize we're using a 'lucky' playbook, they will adapt. They will change their comms discipline, they will shorten their deployment timelines, and they will stop giving us the benefit of the doubt. At $3 billion, we are building a force that is permanently one tactical surprise away from obsolescence."
He looked at Ram. "You want to know the difference between the $3 billion programme and the $5 billion programme? It's the difference between a navy that hopes the enemy is as irrational as we were lucky, and a navy that doesn't give a f*ck whether the enemy is rational or not. At $5 billion, we dictate the terms. At $3 billion, we are just begging the Americans to be polite."
Karan closed his notebook with a sharp crack that echoed through the War Room.
"The choice is yours, Minister. You can pay for the steel now, or you can pay for the consequences later in a harbour that isn't ours, with ships that aren't coming home."
The room received this.
"I want to address the nuclear submarine programme," Sharma said, leaning forward. "The specific timeline—design now, commissioning by 1985. What does the design team look like?"
Karan didn't hesitate. "I propose a joint task force. DRDO's naval systems division, My Vizag shipyard's design bureau. The VM-4 documentation has been under my team's microscope since March. The reactor integration into a pressure hull is the technical crux, and it requires engineers who speak both languages." He paused. "I have 9 engineers who have been living inside that documentation for months. DRDO has four. That's thirteen specialists. I want ten more from the relevant institutes to round out the team. The design team budget is roughly ₹3.5 crore per year. It's a rounding error compared to the programme's actual cost."
Nair frowned. "The pressure hull."
"What about it?" Karan asked.
"A nuclear submarine requires a hull rated for significant operational depth," Nair said, choosing his words with professional care. "The steel, the fabrication, the testing. We produce Foxtrot-grade pressure hulls. Nuclear hulls require a different level of integrity."
"The titanium forge technology," Karan said.
"Exactly," Nair replied.
"We secured the access agreement with Vsmpo-Avisma in January," Karan said. "The titanium supply and the forge technology protocols are ours. We use high-yield titanium alloy for the outer hull sections and HY-80 steel for the inner pressure shell. Shergill Steel's Jamshedpur alloy division is already configured to produce HY-80. The only bottleneck is the specific forging press for the titanium sections. I've estimated twelve to eighteen months to acquire, ship, and install the press at the Vizag facility. It's a constraint, Commodore. Not a blocker."
Nair nodded slowly. "The Soviet visit in January... the Vsmpo-Avisma delegation. Was that—"
"Partially in preparation for this, yes," Karan said.
"You planned the nuclear submarine programme before the Mauritius Crisis," Nair said, the realization dawning on him.
"I planned it before the Gorshkov meeting," Karan corrected. "October 1974. When the Maltsev summit confirmed the VM-4 documentation was obtainable, it pointed in exactly one direction. A nuclear propulsion system is useless unless you have a hull to put it in. The Mauritius Crisis just proved we were right to start."
Sharma shifted the conversation. "The carrier follow-on. You mentioned it briefly. The successor to Viraat."
"Project Akashvani," Karan said. "Still in the early concept phase. An 85,000-tonne nuclear carrier with full CATOBAR, sharing the same reactor architecture as Viraat, but optimized with the improved systems our engineers are refining now. If I was a conservative man, I'd say we start construction in 1983 and commission in 1992."
He paused, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. "But I'm not a conservative man. The Vizag dry dock we're currently expanding for Viraat's final fitting-out is being overbuilt. I'm sinking the extra capital to ensure it can accommodate an 85,000-tonne hull from the ground up."
"You're designing the dry dock for a ship that doesn't exist yet," Sharma said, shaking his head.
"I'm designing the dry dock for a ship that will be built," Karan replied. "Whether it exists on your charts today is a detail. By 1985, it will be the backbone of our fleet."
The room was heavy with the implications of his foresight.
"Break," Ram said. "Twenty minutes."
During the break, Karan stood at the Indian Ocean map, his shadow falling across the deep blue expanse he intended to reclaim. Nanda walked over and stood beside him, the silence between them thick with the weight of the last ninety minutes.
Nanda looked at the marker for the harbour approaches. "The Foxtrot submarines. Sharma's management at Peros Banhos. That snorkel discipline... he was at 800 metres from the harbour entrance for five days. The Americans never found the second boat."
"They found his acoustic signature on day five," Karan said. "When the sea state dropped and gave them a cleaner sonar picture. He was exposed on the last morning, but he had been there the whole time."
"His crew," Nanda said softly.
"They managed air quality, battery state, and hull noise under those conditions for five days," Karan replied. "They did it by rotating between deep-battery-saving at night and careful snorkel runs at pre-dawn. They ran the CO2 scrubbers at maximum efficiency and rationed every breath of air. They are exceptional."
"Yes," Nanda said. "Exceptional."
"But a nuclear submarine," Karan continued, "does not require exceptional management of the air supply. It doesn't require battery cycling. The reactor provides unlimited endurance. The crew's attention goes entirely to the mission rather than the platform's survival. Sharma's talent is currently wasted on keeping his men breathing. On a nuclear boat, that same talent is applied to the weapon."
Nanda turned to him. "The Indian Navy has never operated a nuclear-powered vessel."
"The Viraat will change that."
"The Viraat's crew is training at the Soviet facility," Nanda noted. "But the learning curve for nuclear submarine operations is longer and steeper than surface propulsion."
"Which is why I said 1985," Karan said. "Ten years is the time required to build that crew capability in parallel with the hull. We start training the officers now, before the design is even locked. The training is the long path. The design can be compressed. You cannot compress human experience."
Nanda studied him, his eyes searching. "You have been thinking about this for a long time."
"I have been thinking about it since the Enterprise entered the Bay of Bengal in 1971," Karan said. "I remember the specific, sickening quality of the intelligence report—the realization that a country could win a war militarily and still be constrained strategically. I have been thinking about that constraint for four years. The Viraat is the start of the answer. The programme I described today is the complete one."
"The $5 billion," Nanda said.
"The minimum."
"The minimum," Nanda repeated, tasting the word.
"The minimum for independence," Karan said. "For the ability to enforce India's will in India's ocean without depending on the adversary's irrationality, or on forty-eight hours of intelligence luck, or on exceptional individuals performing at the bleeding edge of survival. Below that minimum, India has a navy that is merely respectable. Above it, India has a navy that dictates terms."
Nanda stared at the map. "If the Cabinet approves the fund structure..."
"The oil revenue is there," Karan said. "The political will is the only variable. The Mauritius Crisis created the window. The papers are calling it a victory; the Ministry wants to build on that momentum. This is the moment. In six months, the papers will have moved on, the budget pressure will reassert itself, and the political cost of this programme will double. We approve it in February, or we don't approve it at all."
"You're using the crisis as leverage."
"I'm using the crisis as evidence," Karan corrected. "The crisis is the argument. India needs this navy. The political heavy lifting is yours and the Minister's."
Nanda turned back to the map, tracing a finger over the deep trenches. "When I was a young officer, I served on our first submarine—an old British hand-me-down. I was twenty-five, at 200 metres, a sailor in a country that had just found its feet. Being under the water in an Indian submarine... it mattered. It was personal."
He looked at Karan. "An Indian nuclear submarine. Under the Indian Ocean."
"1985," Karan said.
"1985," Nanda confirmed.
They stood together at the map, two men looking at the ocean not as it was, but as it would be.
After the break, Ram resumed his seat, his gaze set in a mask of grim determination. "I want to tell you what I believe I can take to Cabinet."
The room settled.
"The petroleum revenue fund structure," Ram said. "A Naval Development Fund, capitalized at a fixed percentage of petroleum export revenues, with the specific percentage set by Cabinet. I believe I can argue for twelve percent of net petroleum export revenues — approximately $2.5 billion in the current year, growing rapidly as production expands." He paused. "This is below the $5 billion Karan is asking for but significantly above our historical crumbs."
Karan said: "At $2.5 billion annually, what is achievable."
Ram said: "You tell me."
Karan looked at his notebook, his math reflecting the aggressive escalation. "At $2.5 billion annually, the programme delivers: INS Viraat and four additional nuclear supercarriers by 1983; the Vizag and three additional mega-shipyard expansions; the nuclear submarine programme accelerated to produce twenty-five units by 1985; and the full logistics tail. It is the minimum required to match the threat." He paused. "The submarine construction—hardware—requires $10 billion for the series. At a $2.5 billion annual budget, the infrastructure and the hull production run in parallel rather than sequence. Commission dates for the first five hulls shift to 1978 and 1979." He paused. "It is not what I want—I want the full $5 billion to ensure total dominance—but it is the survival threshold."
"Survival," Ram said.
"For the 1983 threat," Karan said. "Not the 1985 threat."
"Give me what you need for the 1983 threat," Ram said.
"$4 billion annually by 1977," Karan said. "The fund starts at $2.5 billion this year. The petroleum production expansion—Barmer Phase 2 and the Jamnagar secondary recovery—adds approximately $6 billion in additional annual revenue by 1977. At that point, twelve percent of net petroleum revenue is approximately $4 billion." He paused. "If the percentage is fixed now and the petroleum programme delivers on schedule, the naval budget scales automatically. The $5 billion figure is fully achievable by 1979 as production hits peak."
"A fixed percentage of a growing revenue," Ram said.
"Yes," Karan said. "Set the percentage correctly now and the budget builds itself. Twelve percent is the right percentage. After five years, we review."
Ram looked at Lall.
Lall said: "The Finance Ministry will argue for eight percent rather than twelve."
"At eight percent," Karan said, "the nuclear submarine fleet is halved and the carriers are delayed by two years. Eight percent is the hard floor. Below that, the programme is a surface combatant expansion with a nuclear submarine force that is too small to be a credible near-term deterrent."
"Eight percent is the floor," Ram said.
"Yes," Karan said.
Ram said: "I will argue for twelve. I expect to achieve ten. Ten is workable?"
"Ten is workable," Karan said. "The schedule shifts slightly, but the core programme is intact."
Ram nodded. "The nuclear submarine programme. Design authorization and classification?"
"Cabinet Security Committee," Karan said. "Classified at the same level as the nuclear weapons programme."
"The Soviets," Lall said. "The VM-4 documentation—"
"The Soviet intelligence services aren't stupid, Lall," Karan said, dismissing the concern with a wave of his hand. "They know we're reverse-engineering the VM-4 for more than just surface vessel power. They've watched our progress since the Maltsev meeting, and they know the ATV programme is the logical end-state of a country that holds the keys to that technology."
Lall frowned, his eyes narrowing. "If they know we're using their reactor for a submarine, they'll demand oversight. They'll use it to leash us."
"They can try," Karan said. "But the Maltsev agreement wasn't a strategic straitjacket. It was a transaction. We paid for the VM-4 propulsion tech, and we got it. They know exactly what that tech is capable of—they designed it for their own Charlie-class boats. When we signed for that documentation, both sides knew where the roadmap led. We aren't 'violating' the agreement by putting it in a submarine; we are fulfilling the only strategic purpose that reactor serves."
"And when they realize we're moving faster than they expected?" Sharma asked.
"When they realize we're ahead of schedule," Karan said, "we play the pragmatic card. We tell them the truth: we are securing their southern flank against the Americans. As long as our nuclear submarine fleet acts as an anti-access bubble against the U.S. 7th Fleet, the Kremlin won't complain about 'unauthorized' application. They prefer a nuclear-armed India that keeps the Americans out of the Indian Ocean over an India that's vulnerable and begging for Western protection."
Karan leaned in, his voice dropping. "The design phase stays domestic and internal to the CSC, not because the Soviets don't know what we're doing, but because we need to prove we can build it without their hands on the wheel. Once the first hull is in the water, the 'oversight' conversation becomes irrelevant. We are buying the capability to dictate terms, and the Soviets are smart enough to know that a stronger Indian Navy is the best insurance policy they have in this ocean."
"You're counting on their strategic self-interest to cover our industrial ambition," Nanda observed.
"I'm counting on their desire for a regional superpower that hates the Americans as much as they do," Karan replied. "That is a foundation we can build on."
Sharma said: "The Karanj and Kursura crews. They must be the seed for the nuclear submarine training."
"Agreed," Karan said. "Commanders Sharma and Menon should lead the development. They have earned it."
Nanda said: "I will make the assignments upon formal approval."
Ram said: "The formal approval requires the Cabinet Security Committee meeting next week. Before that, I need the full programme document. Ships, submarines, bases, budget by year, milestone schedule, performance targets. How long?"
Karan said: "Ten days."
"Seven days," Ram said.
Karan looked at him. "Seven days."
"Good," Ram said.
He looked at the room. "India is committing to: a Naval Development Fund sourced from petroleum export revenues at a percentage to be confirmed by Cabinet; the massive expansion of the shipyard industrial base; the initiation of a classified nuclear submarine programme; and the acceleration of the INS Viraat and Akashvani carrier programme. These commitments are in principle. The CSC approval meeting is next week."
He looked at Karan. "The document in seven days."
"Seven days," Karan confirmed.
Ram said: "The specific lesson of the Mauritius Crisis. Put it in the document. Plain language."
Karan said: "What India demonstrated is that positioning, intelligence, and exceptional individuals can compensate for material inferiority in a crisis. What India must build is a navy that does not require those conditions to be met simultaneously in order to prevail."
"That is the lesson," Ram said. "Put it in the document."
He stood. "Admirals. This programme will take eight years to build and requires sustained political commitment. It begins today. It ends when India has a navy that operates without apology, without assistance, and without depending on the adversary's decision not to escalate. That navy is what we are building."
He said: "Admirals. This programme — if approved — will take ten years to build and will require sustained political commitment across multiple budget cycles. The commitment begins today. It begins in this room with the specific understanding that the Mauritius Crisis was an anomaly that India cannot reproduce on demand and that the Indian Navy in February 1975 was not adequate to independently control the Indian Ocean." He paused. "It ends — not this programme, the beginning that this programme represents — it ends when India has a navy that can operate in the Indian Ocean without apology, without assistance from other services, and without depending on the adversary's decision not to escalate." He paused. "That navy is what we are building."
He walked out.
The room began to disperse.
Karan was the last one at the map.
He stood at the Indian Ocean map with the markers still in their positions from the crisis — the Gan Island marker and the Peros Banhos marker and the Enterprise track and the Soviet positions. The markers were coloured pins on a physical chart and they had the specific quality of things that had been placed in haste and had remained in place because removing them meant the crisis was definitively over and the crisis's lessons had been absorbed.
Nanda came back into the room.
He stood beside Karan.
He said: "The document."
"I'll have it in ten days," Karan said.
"I know you will," Nanda said. "I want to ask you something before you go."
"Ask," Karan said.
"You have been thinking about this since 1971," Nanda said. "Since the Enterprise. You have been building toward this programme — the Viraat, the submarine design, the shipyard — since 1971."
"Yes," Karan said.
"The Mauritius Crisis," Nanda said. "The specific outcome. The papers are calling it a victory." He paused. "What do you call it?"
Karan looked at the map.
He looked at the Peros Banhos marker. At the Gan Island marker. At the Enterprise track showing the carrier entering the Indian Ocean and moving toward Port Louis and then departing.
He said: "I call it a proof of concept."
"A proof of concept," Nanda said.
"It proved that India can position faster than the United States when we have the intelligence advantage," Karan said. "It proved that the S-35 and the Trinetra and the Astra are real weapons in a real engagement context. It proved that Sharma and Gupta and Krishnaswami are the specific calibre of officer that India needs to build a navy around." He paused. "It proved that the architecture of the programme — the computing, the radar, the missile, the propulsion — functions in the specific combination that the programme was designed to function in." He paused. "A proof of concept. Not a victory."
Nanda looked at the Enterprise track.
"When will the victory be?" he said.
"The victory," Karan said, "is when an Enterprise class carrier is never again considered for the Indian Ocean because the cost of deploying it here — the political cost, the strategic cost, the tactical cost — exceeds the benefit." He paused. "The victory is when this ocean is genuinely India's not because we occupied it first in one crisis but because the order of battle makes it ours." He paused. "That is eight years away at the programme I described today. It is fifteen years away at the programme the Finance Ministry will try to approve." He paused. "The victory is eight years away if the programme is funded correctly."
Nanda looked at the map.
He said: "I will be retired in eight years."
Karan looked at him.
"But the programme will not be," Karan said.
Nanda was quiet for a moment.
He said: "The Viraat."
"Yes," Karan said.
"She is being built at Severodvinsk."
"Yes," Karan said.
"She commissions in 1978," Nanda said. "At which point I am retired. If the programme goes correctly, she will be the first of five nuclear carriers." He paused. "The second one."
"Project Akashvani," Karan said.
"She will not commission before 1980," Nanda said.
"No," Karan said.
"I will be seventy," Nanda said.
"Yes," Karan said.
Nanda looked at the map.
He said: "Make sure she's worth waiting for."
Karan said: "She will be."
Nanda left.
Karan stood at the map alone.
He thought about the programme.
He thought about the ten-day document that he had to produce — the full specification, ships and submarines and bases and budget and milestones. He thought about the specific engineering that would go into each element and the specific people who would do the engineering and the specific timeline that would convert what was currently a set of markers on a chart into a navy.
He thought about the nuclear submarine.
He thought about INS Karanj at 800 metres from the outer harbour entrance, snorkeling two to three hours per night in the post-cyclone swell, maintaining battery state and air quality for five days in the most constrained operating conditions a diesel submarine could be placed in. He thought about Sharma managing all of that.
He thought about what Sharma would do with unlimited endurance.
He opened his notebook.
He wrote: February 18, 1975. NHQ meeting. Naval Development Fund agreed in principle. Programme: Type 28 and Type 41 expansion (100 surface combatants), five nuclear-powered supercarriers, twenty-five nuclear attack submarines, fleet logistics. Budget: $5 billion annual floor, to be approved by CSC next week.
He paused.
He wrote: The programme document is due in ten days. The programme document describes the Indian Navy in 1983. The Indian Navy in 1983 has five nuclear carriers, twenty-five nuclear submarines, one hundred surface combatants, and the logistics to sustain thirty-day independent operations in the central Indian Ocean.
He paused.
He wrote: The programme document also needs to describe why. Not in strategic language. In plain language. The lesson of the Mauritius Crisis.
He wrote: The lesson is: positioning and intelligence and exceptional individuals can compensate for material inferiority in a specific crisis with specific conditions. The navy India needs does not require those three conditions to be met simultaneously.
He looked at what he had written.
He added: Sharma was at 800 metres for five days on battery cycles. A nuclear submarine removes the battery cycle. A nuclear submarine gives Sharma the one thing he didn't have at Port Louis: permanence. The ability to stay without having to manage staying.
He added: The Indian Ocean is India's ocean. The victory is when the order of battle makes it so.
He closed the notebook.
He removed the Peros Banhos marker from the map.
He looked at it — a small coloured pin, the specific shade of orange that meant Indian forward position, the pin that had been placed on the chart on February 5th when the engineering company finished the PSP runway and the first S-22 touched down.
He held it.
He thought about sixty-eight people on a coral island for eight days.
He thought about Krishnaswami sleeping in his tent with the Milky Way above him.
He put the pin back on the map.
It belonged there.
He walked out of the Naval War Room.
He went back to Gorakhpur.
He had ten days to write a document that would define the Indian Navy for the next eight years.
He started writing it on the plane.
End of Chapter 191
Naval Development Programme — Principal Decisions, 18 February 1975
Agreed in Principle:
Naval Development Fund: Fixed percentage of petroleum export revenues (12% proposed, 10% expected to be approved by Cabinet) Year 1 approximate fund: $800 million, growing to $2+ billion by 1978 as petroleum production expands
Vizag Shipyard Expansion:
Two additional covered slipways: ₹90 crore capital investment Target production rate: 6 Type 28 Shivalik frigates per year + 4 Type 41 destroyers per year Type 28 Shivalik: ₹38 crore, 3,400t, CODAG (2× Marine Kaveri Mk 1 + 2× Pielstick PA6) Type 41 Destroyer: ₹61 crore, 5,000t, CODAG (4× Marine Kaveri Mk 1 + 2× Pielstick PA6) 10-year production: 60 frigates + 40 destroyers
Nuclear Submarine Programme:
Classification: Cabinet Security Committee (same as nuclear weapons programme) Design team: 23 personnel (DRDO/Vizag/ISMC), starting immediately Propulsion: VM-4 reactor documentation (acquired through Gorshkov agreement, January 1975) Pressure hull: Titanium alloy + HY-80 steel; requires titanium forge press at Vizag (12-18 months) Crew training leads: Commander A. Sharma (INS Karanj), Commander R. Menon (INS Kursura) Target commission: 1986-1987
INS Viraat (Project Orel):
Construction: Severodvinsk, Northern Fleet shipyard Timeline: Hull completion 1977, fitting out Vizag 1978-1979, sea trials 1979-1980 Commission: 1980
Fleet Replenishment Vessels:
Target: 4 units (1 unit in first five years at $800M budget level) Class: 15,000-tonne fast replenishment vessel
Project Akashvani (Carrier Follow-On):
Status: Concept phase Design start: estimated 1983 Commission: estimated 1992 Displacement: 85,000 tonnes, nuclear propulsion (improved VM-4 derivative)
Programme Document: Due: 10 days (approximately February 28, 1975) For: Cabinet Security Committee
Karan's notebook, February 18, 1975:The programme document describes the Indian Navy in 1985. The victory is when the order of battle makes the Indian Ocean India's. That is fifteen years away if the programme is funded correctly.