ABSTRACT
India is the exemplar of a poor countryl striving to achieve two goals: the need, firstly, to raise economic growth to increase development and living standards and, secondly, the 'necessary evil' of expending scarce resources on an 'unproductive' military to defend the development being sustained. This defence-development dilemma is not unique to the subcontinent. The developing world is replete with states wedded to similar policy objectives. But while development performance in Third World countries has been patchy, the international arms trade has burgeoned. There has been roughly a fourfold increase in the volume of sales of major weapons to the Third World between the seeond h alf of the 1960s and the first half of the 1980s.2 The trend is no longer upward, however. Even though annual average rates of growth of military expenditure by developing countries (LDCs) between 1980 and 1985 was 3.1 per cent (as against an increase in Gross Domestic Product [GDP] of 1.8 per cent), the last three years of this period registered negative growth.3 Needless to state, behind the statistical veil, the incidence and distribution of military spending is far from uniform. For instance, forther investigation reveals the anomal y that Asia is the only Third World area where defence spe n ding continnes to rise. 4 South Asia, in particular, has been maintaining one of the fastest rates of military expenditure. Since 1975 the region has been sustaining a stunning average real rate of growth in military expenditure of six per cent annually.5 Bestriding South Asia, of course, is India. lndia's 1985-90 Defence Plan envisaged defence expenditure increases of ten per cent (in real terms) in 1986 and 15 per cent in 1987.6 The 1988-89 budget allocation for defence is Rs 13,000 crore,7 with capital outlay for the three services representing nearly Rs 4,000 crore.s Purther evidence of Indian militarisation can be gained from the fact that defence expenditure until recently averaged around three per cent per annum of GDP. Currently, the ratio is in excess of 5.5 per cent, accounting for close to 20 per cent of total government spending, and 32 per cent of Non-Plan Expenditure. The Central Government education budget is dwarfed by the apportianment for defence, being 15 times more than the former.9 Defending development is clearly an expensive priority.
