ABSTRACT
The Indian Navy has undergone a transformation from being a brown-water to an almost blue-water navy during the decades, from 1980 to 2009. The transformation of the world during this period, from a bipolar to a unipolar world, has added to the complications of a small navy with large ambitions. The Navys path to being a blue-water navy today with a large indigenous content has been exciting and tricky. This is because early naval planners kept their sights fixed firmly on becoming as classic a navy as possible and not a truncated built against Pakistan navy as many had advised. At a time of poor funding it has been easy to criticize the Navy for wanting the luxury of an aircraft carrier but eventually the desperate measures to obtain old aircraft carriers and keep naval aviation alive has paid off in the sense that the Indian Navy has no problem in commissioning a new aircraft carrier, unlike the Chinese Navy.
