Berlin Explores Submarines Project, Delhi Calls For Greater Defense Investment

India asked Germany on Tuesday to get its companies to invest in India’s defense production sector and help build strong supply chains so that India doesn’t have to rely so much on China. India also made it clear that Pakistan can’t be trusted with high-end military technologies because it has a long history of working with China.

During the delegation-level meeting with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, here, Rajnath Singh talked about the new chances in defense production. He also talked about the possibility of German investments in the two defense industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

“India’s skilled workers and low prices, along with Germany’s high technologies and investments, can further strengthen ties,” Singh said. He added that the bilateral strategic partnership should be strengthened with “a more symbiotic defense relationship” based on “shared values of democracy and common positions on several international issues.”

Germany is, of course, eager to get India’s over Rs 42,000 crore contract to build six stealth diesel-electric submarines with land-attack cruise missiles and air-independent propulsion (AIP) for longer time spent underwater. This would be done in collaboration with defence shipyard Mazagon Docks or private L&T shipyard.

But Indian officials say it’s an open competition, with the top contenders being the German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the Spanish company Navantia, and the South Korean company Daewoo. This is for the long-delayed Project-75-India submarine program. Russian and French companies are out of the race because their subs did not have an AIP that worked. “The new date for submitting bids is now August 1,” a government source said. This is because the foreign companies are now working together with Indian shipyards.

Pistorius replied, “We’re talking about TKMS’s deal for six subs. Even though the process isn’t over yet, I think the German industry is doing well in this race.”

Sources say that during the meeting, India brought up China’s hostile and expansionist policies along the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control, in the Indian Ocean Region, and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region.

“It was also said that Pakistan is pulled into China’s sphere of influence because of its own domestic and strategic needs. The West shouldn’t give Pakistan advanced defense tools because Pakistan will give them to China, which will then figure out how to make them work backwards.

On Monday, people told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about their worries. The message to Germany comes at the same time that some countries in western Europe are using Pakistan as a way to send weapons, ammo, and artillery rockets to Ukraine during its war with Russia.

Boris Pistorius, the German Minister of Defense, gets a “Guard of Honour” in Delhi.

Singh said that Indian defense companies could join the supply chains of the German defense industry, add value to the ecosystem, and help make supply lines more stable. “A source said that Germany was told that India, unlike China or Pakistan, is a responsible and working democracy and should be treated as a trusted partner.”

When Pistorius talked about the important Indo-Pacific, he said that everyone agreed on the role of Germany and Europe in the area. He said, “I think we should, we can, and we should do more in the region with India, because we’re getting close to a time when we can’t really tell what will happen in the next few years.”

“And we need strategic friends like Indonesia and India, especially to make sure that the law of free navigation and the free trade routes will still be possible in the next ten years. This is a problem for a number of partners, but not for each partner on its own, but for the partners as a whole,” he said.