How are you future-proofing our next generation to...
See, we are today, first of all, in the defense sector, we are working on at least, I would say, 15 new products. A lot for the army, a lot for the navy, some for the Indian Air Force.
There's a criticism of industry, especially the private industry, where they say that you're not, you know, putting enough money into R&D.
It's a valid criticism. It's a very valid criticism. There are very few companies like us who spend money on R&D.
How much do you spend on R&D?
Oh, I have 500 engineers. You know, you're talking about the guns for 10 years. I must have spent a thousand crores developing guns.
And you spent your own money?
A thousand crores. So that's...
Nobody gave me this money.
And the rest of the industry you're saying isn't doing this.
Nobody takes that kind of risk. You know, today even the big guys, they wait for the order, then they go to some guy in Europe to get a technology license, and then they want to make that product to that guy's license. That's why they can't export anything.
You, you know, took that leap of faith. You bought that gun line. You set up the...
I bought the gun line before I knew how to make what was a gun.
What are the kind of changes that you would like to see now, given the fact that you...
I think, at a policy level, to be very honest, you know, I think the government has done what it needs to do. Okay, now it's the job of the industry to deliver. You know, we need to deliver high-class products, we need to deliver, you know, latest technology, we need to convince the system that we can make it happen. And when I say we, it's all industry put together.
How important are orders? And you think that mindset has changed now?
Of course, it has changed. It has changed very dramatically. And not only it has changed, I think it'll change even more dramatically for one simple reason: that technology is moving at a speed which is amazingly fast today. Okay? And nobody else who, you know, unless you are in that business and you got the capability in terms of talent and people who understand this, you can't catch up with this technology. It's just not possible.
It's not a game of traders anymore.
It's not a game of traders anymore.
In the old days, anybody and everybody wanted to make it into defense.
Right. From aircrafts to guns to everything else.
But now you think that technology, the entry of technology, has now raised the entry level.
Absolutely. Absolutely. There will be still a few more years where you will have this little mix going on, but at the end of the day, if I look at ourselves in 2030, right, or look at India in 2030, I think India in 2030 will be a country that has almost all the technologies that are required for its defense programs, including its ability to make its own jet engines, if they just do it properly.
Right. And that's an area that you're looking at entry.
We are not looking at it because right now it is done by GTRE in Bangalore. But I have always proposed to the government, to the MOD, that you should put in a consortium of four or five companies who have the understanding, capability, engineering, design, you know, materials knowledge, metallurgy, and convert it to a national program to make jet engines. If you do that, in five years we can make jet engines.
So where is the problem then, Mr. Kalyani, about, you know, how do you sensitize people to focus more on products and this, you've been a pioneer of...
...product-focused approach.
It will happen for one simple reason today. If you look at our planet, there are at least 30 hot spots where wars are going on. Okay, 10 years ago, there were hardly one or two hot spots where wars were going on, largely in the Middle East. Now there are at least 30 hot spots. I mean, there are four or five places in Africa where wars are going on. You have this whole Russia-Ukraine problem that's for the last three years happening, wasn't there 10 years ago.
So life was very different 10 years ago. Life is very different now. Even if you pay any amount of money, you can't get product from anybody else. Okay? So you'll soon realize, and if India ever gets pulled into a prolonged war with any one of its neighbors, we had it, because you can't make products fast enough to deal with the war. That's the time you will need to make 10,000 drones a month, okay? Or 20,000 drones a month. You need to make a lot of artillery guns.
And we still haven't ordered guns in the numbers that we had planned.
Now they ordered, they ordered now 306 ATAGS, right? They now tender for some 400-odd mounted gun systems. Now it's beginning to roll because they need four and a half thousand guns to be replaced with their modernization plan.
In the next couple of decades. But, you know, this product-focused approach, is it a function of conflict? You know, I want to take you to the book that we both read and love, which is, you know, 'Freedom's Forge', how the American military-industrial complex was literally birthed by the automobile guys and the shipbuilding sector, private sector. Will it take a war for us to realize this? Like your journey began during the Kargil war, but that was more a personal journey.
When we get an all... I honestly don't know. I hope not, because wars are not easy for countries. I hope not. But I think we are inevitably going to get pulled into this in the coming years, because that's the way you see things happening around the world today.
You know, in the old days, you would get America coming to help. I mean, look at 1971, a good example. US came to push us back.
They sent the Seventh Fleet.
From Bangladesh. Yeah. Then the Russian submarines were there in the Bay of Bengal and they made sure the US Seventh Fleet doesn't come. And Indira Gandhi was bold enough to make that decision, and Sam Manekshaw was an amazing general that was able to implement that decision and get 93,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war.
It never happened anywhere in history. Only time, right?
Such a large surrender after the Second World War. Imagine if the surrender had not happened and there was a battle going on with the Mukti Bahini on one side, Indian army on the other side, and this 93,000 Pakistan army in the middle...
...would have been a massacre.
Are we going, like you mentioned, this age of instability, unpredictability, conflict, and...
...that is the reason that you need Atmanirbhar Bharat is the only way forward.
One of the big problems and the big worries that I have is, you know, America has changed its foreign policy completely. Its new doctrine of national security, that NSS that has come out a month ago. If you read that doctrine carefully, you know, they're very clear: they want to dominate the Western Hemisphere. That means they want to take over Brazil, take over Mexico, take over Cuba, take over Canada, take over Alaska.
The new Monroe Doctrine. Yes. The dawn... doctrine.
Yeah. And they say that Europe is going to be inconsequential.
Because of the kind of immigration that Europe has wildly gone into, and therefore Europe will lose its eminence, which we are already seeing. Europe is really losing its eminence. This whole system is falling apart. Whether it's Germany, whether it's France, whether it's UK, everywhere it's falling apart. Only place where it's still surviving is a little bit of Eastern Europe because they're still disciplined, they still, you know, work hard.
What are the lessons for India in particular, while the world seems to be at war or in varying degrees of stress and conflict? What should India do in the next couple of years?
See, India has one advantage: that we are a young nation. Our demographics are going to remain young for the next 30 years. So, and we're going to pump out a lot of talent. Now, with the whole advent of AI, digital technologies, and everything else, whether we like it or not, kids will learn all this, right? Like, you know, everybody learns smartphone. Even a street vendor knows how to use a smartphone. He may not know much technology in that, but he knows how to use it. And that's all you need for AI. You don't need to learn how to write an algorithm. You just need to learn how to use those AI, you know, whatever agents or whatever will come out of that.
So how is Bharat Forge using AI? How are you future-proofing our next generation to...
See, we are today, first of all, in the defense sector, we are working on at least, I would say, 15 new product areas. A lot for the army, a lot for the navy, some for the Indian Air Force. But 50 new product areas. So we are building the light tank, we're building an FICV track and FICV wheel, we're building our own turrets. The I guess weakness that India has in any of this vehicle program, combat vehicle program, is ability to make your own turret. They only depend on this company in Belgium, John Cockerill, to get turrets. Whereas we have made our own turret. We have made the 30 mm turret that was fired at 550 rounds per minute beautifully. We're now making the 105 turret for our light tank. So we are creating a turret technology all on our own.
Why is the turret such a big deal? Because one would think that it's such a simple thing to build.
No, no, it's very sophisticated. The ammunition handling system is very complex in a very compact space. You have to handle 550 rounds a minute of this 30 mm shell which is about that big, that much in diameter. Not easy. Believe me, it's not easy at all. And to do it automated is not even manual. It's quite complicated. Similarly with 105 on the light tank, of course, there we use two carousels to handle the ammunition handling system, but the shells are heavy. One of our shells will be what, 30, 40 kg.
So that explains your foray into the turret. So you want to be...
Yeah, absolutely. That is the weak point for India's combat vehicle systems. We don't know how to make turrets, even today.
How about the power plant? Isn't that...
Power plant? You see, as far as the power plant is concerned, we have missed the bus a long time ago because all the power plant companies are either Americans or Germans. But we are now pushing, we are using a Cummins power plant in, you know, these kind of vehicles. But the engine is made here in Pune. I supply half the components that go into that engine, like the crankshaft, connecting rod, and all those things. Similarly, we have, for our light tank, we are going to use a Caterpillar engine.
And Caterpillar is going to make that engine in Chennai, right? In their plant. Actually, they already started making. Similarly, the transmission for the tank, we're using a Renk US transmission, not Renk German. The Renk Germany is giving a hard time for our Arjun and all those.
So we went to Renk USA. It's a different company altogether. And their entire senior management came here, we explained to them, so they have set up now a plant in Chennai to make transmissions. So the good thing is, although it's owned by Americans, but it's going to be made here in India.
So that's the phase one of your modernization. The next phase would be when we completely indigenize the...
No, this is all indigenized anyway. Everything that we are making in all the products is all 100% Indian. Nothing that is imported in there. I mean, the light tank is amphibious. So even the amphibious jets we are making ourselves. The axles we are making ourselves. The engine is coming from a company that makes it in India. The transmission comes from a company that makes it in India. We design everything ourselves.
So, you know, coming to the close-quarter battle carbine order, Mr. Kalyani. It's one of the largest small arms orders not just in India, in the world.
Not such a big order, but...
Value-wise, but yeah, quantity-wise.
Yeah. So is this part of Bharat Forge's plan to dominate the entire land system?
Our strategy, more than land system, our strategy is a product-oriented strategy. What we have decided is, making artillery guns, we need to make artillery guns that are exportable to every country in the world. Right? You're making small arms now. We need to become the best in small arms. It'll take 10 years to get there. Probably best in small arms so that we become the manufacturing source for a lot of companies that are currently making this in Europe and elsewhere.
We are already beginning to get feelers from large European companies who are in the small arms business to say, 'Can you make the product for us?' So I think what is going to happen is, there is a lot of labor shortage in Europe today. Yeah. There's a lot of manpower shortage in Europe. There's a lot of skill shortage in Europe. I mean, one of the agendas of Chancellor Merz is also to get Indian skilled manpower. That is his official agenda. So because of this shortage, they are not able to increase their production, and now US has forced Europe to take their defense production up to 5% of GDP.
So they almost have to double or triple their outputs. Now they don't have the people to make this happen.
Yeah. Willingly they will come to us.
To India.
How will this be a win-win for India? I mean...
Oh, it'll be fantastic because you will become a net arms exporter in the system. You just need to create, you know, I mean, today they don't believe that you can make things because you've been importing things for 60, 70 years. They don't believe you can make things, but they still change. It's like the automotive components, you know, right? When I first went to Daimler and said, 'I want to supply you crankshaft,' he threw me out of his office.
Right. By 2000 you had 100% of their wheels.
In five years you had the last laugh in the automobile sector, which is fairly easy when compared to the defense business.
When will India have the last laugh in the defense business?
