India’s Misplaced Focus On Regional Rivalry And Defence Spending – OpEd
Reports of credible international institutions indicate that hundreds of millions of Indian citizens suffer from extreme poverty, hunger, malnutrition, unemployment, and limited access to civic amenities. Nevertheless, the BJP-led Modi government has been incurring heavy expenditure on defence rather than meeting the basic necessities of its population, due to enmity with Pakistan, the pursuit of regional hegemony, and rivalry with China.
According to the 2024 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), “India has the highest number of people living in acute poverty. Nearly 234 million Indian citizens lack access to at least one-third of the essential services, such as housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition, schooling, and drinking water.”
As per the World Bank Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways out of the Polycrisis, “around 129 million Indians live in extreme poverty, i.e., on less than USD 2.15 per day; 210 million Indians lack access to improved sanitation; around 163 million Indians lack access to safe drinking water; 21 percent of communicable diseases are linked to unsafe water; and, 500 children under the age of five die from diarrhea each day in India.”
Since coming to power in 2014, the BJP government has significantly increased India’s defence spending, with an average annual growth rate of approximately 9 percent. From USD 37.3 billion in FY2014-15, India’s defense budget increased to USD 75 billion in FY2024-25. In contrast, relatively modest funds of USD 1.8 billion and USD 10.7 billion were allocated to the key sectors of education and health, respectively.
As per Economic Survey 2023-24, “India’s per capita expenditure on education stands at approximately USD 1.23, and USD 7.34 on health,” alarmingly low numbers considering India’s massive population of around 1.46 billion and pressing developmental challenges. According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “the current global average per capita spending on education is around USD 1,200, and USD 1,100 on health.” India’s dismal expenditure on essential social sectors, despite being the fourth-largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, does not correspond to its global power aspirations.
According to the latest data on international arms transfers published on 10 March 2025 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “India emerged as the world’s second-largest arms importer in 2024, with an 8.3 percent share of global imports.” According to a report written by Dr K. Alan Kronstadt, Specialist in South Asian Affairs, published on 17 March 2025 by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the United States, “New Delhi is expected to spend more than USD 200 billion over the next decade to modernize its military.”
Traditionally, Russia has been India’s largest source of arms imports. Over the last decade, however, India has been diversifying its sources of arms procurement, with France and the United States denting Russia’s share of its exports of arms to India. Since 2018, India has signed nearly USD 20 billion defense contracts with the United States, becoming the third-largest arms supplier after Russia and France.
On 13 February 2025, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a Joint Leaders’ Statement outlining several key initiatives and commitments aimed at strengthening the US-India partnership. These included: (i) launching a new initiative called the “US-India COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st Century”; (ii) announcing plans to sign in 2025 a new ten-year “Framework for the US-India Major Defense Partnership in the 21st Century,” which would facilitate Washington in expanding defense sales to India; and (iii) announcing plans to pursue in 2025 new procurements and co-production arrangements for Javelin Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and Stryker Infantry Combat Vehicles in India. If these projects and plans materialize, they would pave the way for India to procure US F-35 stealth fighters. However, it will require a financial outlay of hundreds of billions of dollars, further diverting New Delhi’s attention and resources from addressing pressing problems facing its population.
According to the UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) 2025 titled A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI, “India’s Human Development Index (HDI) value in 2023-24 was 0.685, placing it at number 130 among the 193 nations of the world.” This implies that India is lagging behind more than sixty countries in terms of life expectancy, education, and living standards.
According to the 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI), India was ranked 105th out of 127 countries worldwide. With a score of 27.3, it has been placed in the “Serious” category on the GHI Severity of Hunger Scale (SHS). As per official statistics released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) of India, “about 80.57 million children under six were weighed in June 2024 and, out of these, around 17 percent of children in the age group of 0-5 years were underweight, 36 percent were stunted, and 6 percent were wasted (i.e., they were too thin for their height).”
As per Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), “the unemployment rate in India rose from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 9.2 percent in June 2024.” An opinion piece titled “Indians Are Seeking Work in War Zones,” by Puja Changoiwala, an award-winning Indian journalist and author, published on 18 November 2024 by Foreign Policy magazine, revealed that unemployment was driving desperate Indian citizens to work as mercenaries in current war zones—Ukraine and Israel.
The desperation to earn a decent living has led hundreds of thousands of Indians to opt for illegal emigration. According to an article titled “India, a Big Source of Illegal Migration, Hopes to Navigate the Trump Storm” by Suhasini Raj, published on 26 January 2025 by The New York Times, “India is one of the top sources of illegal immigration to the United States.” As of 2024, more than 700,000 undocumented Indians were living in the United States, the center estimates, making them the third-largest group, behind Mexicans and Salvadorans.”
According to an investigative report titled Deportation shadow falls on over 20,000 ‘undocumented’ Indians, carried by The Indian Express on 5 February 2025, “there are over 20,000 Indians currently on the deportation list in the US, with 2,467 of them kept in detention centers as of 21 January 2025.” Notably, since Donald Trump assumed the US presidency and signed multiple executive orders focusing on illegal immigration, four batches of illegal Indian immigrants, totaling 490 individuals, have been deported back to India, wearing handcuffs and ankle chains, aboard US military aircraft. In 2023, “about 90,000 Indians were arrested as they tried to enter the United States illegally.”
In the opinion of Dr Ladhu R. Choudhary, former South Asia Program Visiting Fellow at Stimson Center, “despite the Modi government’s huge defense spending on military modernization initiatives, it has only had a ‘suboptimal’ impact on the Indian military’s effectiveness.” The dismal performance of the Indian armed forces, especially the Indian Air Force (IAF), during the recent four-day aggression against Pakistan, the failure of Operation Sindoor, and the success of Operation Bunyanum Marsoos, lend credence to Dr Ladhu Choudhary’s analysis.
India has been presenting itself to the world as a regional hegemon with global power aspirations. However, Pakistan’s recent decisive victory has effectively dismantled the long-standing myth of India’s conventional military superiority in South Asia and shattered its grandiose global ambitions.
New Delhi’s insistence that Operation Sindoor has been paused and not terminated, implies that Modi government is likely to continue massive expenditure on defence procurement rather than allocating resources to the pressing needs of its neglected, poverty-stricken, and downtrodden segments of India’s mammoth population.
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