INS Brahmaputra fire incident: No time for media trial or lynch mob vigilantism

The accident on Indian Naval Ship (INS) Brahmaputra, on July 22, 2024, has cast a pall of sadness within the Navy, in the veteran community, among the commentators on defence issues, and the nation at large. It was quite natural, therefore, that the shock and dismay experienced by people found expression in reportage and analysis in the media and in private chat groups.

However, over the next few days, it was disappointing to note that the discourse on this incident moved from being one of expressing concern to frenzied fulminations and pulpit proclamations about the Navy. Admittedly, this was only from a few quarters but unnecessary aspersions were cast on the competence of the ships’ crew and the professionalism of the Service. Some sections of the media and veterans went overboard even as others maintained necessary circumspection. Therefore, this article is to provide a balance to the former, lest it remains in public memory as fact, when much of it was opinion and not duly objective or factual in nature.

Let it be noted, at the very outset, that this is not a defence of what happened on the eventful day and the consequences thereof. In fact, even in the Navy, across all echelons, there would be complete agreement that such an accident is unacceptable and no justification whatsoever can be offered. That having been said, it is necessary for us to realise the complex aspects at play which result, sometimes, in such situations. This account aims to give a ‘rational perspective’ to the event and address some of the more egregious comments on this issue. In doing this, I have drawn upon some of the wise and restrained remarks that certain serving and retired officers have been kind enough to share with me.

Background

As is well known by now, INS Brahmaputra experienced a major fire on the evening of July 21. Aggressive firefighting by the ship’s crew progressively aided by other ships in vicinity and naval dockyard firefighters resulted in the fire being brought under control next morning. By around noon or little thereafter on July 22, it seemed that the danger from fire had subsided considerably. However, sometime between 2 and 3 pm, the ship started to list heavily on the port side and, before corrective measures could be applied, keeled over and lay on one side. All the ship’s company was evacuated smoothly except for one sailor, who unfortunately died during the process.

Various theories have been advanced by analysts in the media as to what may have happened. Most have attributed it to the ‘free surface effect’ which can be caused when dousing large compartments of a ship with vast quantities of water during firefighting. This results in partial flooding of compartments and may lead the ship to list on one side ‘suddenly sometime’ after flooding. A few others have drawn parallels with a similar accident on a sister ship INS Betwa in 2016 and questioned if the Brahmaputra class of ships have some design issues. Yet others have emphasised about the ship being in refit, as Betwa was, and surmised if conditions obtaining in refit have anything to do with the outcome.

However, it must be emphasised that these remain conjectures at best, at this point of time. The Navy has set up a high-powered Board of Inquiry headed by a Rear Admiral and it is expected that the Board will be able to ascertain what exactly happened and the ‘how and why’ of it. Therefore, it would be unwise to speculate beyond a point, hoisting the old adage that ‘causation is not corelation’.

Challenges and prevailing operational tempo

At this stage it is necessary to underscore three fundamental issues relating to military seafaring. First, a warship (including submarine) is one of the most complex designs that defies most logic. It is the work of a mad genius.  It is probably the only place in the world where hundreds or thousands of tons of highly inflammable fuel, several hundreds of pieces of highly explosive ordnance, many equipment that radiate high power electromagnetic transmissions, many miles of pipes of all kind, mammoth amounts of electric cables, many coats of paint and other flammable material are packed together in very close proximity, cheek by jowl. Within this confined space human beings (aka the ship’s crew) live, work, train and fight. There is no other place or structure which has anything remotely similar.

There are additional factors when at sea and when in refit, in harbour. At sea, the many challenges of rough seas, strong winds and continuous stresses and strains of movement in water manifest themselves. In refit, it’s about being denuded of many organic capabilities due to equipment taken out for repair, dependence on dockyard staff, civilian contracted labour and other agencies beyond the ship’s immediate control.

Second, accidents are a hazard of the military profession. Given their working and training conditions, given that ships (or aircraft or soldiers on ground) operate in marginal conditions with inherent risks, the possibility of a mishap always exists. At the same time, it is a necessary requirement of military training that our personnel are taught to take calculated risks, to seize initiative, to not be overawed by challenges, to not be pusillanimous in the face of danger.

Third, in the normal course of our life, if a fire or flooding or major accident occurred in places that we inhabit — home, offices, malls, etc — it would be perfectly normal (even valid) for the inhabitants to hastily leave the place and call the firefighters or disaster management agencies or government safety departments to do the job. This is not so in a ship. On board a ship, the first line of defence — and, at sea, the only line of defence — against any such eventuality is the ship’s crew. That is the reason, in addition to their core competence areas — gunnery, navigation, shipwright, communication, engineering and such like — the ship’s crew is always trained in damage control and firefighting.

Why is this ‘obvious fact’ so important to highlight here? Because, the crew knows that any laxity in damage control or firefighting will, not just jeopardise their lives but also their living spaces, their work places, their equipment, their weapons and sensors. At the risk of repetition, it needs highlighting that people in the Navy work in a hazardous environment and, therefore, they try to be safe in all work and evolutions (as exercises and drills in the navy are called) and in varying conditions.

To this, let’s add the prevailing strategic situation. Over the last decade and more, the Navy’s operational tempo has greatly accelerated in response to various factors such as the challenges emanating in our neighbourhood from hostile powers and entities, the threats posed by non-state actors at sea including terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing and such like, the demands of maritime and defence diplomacy and the obligations of responding to humanitarian crisis in different parts of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Taken together and juxtaposed in the context of India’s status as a rising power, the Indian Navy has come to occupy a pole position as the ‘preferred security partner and first responder’ in the region. This also aligns with the Prime Minister’s vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for all in the region). Executing this vision and meeting our strategic objectives has implied a busier operational canvas. Ships, these days, sail into far seas and distant places of the globe, they are mission deployed for long durations, and a 200 plus days at sea (or away from base port) cycle has become the norm for most frontline combatants.

Flawed criticism

Against this background, it was, therefore, disappointing to see that the media commentary, instead of being mindful of these aspects, went on an overdrive, passing judgments with gay abandon. Bulk of the criticism came from some naval (and other) veterans and from ‘defence analysts or experts’, many of them well known journalists. I will readily concede that they have their heart in the right place and their concerns are well meant. Yet it was distressing to see the whole thing pan out as though the veterans and media experts could have set things right if they were handling the situation instead of people on the spot.

At one level, it was particularly jarring to see the negative spiel about the ship’s crew. It needs to be underlined that any accident is an unintended occurrence. And fighting a major fire is always fraught with risk. If you don’t fight it aggressively and cool the boundaries of the ship sufficiently, you cannot put out the fire. And if you pump in the water you need for that, you have the risk of upsetting the ship’s stability.

As one serving officer very perceptively said in a message exchanged with me: “What happened is heart-breaking. There are challenges at sea and this incident highlights the biggest of them…there are mechanisms in place, methodologies adopted, personnel trained and regularly sensitised, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place… however, like everywhere in life, accidents happen; it’s the ship’s crew which keeps her taut, shining and proud. They wear their ship’s name not only on their chest on the ship’s T-shirt, but proudly in their hearts and they breathe the ship’s name. And refits are always most challenging, when personnel are putting in their heart and soul to get their ship back to being shiny and taut to feel the wind and the salt through their hair. There’s always that one chance of something going awry”.

The point being made is very simple. Its fine to suggest an error of judgement by people fighting the fire or on board; that is possible in the heat of the moment. But it’s rather harsh, if not supremely ironical, to suggest that they are incompetent. They can ill afford to be so because they are the ones whose lives are on line; they are the ones most affected. Let us look no further than the recent case when in January this year, Merchant Vessel (MV) Marlin Luanda, had a major fire onboard. Thirty sailors of INS Visakhapatnam firefighting team fought the fire on the tanker for close to five hours and brought it under control even when the merchant ship’s crew had given up and when other navies in vicinity offered material support but didn’t undertake actual firefighting.

Here, is it worth recollecting the words of Avinash Rawat, the Master of Marlin Luanda who said, “Half of the world knows that yesterday (January 26) we were struck by a missile in Gulf of Aden. Due to this missile attack, the vessel was on fire … it was a huge fire. It’s a loaded tanker…people know what happens if a tanker goes on fire… So, I really thank the Indian warship, INS Visakhapatnam. They have done a really tremendous job. We had actually lost the hope that we won’t be able to fight this fire but these guys were really tough. Hats off to Indian Navy who said we will come onboard with our expert firefighters and we will try to help you guys to fight the fire. … The Indian Navy went out of the way with its specialised team to help them.”

In fact, just two weeks ago, INS Visakhapatnam was conferred a Letter of Commendation from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for this act. It also needs to be underlined that this is just one among the many such humanitarian assistance missions undertaken by the Indian Navy in recent times. Therefore, to suggest that the Firefighting and Damage Control training or practice by the Navy is below par is not only incorrect but also ill-founded.

At another level, the aspersions cast about the professionalism of the Navy as a whole is also seriously problematic. To be sure, the Brahmaputra incident is a setback, one that affects the service both materially and psychologically. That an advanced Navy should not have such developments is to state the obvious. However, to anchor our judgement of the service as a whole through the lens of one incident betrays either naiveté or ignorance or, worse, deliberate forgetfulness.

Let it be highlighted that this is the same Navy that has conducted itself in a splendid manner over the last six months in ‘Op Sankalp’ in the Western Arabian Sea. This is the same Navy which carried out the brilliant operation of interdicting MV Ruen, a pirate mothership through a fantastic display of ship and airborne special operations. In fact, but for Indian Navy’s proactive role in that region, there would have been far greater tumult due to activities of Houthis, pirates and other such actors. This is the same Western Naval Command that, three years ago, when Cyclone Tauktae struck Mumbai, rescued nearly 200 people from ships and offshore platforms, operating in the most dangerous weather conditions.

In fact, on the very next day after the Brahmaputra incident, July 23, the Navy successfully undertook a heliborne medical evacuation, in extreme weather conditions, of a critically injured Chinese mariner from the bulk carrier ‘Zhong Shan Men’, at a distance of 200 nautical miles (approximately 360 km) from Mumbai. Just a few days before, on 17 Jul, INS Teg operating off Oman, had rescued 9 crew members of a capsized oil tanker MV Prestige Falcon. Even as this article is being written, frontline Indian Navy ships are exercising with American and Russian Navies concurrently in different parts of the globe — INS Tabar in Petersburg and INS Sahyadri in Hawaii. Surely, unprofessional Navies would not have been doing all this.

Sweeping generalisations and unsavoury prescriptions

It is, therefore, important to recognise the damage done by sweeping statements and generalisations by people who are influential in the media. Clickbait headlines, catchy phrases, selective statistics and one-sided graphics that many in the media put out in the aftermath seemed to suggest that suddenly everything (or many things) was going wrong in the Navy. The adverse impact of such statements on the morale of the serving personnel was not adequately considered.

Rear Admiral Rajesh Singh (Retd) adds further context with his incisive analysis. In an exchange with this author he said, “All Naval Personnel are trained similarly and dedicated or sincere in their task alike. It may be off the mark to opine that a different group would have handled the situation differently. Even if it means a group from yesteryears. A group engaged in tackling a difficult situation wouldn’t have been lacking in dedication, commitment, concern or doing the most appropriate thing in the given situation. Sometimes the situation goes out of control and no amount of effort helps retrieve the situation. I can’t say that my ship would never have encountered an accident like this or that my team would have done better”.

To all veterans who may like to believe that things were better ‘during their times’, I would very humbly suggest that evidence doesn’t necessarily bear this out. As someone tracking the Indian Navy’s growth and development over the years, I believe that today’s Navy is in a much better place than ever before. Ironically, much of this has happened due to the standards set, traditions followed and values espoused by the veterans during their time. Therefore, one would have expected that greater understanding would have been shown by them of the operating environment and professional hazards.

To the ‘heads must roll’ brigade, I would like to point out that such prescriptions from the media are rich in irony. Arguably, in no other sphere of national endeavour is action taken as quickly and diligently as in the armed forces. Accountability and responsibility are in-built in the ethos of the Navy. I believe that this incident will be fully probed and all remedial and corrective measures will be taken at institutional and individual levels. Be it error of judgement or miscalculation or negligence, if any, the system always takes action. But there is also a bigger, more important, point here. All those, in the Armed Forces, who have commanded units and led men, at every echelon, realise the enormous responsibility placed on their shoulders. They do not see such responsibility as a burden but as a solemn duty.

In the course of carrying out such duties, all those unfortunate to have faced accidents or loss of lives or material ‘during their watch’, bear the outcomes stoically and, often, carry their moral guilt and grief to their graves. All of us have been groomed that one day should, God forbid, such a thing happen, we should take it on our chin with dignity. Therefore, to even suggest that ‘punishments must be doled out’ is not just being flippant but disrespectful of the ethos of the services.

There are many others who have made comparisons with other Navies. This article does not claim to be a scholarly treatise on accidents in other Navies. But to even the most cursory follower of naval developments around the globe, it is evident that over, say, the past two decades, the American, Russian, Chinese, British, Iranian, Indonesian navies have witnessed many accidents. It is true that, in some cases, accidents lead to more damaging or catastrophic consequences and this point needs to be registered and studied. I am sure the Indian Navy will do that too. As the phrase goes, comparisons are often odious but if we make due allowance for this observation by analysts it begs a bigger question. Navies are capital and technology intensive.

While benchmarking ourselves with first class global navies is necessary and we do that, does the Defence Technology Industry Base (DTIB) in our country support such standards? As a pioneer of indigenisation, Navy partners the industry in ‘making in India’. It helps to develop human capital by skilling them. But we must recognise that our complete ecosystem in this regard is not (yet) top-class. The Naval uniformed and civilian personnel hold a tight line on quality but also have to be cognisant of structural and cultural issues within the country’s industry.

The other rather uninformed comment is about losing ships in ‘peacetime’ vis-à-vis ‘wartime’. It needs to be noted that whether in peace or war, ships operate in similar hazardous conditions. Ships (and indeed submarines and aircraft) deployed face risks and dangers at all times. As has been brought out earlier, in the current times, for example, they could include threat from pirates, or in the Houthi attack zone, helping Merchant Vessels in distress or carrying out Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in their own country and friendly foreign countries. Therefore, such arguments are specious and make artificial, irrelevant distinctions.

One must, at the same time, also acknowledge a few suggestions from veterans and professionals (mostly from the Marine industry) that were solution oriented. Whether they related to enhancement of the naval dockyard firefighting infrastructure or about dewatering equipment, their inputs gave scope for internal investigation and improvement whereby Navy could introspect, identify root cause(s) and bring in systems to avoid similar events from happening again. Their insights about public perception, about the understandable angst in some quarters and addressing them are also prescient and need to be taken onboard by the Navy.

Conclusion

To conclude, it once again bears repetition that no accident or mishap can be justified except perhaps in enemy action. But we need to take the overall context for a balanced view. The concerns and comments of many are well meant; however, this ‘failure’ is being made out as be all and end all. It is one part — not good at all, not justifiable, and ought to be addressed — but is being painted as the whole picture.

It also bears equal emphasis that none feels this disappointment more than the man/woman in uniform who lives on and loves the ship. The Navy is deeply hurting and introspecting at this time. We need to rally behind them and trust their abilities to overcome this setback and move forward. We have some excellent professionals at the helm and we can trust that they will not just analyse this deeply but do what needs to be done to rectify the situation. As Rajesh Singh says “At this moment we need to stand in solidarity of those who lost a hard-fought battle, rather than in judgment. Investigation, analysis and flagging of shortcomings will happen in due course”.

None of this implies that there should not be any scrutiny or critical gaze cast. None of this implies that questions must not be asked. However, we also need to recognise that the Indian Navy is a highly professional force that has faced challenges and risks to get the task done, not just historically but also contemporarily. The strength of an organisation is seen from its resilience, of how it can rebound from a reversal. By conveying its determination that INS Brahmaputra will be brought back to even keel and made operational at the earliest, the Navy has signalled its intent and taken the first step towards recovery. Senior Navy officials have backed the Brahmaputra crew in getting the ‘Raging Rhino’ (as the Ship was affectionately called) back on her feet and, hopefully, in the van of the Fleet, while also emphasising to the rest of the Navy on maintaining focus and moving ahead steadily.

As one serving officer, exuding far greater optimism than those outside, shared with me, “But, the sum is always stronger than the individual… And in this case the Rhino’s spirit will surely rise … It’ll rise to bond the team together, it’ll rise to make them analyse what happened logically, it’ll rise to make the system identify the shortcomings and it’ll rise to make our fine Service an even better one. Let’s do our part and stand shoulder to shoulder… This too shall pass”.

Today, the Indian Navy is all over the IOR and beyond, facing threats and safeguarding Indian interests and Indians — often at great risk. Therefore, there is dire need for some sane perspective on this issue. Invoking the old cricket adage of ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’, I believe that this is no time for media trial, lynch mob vigilantism or unnecessary virtue signaling. It would behove commentators and critics well, if instead of pontificating from comfortable perches, we show greater sensitivity, ease our throttles a little and back the Navy in putting this chapter behind and getting on with the job. I am sure the Navy will take the setback as an opportunity to emerge stronger and fitter.

Commodore Srikant Kesnur, is a Navy veteran who writes on maritime issues. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.