Trump’s F-35 offer tests Modi’s Atmanirbhar pitch. We can’t buy our way out of tech race

We are throwing money at imports while slipping behind competitors—China, certainly, but also Iran, South Korea, and Turkey—in technologies like stealth fighters, drones, and hypersonic missiles.

A US Air Force F-35 fighter jet taxis during the Aero India 2023 air show at Yelahanka air base in Bengaluru, on 13 February 2023 | Reuters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to Washington DC to meet US President Donald Trump last week in full appeasement mode. Not only did he cut tariffs on Bourbon and Harley Davidson, he also apparently promised to spend billions of dollars on US defence equipment such as Stryker armoured vehicles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and possibly F-35 stealth fighters. So much for “Atmanirbhar Bharat”.

There are many unanswered questions about Trump’s F-35 offer, but the prevailing belief within the political system is that Modi has agreed to a purchase. If so, this would be in keeping with his habit of wading in and unilaterally making defence deals, as he did when he changed the original French Rafale deal in 2016. This would also be a mistake.

First, any F-35s will likely arrive too late to bridge the growing fighter gap that India faces vis-a-vis China and Pakistan—long after Trump demits office. Second, and more importantly, operating the F-35 will potentially involve so many compromises—in the form of intrusive American control over the operation and maintenance of key subsystems—that it might seriously erode Indian military autonomy.

Meanwhile, the likely deals to buy Stryker infantry combat vehicles and Javelin anti-tank missiles are setbacks for equivalent programmes from Tata, Mahindra, and Bharat Forge, as well as the MPATGM anti-tank missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

 

Falling behind in firepower

There is a wider problem. We are throwing money at expensive imports in a situation where India is slipping behind its competitors—China, certainly, but also Iran, South Korea, and Turkey—in cutting-edge technologies like stealth fighters, drones, and hypersonic missiles.

Consider the following:

• India flew its first military drone, Nishant, in 1995, and the medium-range long-endurance TAPAS in 2016, but neither has entered service. Instead, India has spent vast sums on Israeli reconnaissance and strike drones and recently contracted to buy 31 MQ-9B drones from the US for $3.9 billion. Meanwhile, Turkey has exported its Bayraktar armed drone to 34 countries, while Iran has supplied hundreds of low-cost Shahed suicide drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.
• On 1 October 2024, Iran fired nearly 200 missiles at Israel, including hypersonic Fatteh-2 missiles that fly at speeds up to Mach 13 and are difficult to intercept—as vivid phone footage of the lightning-fast projectiles attested. Meanwhile, India has tested the kind of scramjet engine that could power a hypersonic missile, but the Brahmos-2 missile, being developed in cooperation with Russia is yet to be tested.
• China flew its first stealth warplane, the J-20, in 2011, and a substantial number of these were deployed near eastern Ladakh during India’s four-and-a-half-year border standoff with it. We now face the real prospect of Chinese J-35 stealth fighters entering service with Pakistan, even as the first flight of India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is scheduled for 2028 at the earliest (see table below). By the time AMCA enters service—likely a decade from now—China may have already deployed an even newer generation of warplanes.

Graphic: Shruti Naithani, ThePrint

None of this is news to those who follow defence and aerospace. No doubt, India has successfully developed strategic and tactical missiles, radars, and naval warships. But we are still forced to buy from abroad simply to bridge a technology gap that shows little sign of closing. This is a serious vulnerability that constrains India’s strategic choices in the coming years, and therefore needs to be brought into the public discourse.

Big market, narrow vision

 India should focus on critical technologies and use its ample market power to enforce indigenisation and genuine technology transfer. Ecosystems built on strong fundamentals are an essential part of this.

In his 3 February 2024 parliamentary speech, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi showed one way forward, explaining how the nexus of electric motors, batteries, electro-optics, and AI has transformed mobility, from electric vehicles to drones. China achieved pre-eminence by systematically building an ecosystem: investing in battery technologies, controlling the supply of rare earths, and scaling up dual-use companies that harness these technologies in both civilian and military realms. The point is not that India should copy China, but that it needs a coherent vision—not a hotchpotch of incrementalism dressed up as strategy.

The 2021 Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for drones was a step in the right direction. It incentivised domestic value-addition, albeit only for three short years. A follow-up scheme is necessary, with strict indigenisation timetables for key components such as camera sensors and brushless DC motors. Imagine the moonshot-like impact, for argument’s sake, of requiring that all drone—or even mobile phone—optics be domestically sourced by 2029.

India is a huge market for countless products, but successive governments have failed to leverage this buying power to build domestic capacities, as the Chinese did in civil aviation.

In the 2000s, China negotiated with Airbus to set up an A320 assembly line in Tianjin in return for orders, offering incentives like cheap land, finance, and subsidies. Since 2008, this facility—51 per cent owned by Airbus—has assembled around 700 A320 aircraft. The assembly line has helped China develop an ecosystem of civil aviation suppliers (much as Maruti did for Indian automobiles) and gain expertise in aircraft assembly at scale. This learning (together with alleged industrial espionage) led to the development of the Comac C919 airliner, which now competes with Airbus, at least in China. Now, even larger civilian airliners are on Comac’s drawing board. A similar approach led to Chinese dominance in high-speed rail.

Meanwhile, Indian airlines have ordered around 1,300 A320-sized aircraft in the past few years directly from Airbus and Boeing with zero leveraging of the country’s immense buying power. Individual companies like HAL and Tata Advanced Systems do build components for these companies, but that doesn’t really add up to an ecosystem. Indian civil aviation projects like the 14-seat Saras and the 70-seat Regional Transport Aircraft will likely go nowhere as long as research and manufacturing are treated as unrelated activities.

 

Catching up in the global race

The basic point is this: there is a technology race on, and India’s laissez-faire approach—import whenever you can, no strings attached—has left domestic capabilities lagging behind peer competitors.

The political leadership has to step up and implement strategies that push private and public enterprises to build capacities in mission mode. This also means avoiding rent-seeking and innovation-unfriendly monopolies (the renaming and screwdriver assembly of Israeli Hermes 900 drones comes to mind) and focusing on truly innovative firms, which tend to be smaller and less politically connected.

With far fewer resources than we have today, the late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi launched six goal-oriented technology missions in 1987: telecommunications, literacy, immunisation, oilseeds, drinking water, and dairy. All but the drinking water and literacy missions achieved their targets, and even those that fell short made a tangible difference. It is no coincidence that Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure also saw major jumps in nuclear and missile development, setting the stage for India’s emergence as a nuclear weapons power.

Amitabh Dubey is a Congress member. He tweets @dubeyamitabh. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)