Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
India’s defence indigenisation has entered a more demanding phase. Defence production reached ₹1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26, while exports touched a record ₹38,424 crore. The government targets ₹3 lakh crore in production and ₹50,000 crore in exports by 2029. These achievements matter. But can India move from manufacturing weapons to developing the technologies that determine military superiority?
Assembling a fighter, manufacturing artillery ammunition or producing a missile under licence is valuable, but it does not necessarily confer technological sovereignty. True indigenisation requires control over propulsion, sensors, semiconductors, electronic warfare, materials, software, artificial intelligence and other critical technologies. Without these capabilities, a country may produce platforms domestically while remaining vulnerable to external suppliers.
Aero-engines are a classic example. India has demonstrated competence in designing and producing aircraft, but developing a high-performance indigenous fighter engine remains substantially harder. The lesson extends beyond propulsion. Modern warfare increasingly depends upon advanced radar, electronic warfare, secure communications, infrared sensors, high-end semiconductors and precision guidance. These technologies determine what a weapon can see, communicate with and strike.
Recent conflicts have demonstrated the growing importance of drones, satellite imagery, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence. Relatively inexpensive unmanned systems can threaten expensive platforms. Precision and information can sometimes matter more than firepower. A military that possesses sophisticated platforms but cannot maintain secure data networks risks fighting yesterday’s war.
India therefore needs to rethink the meaning of Atmanirbhar Bharat in defence. Self-reliance should not be measured simply by the percentage of equipment manufactured domestically. The more meaningful question is how much of the underlying intellectual property, critical components and technological ecosystem India controls.
This requires a stronger relationship between the armed forces, universities, start-ups and established industry. Defence research cannot remain concentrated within a small number of institutions. India’s technology companies and academic laboratories possess expertise in artificial intelligence, robotics, communications and advanced materials that should be systematically connected to military requirements.
The government has created mechanisms, including Innovations for Defence Excellence and technology-development programmes. Their scale must increase. Defence innovation requires patient capital, testing environments and procurement pathways that allow prototypes to become operational systems. A start-up cannot survive years of development only to encounter an opaque procurement process.
There is also a case for identifying critical technologies as priorities. India cannot become self-sufficient in everything simultaneously. It should concentrate resources on technologies where foreign dependence could create strategic vulnerability: propulsion, advanced semiconductors, electronic warfare, secure communications, autonomous systems, underwater technologies and space-based surveillance.
Defence indigenisation must also become a supply-chain project. A major platform may be assembled by a large company, but its resilience depends upon hundreds of smaller suppliers. Building domestic capability in precision manufacturing, specialised materials, sensors and electronics can generate both military and industrial benefits.
Defence technology can create high-skilled employment, deepen manufacturing capabilities and generate civilian applications. Countries that have mastered strategic technologies have often translated them into broader industrial advantages. India’s defence policy should seek technological spillovers rather than treating military production as a closed ecosystem.
The ultimate test of India’s defence indigenisation will not be tanks, missiles or aircraft ever carrying a “Made in India” label. It will ultimately be whether India can design, develop, upgrade and sustain the technologies on which those platforms depend.
The first phase of self-reliance was about making more weapons at home. The next must be about mastering the technologies behind them. India has built an industrial base capable of supporting that transition. What it now needs is greater research ambition, faster procurement, deeper industry-academia collaboration and investment in critical technologies.
A country seeking strategic autonomy cannot outsource the most difficult parts of its military capability. India’s challenge is no longer simply to manufacture weapons. It is to ensure that, when the next generation of warfare arrives, the technologies that decide the outcome are Indian too.
Submitted by:
Siddharth Roy
Civil engineer, Consultant (invitee) to Rashtriya Raksha University under the Ministry of Home Affairs and Columnist.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.