The conflicts in Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine have underlined a hard lesson for countries dependent on imported military hardware: in modern warfare, technological self-reliance is as critical as military strength itself. Where do India’s defence manufacturing capabilities stand and what are the bottlenecks” What is the role of the private sector”

Jaimini Bhagwati, former IFS officer and Distinguished Fellow at the think tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), and Aalhya Sabharwal, Research Analyst at CSEP,”explain.

In the immediate post-Independence period, India was initially reliant on military equipment imports from the United Kingdom and then increasingly from the Soviet Union (USSR). Over time, the United States and even Israel have emerged as major suppliers of defence equipment to India.

China, too, began its defence industrial journey with technical assistance from the Soviet Union. However, from around 1961 onwards, China’s industrial development and defence production have been based mostly on indigenous efforts. And, although India and China started from somewhat comparable domestic technological backgrounds in the 1950s, China has currently achieved a significantly higher level of sophistication in domestic defence manufacturing.

Although India has developed the ability to procure and assemble several defence platforms, it finds it difficult to manufacture, e.g. jet engines as well as highly sophisticated drones.

India’s defence acquisition process is over-centralised and layered. The process begins with the armed forces identifying requirements through Quantitative Requirements (QRs) — namely, the technical and operational specifications for the equipment to be procured.