Pakistan’s internal politics or leadership changes are not India’s strategic concern. India’s real task is to prioritise and fund its own defence manufacturing base, especially critical technologies that cannot be reliably imported under pressure.
The single most important gap is an indigenous fighter-jet engine. Without it, every Indian combat aircraft remains dependent on foreign suppliers for the most complex and strategically sensitive component. The Kaveri engine programme has received only about $239–250 million in total funding over four decades, a fraction of what peer programmes elsewhere received (often $10 billion or more). The engine was officially delinked from the Tejas programme in 2008; after that, funding and urgency dropped sharply. These facts need to be placed squarely before the Indian public and made an election issue.
Tejas Mk1A and Mk2 must take clear priority over additional large-scale Rafale imports. Scaling up the indigenous fighter line builds industrial depth, skills, and long-term autonomy in a way that pure imports cannot. The indigenous Uttam AESA radar is more strategically valuable than continued reliance on imported ELTA/EL/M-2052 radars; later Tejas batches are already planned to shift toward Uttam. Any imported platforms such as additional Rafales should, at minimum, integrate Indian mission computers, Indian radars, and Indian weapons, otherwise their full operational potential and sovereignty benefits inside the Indian Air Force remain limited.
A persistent lobby in India continues to push hard for imports over sustained indigenous development. That approach is easier in the short term but leaves India structurally vulnerable. Pakistan can source almost everything it needs from China; India does not have an equivalent reliable, low-friction supplier. Indian policymakers must internalise this asymmetry and act accordingly, fund engines properly, protect and accelerate Tejas and related programmes, insist on maximum Indian content in every major acquisition, and treat self-reliance in propulsion, sensors, and avionics as non-negotiable national priorities rather than optional aspirations.
