On 8 October 2019, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh flew to France to perform a puja for the Rafale fighter jets India was planning to acquire. He put lemons under the wheels, a coconut on the fuselage, and drew an Om symbol on the plane’s body. Image courtesy Times of India
During an official visit to France in April 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India would acquire 36 fully built Rafales to meet "critical operational necessity" — an announcement that took everyone, including the senior defence chiefs, by surprise.
In July 2015, then defence minister the late Manohar Parrikar informed the Rajya Sabha that an earlier tender for 126 aircraft had been withdrawn, and negotiations had begun afresh for 36 aircraft.
In January 2016, India and France signed an MoU for the acquisition of 36 aircraft. In May 2016, the two sides arrived at a figure of ₹58,891 crore, approximately, for the 26 fighters. The deal was murky right through — not least, in that a defence company set up by Anil Ambani just 12 days before the PM’s announcement was made party to the deal.
Now comes the news that the Indian side is involved in urgent negotiations with France for a good price on the Rafale deal.
The fighter jets are urgently required as two Indian aircraft carriers -- INS Vikramaditya and Vikrant -- are now in service and the current fleet of MiG 29K fighters have shown below par performance due to maintenance-related issues.
Which is to say, we have aircraft carriers, and no aircraft for them to carry.
That says a lot, none of it good, for our defence preparedness. Remember how, in the run-up to the 2019 elections, asking questions of Modi’s ham-handed attempt to cut a favoured crony capitalist a sweetheart deal was deemed “anti national”?
In passing, former Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, whose accomplisments include a lead role in commercial negotiations for the 26-Rafale deal, joined the BJP on 25 March 2024. Any connection between these two news items is purely coincidental.
The Rafael deal if it had been exposed would have been BJP's own Bofors scam. But then the BJPs is smarter with a 'Catch me if you can' smirk, confident that they will be left untouched.. Also it seems the voters largely are not interested in it, busy as they are with Roti, Kapda and Makaan. And so the Juggernaut moves on.
In ten years we have gone from a country that would vote out a government over corruption -- including "notional loss" -- to one that doesn't care a hoot about corruption, even when it is real and in your face. On the plus side, we have gradually begun voting on bread and butter issues; the recent bypolls, including the Badrinath result, is a sign of a slow, but sure, shift in the direction of the electorate. So I am not too sure the juggernaut will move on as before, frankly.
Thank you for your piece! Indeed the Anil Ambani involvement was sketchy. But what I always lamented was the increasing opportunism and outright abuse of the strategic relationship by the French. This is not to take away the seriousness of the charges made. I think a bigger blunder is Mr Ambani's acquisition of Pipavav shipbuilders and then reneging on an agreement to supply crucial patrol vessels to Indian Navy. Now the order is dead along with the shipyard. One of the many sorry tales of crony capitalism.
Dassault has taken full control of the DRAL now. A lot of us suspected that to happen from the get go because they always wanted to have full control of the entire process. Even the offsets would technically be within their house. This is not new. We started seeing this behaviour from how Dassault did not cooperate properly with HAL when they were upgrading the Mirages. That disdain actually started with the development of Tejas by HAL. I think the real eyebrow raising part is the premium the French are extorting from India under the guise of sophisticated weaponry. That too for weapon systems which they have not allowed to be integrated in other platforms such as the Sukhois. The offsets have been very questionable. Our indigenous defence contractors can only pray for such generosity. But they are yet to see it in real life.
Similar behaviour was seen when Naval Group was constructing the Scorpene submarines with MDL. There was the controversial blueprint leak, but also if I recall, even accusations of not cooperating properly with MDL. There were several anecdotes like how the engineers sent by the French would not allow their Indian colleagues anywhere even near their laptop. Two years ago Australia withdrew from Naval Group's nuclear submarine program. Even the Indian Navy is looking for other OEMs for the Project 75I submarines. I think they had to go with Rafale because of the poor alternatives and urgency. The rival aircraft FA 18 might see its assembly line stop as more and more NATO countries are switching to F35 making spares parts tricky to get in the future.
The Indo-French defence relationship might rank second to Indo-Russian relationship in terms of swindling. Under Sarkozy, it was not the case. They sold us helicopter engines which made the Dhruv program takeoff. But today they are not as generous as they used to be.
Agree with the points raised. It is one of several reasons why, the blatant crony capitalism aside, I have always been sceptical of both the deal, and India's inexplicable insistence on trying to use the France route to fill a gaping hole in defence needs. (I know one recently retired IAF pilot who told me a while back that while Rafale is good, there are other options including the F-18 that is equally handy, and far more easily acquired).
I didn't go into a lot of detail because this was intended to be a short post, just to point to the news item that seemed tucked away down deep.
I'm no expert, but IIRC we have been making indigenous fighters for quite a while now. Tejas, for instance, and the Marut. Also, my clippings file threw up these links:
There is more, but the point is, yes we can, and have been, developing fighters -- it's what HAL is for, no? Plus, the government had been beating the drum for atmanirbharata for quite a while.
The Rafael deal if it had been exposed would have been BJP's own Bofors scam. But then the BJPs is smarter with a 'Catch me if you can' smirk, confident that they will be left untouched.. Also it seems the voters largely are not interested in it, busy as they are with Roti, Kapda and Makaan. And so the Juggernaut moves on.
In ten years we have gone from a country that would vote out a government over corruption -- including "notional loss" -- to one that doesn't care a hoot about corruption, even when it is real and in your face. On the plus side, we have gradually begun voting on bread and butter issues; the recent bypolls, including the Badrinath result, is a sign of a slow, but sure, shift in the direction of the electorate. So I am not too sure the juggernaut will move on as before, frankly.
Thank you for your piece! Indeed the Anil Ambani involvement was sketchy. But what I always lamented was the increasing opportunism and outright abuse of the strategic relationship by the French. This is not to take away the seriousness of the charges made. I think a bigger blunder is Mr Ambani's acquisition of Pipavav shipbuilders and then reneging on an agreement to supply crucial patrol vessels to Indian Navy. Now the order is dead along with the shipyard. One of the many sorry tales of crony capitalism.
Dassault has taken full control of the DRAL now. A lot of us suspected that to happen from the get go because they always wanted to have full control of the entire process. Even the offsets would technically be within their house. This is not new. We started seeing this behaviour from how Dassault did not cooperate properly with HAL when they were upgrading the Mirages. That disdain actually started with the development of Tejas by HAL. I think the real eyebrow raising part is the premium the French are extorting from India under the guise of sophisticated weaponry. That too for weapon systems which they have not allowed to be integrated in other platforms such as the Sukhois. The offsets have been very questionable. Our indigenous defence contractors can only pray for such generosity. But they are yet to see it in real life.
Similar behaviour was seen when Naval Group was constructing the Scorpene submarines with MDL. There was the controversial blueprint leak, but also if I recall, even accusations of not cooperating properly with MDL. There were several anecdotes like how the engineers sent by the French would not allow their Indian colleagues anywhere even near their laptop. Two years ago Australia withdrew from Naval Group's nuclear submarine program. Even the Indian Navy is looking for other OEMs for the Project 75I submarines. I think they had to go with Rafale because of the poor alternatives and urgency. The rival aircraft FA 18 might see its assembly line stop as more and more NATO countries are switching to F35 making spares parts tricky to get in the future.
The Indo-French defence relationship might rank second to Indo-Russian relationship in terms of swindling. Under Sarkozy, it was not the case. They sold us helicopter engines which made the Dhruv program takeoff. But today they are not as generous as they used to be.
Agree with the points raised. It is one of several reasons why, the blatant crony capitalism aside, I have always been sceptical of both the deal, and India's inexplicable insistence on trying to use the France route to fill a gaping hole in defence needs. (I know one recently retired IAF pilot who told me a while back that while Rafale is good, there are other options including the F-18 that is equally handy, and far more easily acquired).
I didn't go into a lot of detail because this was intended to be a short post, just to point to the news item that seemed tucked away down deep.
Is there any prospect of making an indigenous fighter? Or is that the stuff of myths and legends?
FWIW- I find the puja stuff irritating. We are not a serious people
I'm no expert, but IIRC we have been making indigenous fighters for quite a while now. Tejas, for instance, and the Marut. Also, my clippings file threw up these links:
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1979812
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/indian-air-forces-first-lca-mark-1a-fighter-aircraft-set-for-july-delivery-hal-accelerates-indigenous-aircraft-program/articleshow/110183977.cms?val=1728&from=mdr
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/india-indigenous-fifth-gen-fighter-jet-amca-9204814/
There is more, but the point is, yes we can, and have been, developing fighters -- it's what HAL is for, no? Plus, the government had been beating the drum for atmanirbharata for quite a while.