Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'India at last receives Rafale from France' that was published in Newsband

India at last receives Rafale from France

At last the Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and France for 36 Rafale multirole fighter jets was signed after 17 months of hard bargaining. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to dump the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender. This is a breather for the Indian Air Force, which has been facing depleting fighter strength. Given its technological superiority the Rafale will augment the Indian Air Forces’s capability. The Rafales are expected to play a lead role as nuclear delivery platforms in India’s second-strike capability, replacing the Mirage 2000 fighters. In the years to come, the indigenously built Light Combat Aircraft Tejas and the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft from Russia will join the force.

It is the good step taken by government. Today, such Rafale are necessary for our country. But, one thing is unfortunate that our country is not able to produce such Rafale. Government should focus on various technical institutes and provides them better facilities to produce such fighter planes rather than import from other countries.

There are some critics who say that instead of providing standard equipage, armour and basic human necessities to the Jawans braving a hostile arraign on the borders, we are indulging in buying fancy aircrafts which will remain only show pieces since we never will have an opportunity to use them in a war not even in battles. “Give frequent relievers to the jawans. Give them OROP and their families better living conditions,” they say.

The requirements of USA, France, UK and Russia are different from India. Those countries manufactures their own weapon systems, while India imports most of their weapon systems. Since, no single country meets the requirements of India, it has to mix and match from different sources to meet its own requirements. In addition, the cost forces India to stretch the available funds as much as they can and diplomacy is part of that formula. It is nice to have integrated long term plans, but when India depends on imports, it is not possible as the threat perception changes. Anyway, India has decades of experience with the logistics of mix and match systems. The goal should be to develop and manufacture your own systems. There is a long way to go, but unfortunately, India has hostile neighbours and need to meet short term requirements. However, they should have long term integrated plans and invest heavily to prosecute the plans successfully.

The Rafale deal is welcome to augment the strength of the Indian Air force which currently wants empowerment with multi role fighters in the wake of depleting fighter strength. Though it requires a huge bonanza the purchase is a must to upgrade the air fighting strength with medium multi role combat aircraft.

We must innovate more sophisticated flights to save huge cost of overseas purchase like Rafale. There is global turmoil on ethnic and ego reasons among countries which constraints them to go for purchases of sophisticated flights. India's inking for Rafale is a normal process.