We can't just blame bureaucrats and politicians alone. Military leadership also deserves equal blame. How many products rejected for stupid reasons? How many requirements changed midway? How many trials are prolonged?
Military leadership has to come down on earth and make strategy based on what is available. Eg. IAF is crying about squadron strength but they are not willing to order more Tejas. They want to fill their squadron strength from foreign fighter only. They will happily fly Mig 21 but not tejas. Same with army. Look what they are doing to Arjun.
Until Indian military stops obsession over shiny foreign equipment and put unreasonable demands for local vendors this problem will remain. This mindset that we need only best of the best equipment to fight must go.
well the military in general will be running out of excuses within a few years for all types of military items from one end to another as because of the entry of many private players in the military arena,they will be able to provide and develop many products after absorbing tech fromoutside and then iteratively develop their own versions after that specifically to indian requirements.
they would also lose the card of indian made and designed weapons being too basic looking and not cutting edge as I am sure the private industry wont let down on the marketing.even drdo products that are good will be marketed and made better throuh private industry.
I am thinking systematically and strategically indian military is being made to choose indian weapons and there are some people who are trying to slow down the process knowing that this is their last stand for importing weapons.even some geopolitical external events have played to our advantage here.
So I am generally caustiously optimistic.they cant hold out for long.
