Wrong, Kaveri engine was developed for fighters with afterburner capability, which is not required for UCAVs. Because the engine was not able to meet the required AB thrust for LCA, it still was offered by DRDO in a non AB varient for UCAVs, which however requires not much further development of the engine, except for the reliability issues, but the development of the UCAV in the first place.
So we could had sit and wait with Kaveri until the UCAV was available, or tried to get the Kaveri / Snecma co-development on track again, when Safran asked us where Rafale offsets could be diverted to.
Realists like me, understand that the country doesn't get anywhere on false dreams and hopes. Kaveri was a failure so far and now we can hope, that Safran can fix the problems and provides us with enough know how to improve our engine development base for future projects. If Kaveri / Snecma will have enough thrust to power LCA needs to be seen and not just expected. That's why it's crucial to keep Kaveri and Tejas developments separate, until the engine is ready, reliable and offers enough thrust.
Pride doesn't make any indigenous development capable, nor does it protect the country. We need to meet the development goals and time lines, to really make use of these systems and get independent. Only then we actually have achieved something and not by testing prototypes for years.