Why India does not reverse engineer ?
Well many people would jump the gun and say India cant that why , and to some extent that's true. But that's because that's not how the Indian defense sector has developed. It has different goals and is subject to a vastly different situation than that of China.
You cant ask someone who's been training for a Marathon to race in the 100m sprint. its just not the same.
So whats different.
Pakistan that's what. India's main security concern. Now once again we are rolling back the clock to the 1962.
While at this point China could not find any one to sell weapons.
India could still buy from Europe and Russia. That's the key deference we had suppliers.
Guess who else had suppliers, Pakistan getting some of the most advanced weapons in the world. from America and Europe.
Coming out of the Indo-china conflict as the losers, there was an increased focus on the armed forces. which more than doubled in size by 1965.
Of course that meant that the Indian defense establishment had an almost non-existent defense sector. So all of the weapons had to imported and Munitions plants constructed to kick start the Indian defense sector. Imports were primarily from Russia to counter the American Equipped Pakistan.
See that s important to note, India has an active conflict with Pakistan, and thus if Pakistan had American made tech. India's only option was to get Russian tech to counter it.
1965 proved just that, India's efforts to improve her domestic sector (if unhindered would have been somewhere along the line of Turkey which is a good example as turkey was not engaged in any active conflicts had access to most arms suppliers and could build it capabilities over time.), had to take a back, to our arms race with Pakistan.
we need equipment that could compete with the US built stuff that Pakistan was fielding. India needed to get soviet tech and alienating it with attempts at reverse engineering, would just put India in a thing spot against a US supported Pakistan.
In 1971 our relations with USSR forced forced the US to back down, which in the end worked out for India.
But The game changed for the defense sector after 1975, India detonated a Nuclear bomb, the west places heavy sanctions. USSR still sell to India.
But India has countered almost all of Pakistan's conventional power.
It no longer had to worry about every little thing Pakistan gets as in the long run India had the Bomb and Pakistan did not. So India started a lot of her first Indigenous projects(at least the big ones) at about 1976. And if Pakistan got something Game changing in the conventional sense, India just bought the Russian counter.
But those years if Peace at Gun point by India, allowed the defense sector to Improve and Grow for the first time, Our missile projects were initiated back in the 80's . Once we pulled out of the Arms race as it were or at least slowed the Pace. Domestic sector was what captured the defense budget.
But the Game changes once again as during the Rajive Ghandi's terms in Office the economy was liberalized by the then Finance minister Manmohan Singh. Granted India was facing Bankruptcy if it didn't its still the most important recent event in India's history.
The India economy started to grow at an astonishing rate. And by 1998 when Pakistan Detonated her first Nuclear device.
And the threat of low scale quick conventional wars surfaced, for evidence look at Kargil . India had a lot more money than Pakistan.
and whilst both nations had significantly more mature domestic defense sector.
Pakistan as a result still relied on imports to offset the R&D costs.
India on the other hand showed that it could import and simultaneously fund domestic projects.
This was further helped by the fact that India could import from almost anybody today, reverse engineering imports would just serve to alienate suppliers and let India loose a Position that not many nations have,
- A capable Domestic sector
-A huge budget
-Foreign suppliers lining up to get a share of the Indian defense market
How best do you take advantage of this Situation.
-you use that Extra cash to pay for ToT and Offset clauses, forcing foreign suppliers to invest in the Indian defense market to get these big deals.
-You sign JV with foreign suppliers to get Even more TOT and intellectual property
This is in essence having the Best of Both world, What you import is essentially adding to you r domestic capabilities. Lets say for example
India in five years will be manufacturing 3 different aircraft, the MKI, MMRCA and LCA. Will all me built from scratch in India. Imagine the improvement in manufacturing capabilities alone.
while today India defense is more focused on countering China's growing power.And what better way is there to counter the capabilities of more capable nation, then to get capabilities form an even more capable nation, which in turn will improve your own capabilities.
That's a little but contrived but i hope you get the gist of What i am saying.
And that my friends is why India does not reverse engineer at least publicly. Its not in our best interests to do so. Our Domestic sector can grow and expand a lot faster if we work with and learn for the foreign supplier we buy from, rather then going at t all by our self which China was forced to do. Now i know people may point out that China is years ahead of India , well China really did not have any choice but go at it alone, Which nearly 40 years latter payed of. with the soviet collapse and subsequent fire sale. also China stated developing its domestic sector in the early 60's as opposed to India in the late 70's so given that there is a gap of at least 15 years. There will be an obvious disparity between the two in comparison today. But India is catching up, And i guess we have to see what happens in the future.
Thanks for reading
