let's just assume the Pak-FA/FGFA happens and is a great 5th gen plane, but wouldn't you worry about the Russians stiffing you again with high costs for spare parts??
Depends what's better for Indias security, paying more for maintenance or having full operational and upgrade freedom?
The Russians surely will remain with some leverage, since all key techs are developed by them. But they have proven themselfs as a reliable partner for Indian in war times, give us operational and upgrade freedom and with the partnerships now, give us the highest level of indigenous contribution that India ever had and that any country in a similar partnership has (compare the level of contribution and customisation of F35 partners).
Not to mention that the level of leverage of Russia in FGFA is actually lower than in MKI, so is constantly getting lower:
Migs - high dependance for India, no technical contribution and big problems when the Soviet Union fall
MKI - lower dependance for India, thanks to licence production of many parts in India and customisation of the fighter with Indian systems over the years.
FGFA - low dependance, since all the benefits of the MKI deal are further improved, by high level of customisation with Indian materials, avionics, weapons even in techs developed by Russia
The more the relation to Russia improved over the years, the less dependent India got!
what autonomy? HAL was still begging for Russinas to send in their experts to assess / fix blank mfd screens during flight on SU30's.
Because those MFDs were build by Russia in the early fighters, while the HAL produced fighters today have Indian MFDs, which makes us free from Russian experts or spares in this regard. The next upgrades increases the level even further, with more Russian / foreign parts being replaced by Indian systems (cockpit displays, com systems, EW sensors, Astra to replace R27 and R77, Sudarshan to replace KAB 500...).