India’s efforts to pare back a longstanding reliance on Russian military hardware is bearing fruit after the courting of new Western allies and a rapidly growing domestic arms industry, analysts say.At a time when Moscow’s military-industrial complex is occupied with the ongoing war in Ukraine, India has made the modernisation of its armed forces a top priority.That urgency has risen in tandem with tensions between the world’s most populous nation and its northern neighbour China, especially since a deadly 2020 clash between their troops.”India’s perception of its security environment vis-a-vis China has been dramatically altered,” Harsh V Pant, of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think-tank, told AFP.Relations between the two neighbours went into freefall after the clash on their shared frontier, which killed 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers.”It has sort of shaken the system and there’s a realisation that we have to do whatever is best now, and very fast,” Pant said of the incident.India has become the world’s largest arms importer with purchases steadily rising to account for nearly 10 percent of all imports globally in 2019-23, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year.More is in the pipeline, with orders worth tens of billions of dollars from the United States, France, Israel and Germany in coming years.Modi will be in France next month where he is expected to sign deals worth about $10 billion for Rafale fighter jets and Scorpene-class submarines, Indian media reports say.- ‘Not easy to switch’ -Defence minister Rajnath Singh has also promised at least $100 billion in fresh domestic military hardware contracts by 2033 to spur local arms production.”India has been traditionally an importer for decades and only switched to emphasising on indigenous manufacturing… in the last decade,” strategic affairs analyst Nitin Gokhale told AFP.”It is not easy to switch, not everything can be manufactured or produced here,” he said, saying the country lacked the ability to manufacture “high-end technology” weapons systems.But its efforts have still seen numerous impressive milestones.This decade India has opened an expansive new helicopter factory, launched its first homemade aircraft carrier, and conducted a successful long-range hypersonic missile test.
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