Defence & Indigenisation

For decades India was the world's largest arms importer, buying most of its weapons abroad. 'Make in India' and Aatmanirbhar Bharat set out to change that — with positive indigenisation lists banning imports of thousands of items, higher FDI, and a push for private and startup participation.

Defence production hit a record ~₹1.78 lakh crore, with 12,300+ items indigenised. India now builds its own aircraft carrier, Tejas fighters, missiles, artillery, warships and submarines — and exports defence gear to over 100 countries, targeting ₹3 lakh crore of production by 2029.

India's navy has become a builder of its own fleet: of 40 vessels added over the past decade, 39 were built in Indian yards, and INS Tamal (July 2025) was the last warship India will import. On the surface are the stealth Visakhapatnam-class destroyers (Project 15B — four ships, 2021 to 2025), the Nilgiri-class stealth frigates (Project 17A — seven ships led by INS Nilgiri, 2025), Kamorta-class anti-submarine corvettes, and INS Vikrant, the first aircraft carrier designed and built in India — most armed with BrahMos cruise and Barak-8 air-defence missiles. Conventional submarines come from Project 75: six Scorpene / Kalvari-class boats built at Mazagon Dock with France's Naval Group, from INS Kalvari (2017) to INS Vagsheer (commissioned January 2025), with a follow-on Project 75I for six air-independent-propulsion boats. And the Arihant-class nuclear submarines (INS Arihant, 2016; INS Arighaat, 2024) form the sea-based leg of India's nuclear triad, carrying K-15 and K-4 missiles — with a third boat and India's first home-built nuclear attack submarines (Project 77) to follow.

Beyond the naval K-missiles, India fields a full missile ladder. The Agni family anchors the land leg of the nuclear triad: Agni-V, an ICBM-class missile of 5,000-plus km, was flight-tested with multiple-warhead (MIRV) technology in 2024 under Mission Divyastra — putting India in a small club alongside the US, Russia, China, France and the UK — with the lighter, road-mobile Agni-Prime alongside it. For conventional strike there is the Astra beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, the Rudram anti-radiation missile and the supersonic BrahMos; and India has moved into hypersonics, testing long-range scramjet-powered cruise missiles (ET-LDHCM) at speeds around Mach 8. Together with the air leg flown by fighter jets, these complete a land-air-sea nuclear triad.

India's air-defence shield is deliberately layered and multi-origin: the indigenous Akash and QRSAM at short-to-medium range, the Indo-Israeli MRSAM/Barak-8 in the middle tier, and the imported Russian S-400 Triumf — three of five squadrons delivered — for the long-range layer, knitted together by an integrated command network. Drones run the same indigenous-plus-imported mix: Nagastra-1, India's first home-built loitering munition, and the TAPAS and Rustom surveillance UAVs, alongside the stealth Ghatak combat drone still in development — while 31 high-endurance MQ-9B Predators are being bought from the United States for about $4 billion. Many of these systems saw their first major combat use in Operation Sindoor, the four-day India-Pakistan confrontation of May 2025 that followed a terror attack in Pahalgam — also the first combat firing of BrahMos and Nagastra-1.

In the air, the home-built Tejas light combat aircraft is the near-term backbone, with the Mk1A now in delivery from HAL and the heavier Tejas Mk2 in development. The bigger bet is the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), a fifth-generation stealth fighter whose execution model was approved in 2025 to let private firms compete alongside state agencies; five prototypes are planned, with induction targeted around 2035. In the meantime India flies the imported French Rafale — 36 for the Air Force and 26 naval Rafale-M on order — as the Air Force works against a strength of about 29 squadrons versus a sanctioned 42.

India builds its arms through a mix of state and private players: big Defence Public Sector Undertakings (HAL for aircraft, BEL for electronics, shipyards for warships), the DRDO labs that design weapons, and a fast-growing private sector and thousands of MSMEs. The state forces the shift home with 'positive indigenisation lists' — items that can no longer be imported — reserving a large slice of the budget for domestic buys, and funding startups through the iDEX programme.

Domestic defence production hit a record ₹1.54 lakh crore in 2024-25 (from about ₹40,000 crore a decade ago), with private firms and MSMEs a rising share. The target is ₹3 lakh crore of production by 2029. The hard frontier is the high-end technology India still imports — jet engines, advanced sensors — where next-generation programmes like the AMCA stealth fighter and indigenous engines will test whether India can design, not just build, at the cutting edge.

India is steadily moving from assembly and licence-production toward cutting-edge indigenous design — jet engines, advanced electronics and next-generation platforms like the AMCA fighter are the frontier still being built, and some big programmes are taking longer than planned.

Defence production ~₹0.5 → ~₹1.78 lakh crore (FY14→FY26); 12,300+ items indigenised; exports to 100+ countries; target ₹3 lakh cr by 2029. Navy: 39 of 40 vessels added over the past decade were built in Indian yards. Sources: Ministry of Defence; Indian Navy.