A collective of Indian Defense officers and officials published an article in "The Economist" on the very worrying state of the Indian armies. According to them, 68% of Indian Army equipment would be obsolete(“vintage” in the text), and only 8% of the equipment would be “modern” (“top of the art” in the text). Thus, while China operates very modern aircraft such as the J10, J15, Su35 and the J-20 stealth fighter in its air force, India still massively uses venerable but obsolete Mig21s dating from the 60s, and Jaguars dating of the 70s. While waiting for the entry into service of the 36 Rafale ordered from France, delivery of which will begin in 2019, it can only rely on its 250 SU-30 MKIs and around sixty Mirage 2000s, both aircraft designed in the 80s.
The situation is no better for the Navy, which operates a non-operational aircraft carrier, failing submarines until the entry into service of the first Scorpene submarines designed by Naval Group, and destroyers and frigates dating back to , too, from the 70s. Finally, for the Army, it continues to use copies of Soviet T-80s, and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles dating from the 60s.
If the Indian army had managed to gain the upper hand over the Pakistani forces in 65, and to resist as best it could the Chinese offensive in 1962, it is unlikely that it will succeed today, given the state of obsolescence of the forces.
India is a paradox that is very difficult for us, Westerners, to understand. In an almost permanent situation of conflict with Pakistan, and increasingly confronted with Chinese desires in the Indo-Pacific zone and in the Himalayas, it remains entangled in conflicts of power struggle, freezing numerous equipment programs of its strengths, however indispensable.
French negotiators experienced this with the MMRCA contract, relating to the delivery of 18 Rafale built in France, then the manufacture of 106 Rafale licensed in India. Despite the insistence of the Indian Air Force to equip itself as quickly as possible with several squadrons of Rafale, the Minister of Defense at the time constantly closed all doors to negotiation with the consortium Rafale, so that the contract ultimately had to be canceled, and replaced by an off-the-shelf order for 36 aircraft built in France. This contract itself has been attacked for several months by the Indian opposition, on the pretext that it would be too expensive, while it covers only 36 aircraft all the adaptations specific to the Indian Air Force, such as the carrying capacity of the Brahmos missile. While the Indian Air Force hoped that a new order for 36 aircraft would be announced during President Macron's visit to India in March 2018, this did not happen due to these attacks.
The Indian Air Force wants to massively equip itself with Rafale that it pushed the government to question the call for tenders intended to replace the IAF's Mig21s with a single-engine aircraft, and which had seen the American F16 and the Swedish Gripen rise to the final. It is replaced by a less restrictive call for tender, allowing medium multi-mission aircraft, such as the Typhoon, the F18, the Mig35 and, obviously, the Rafale, to participate. However, the Rafale had already beaten all these devices during the MMRCA call for tenders, and the French manufacturers of the consortium Rafale were able to invest massively in Indian industry due to the 50% offset clause linked to the initial contract for 36 aircraft. In fact, the consortium Rafale today not only has an aircraft already selected by the IAF and which will enter service in 2019, but also the industrial infrastructure to implement President Moodi's “Make in India” policy.
Everywhere in the world, victory would be acquired for the Rafale ... but not in India... The United States has thus launched a massive offensive to get India to equip itself with American equipment and, thereby, join the Western alliance against China, organized around the US Navy. The future of Rafale in India will therefore not depend on the performance or the price of the device, but rather on the Indian attachment to its policy of non-alignment, which it has maintained since its independence.