IAF's Reported Bid to Buy 114 Rafales Is Marked By Practical Benefits As Well As Deja Vu

Chandigarh: In a twist rich with irony, the Indian Air Force (IAF) – which once set out to acquire 126 Rafale fighters from France's Dassault Aviation under the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal, but ended up buying just 36 – is now believed to be proposing the direct purchase of 114 units of the very same platform.

If approved, as recent media reports suggest, the move would also mark a striking deja vu: the same aircraft, nearly the same number and the same urgency – only this time, likely without competition if the Ministry of Defence (MoD) accepts the IAF's proposal to bypass the long-stalled acquisition of 114 multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) under existing procurement plans.

Quoting unnamed official sources, media reports declared over the weekend that the IAF had asked the MoD to urgently secure sanctions from various departments and initiate negotiations with Dassault to locally manufacture 114 Rafales in partnership with a domestic vendor for an estimated Rs 2 lakh crore.

They added that, if approved, the licence-built Rafales would feature up to 60% indigenous content, including the M88 engine, which would also be made locally in collaboration with Safran.

The French engine-maker is also establishing a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Hyderabad for the M88 power packs, expected to be operational by late 2026, serving both the IAF's and the Indian Navy (IN)'s fleet of Rafales once deliveries are completed by 2029-30.

According to the reports, the IAF's proposal was influenced by its existing fleet of 36 Rafales, the Navy's order for 26 maritime variants and Dassault's MRO facility in Ambala, Haryana, which already supports current fighter operations and offers scalable infrastructure.

Pilot-training simulators had also been installed at Ambala and Hashimara in north Bengal, where the second IAF Rafale squadron is based – further reinforcing the logistical and operational advantages of expanding the same fighter line.

And, while the practical benefits of fleet commonality and existing infrastructure lent weight to the IAF's proposal for Rafales, many analysts and veterans cautioned that this renewed push displayed a ‘familiar pattern’ in India’s defence procurement of prolonged delays and continually shifting political and bureaucratic priorities. And, that instead of breaking new ground, this process often ended up returning to square one, but with the added disadvantage of escalated costs and extended time gaps.

“The services, especially the IAF, tend to delay decisions for years, then act as if urgency justified abandoning established processes,” said a retired three-star veteran fighter pilot, declining to be named.

Its procurement processes do not evolve, he added, but simply circle back, and end up not only losing time and leverage, but also credibility that remains essential to global military commerce.

A recap of past events in this context remains instructive.

The MMRCA tender, launched in 2007, was aimed at stemming the steady decline of the IAF's fighter squadrons following the retirement of legacy Soviet-era MiG-21/23/27 fighters, while simultaneously upgrading its overall operational capabilities.

The global competition featured six original equipment manufacturers (OEMs): Dassault Rafale (France), Eurofighter Typhoon, F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-16IN (US), Saab Gripen (Sweden), and MiG-35 (Russia).

After exhaustive trials lasting over two years, Rafale was declared the winner in 2012 based on performance, platform life-cycle sustainability and cost. Negotiations then began for acquiring 18 Rafales in fly-away condition and for Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to manufacture the remaining 108 fighters in Bengaluru, through technology transfer and with an escalating amount of indigenisation of up to 50%.

But in 2015, the deal was scrapped due to disagreements over cost escalation, technology transfer terms and, above all, Dassault's refusal to guarantee HAL-built aircraft. Thereafter, India opted for a direct purchase of 36 Rafales for Rs 59,000 crore, via an inter-governmental agreement inked in September 2016, deliveries of which were completed by end-2022.

Meanwhile, to address its rapidly waning fighter squadron strength, the IAF launched the MRFA programme and issued a request for information (RfI) in April 2018, envisaging the direct import of 18 fighters from a shortlisted OEM – six of whom responded, offering eight fighter types.

The remaining 96 fighters were to have been built indigenously via a joint venture between the selected OEM and a domestic strategic partner – public or private – with progressively increasing indigenous content, in a deal estimated at around $25 billion.

Seven fighter OEMs responded, offering eight fighter types.

These included Dassault (Rafale), Eurofighter (Typhoon), Saab (Gripen-E), Russia's United Aircraft Corporation and Sukhoi Corporation (MiG-35 ‘Fulcrum’ and Su-35 “Flanker-E respectively) and the US's Boeing and Lockheed Martin (F/A-18E/F and F-15EX ‘Eagle’ II and F-16V with 14 India-specific customisations).

Last year, Russia added a ninth to this number by offering its Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter, one of which participated in the 2024 Bengaluru air show.

Such a broad array of responses offered the IAF a wide choice, but geopolitical realities intervened – most notably the war in Ukraine, which rendered the evaluation of Russian aircraft somewhat impractical. This was further compounded by the IAF's existing logistical challenges in maintaining its 260-odd Sukhoi-30MKI and 50-odd MiG-29M fighter-bombers, rendering continued reliance on Russian materiel increasingly untenable.

Alternatively, shortlisting the Eurofighter Typhoon only risked adding to the IAF's already complex logistical burden, whilst the US contenders – the F-18 and the F-16, which served as the basis for the F-21 – had been rejected in earlier trials in the scrapped MMRCA deal due to multiple capability shortcomings.

Saab's Gripen-E, on the other hand, was a single-engine platform, and though the MRFA RfI had not specified any preference for single or dual power packs, the IAF's intrinsic preference for the latter remains unstated.

Hence, by a process of elimination, the Rafale was more than favourably placed in the MRFA sweepstakes, due not only to its operational superiority over its competitors as acknowledged by the IAF – and now by the IN in its purchases – but also the host of multiple ancillary factors enumerated earlier.

The fighter's capability had been further bolstered by its reported efficient performance in Operation Sindoor, in which its precision strike capabilities, electronic warfare superiority, integration with other IAF assets and effective use of decoys were on full display.

Industry sources said the Rafale's success during Sindoor further reinforced the IAF's preference for it as the obvious platform choice for fleet expansion.

Moreover, by opting to directly acquire 114 Rafale fighters, the IAF would bypass the years of procedural red tape that typically bog down major defence acquisitions in India. Unlike the MRFA tender – which formally required fresh trials, technical evaluations, price negotiations and a slew of other time-consuming steps running into years – a direct deal with Dassault would allow the IAF to hit the ground running, both operationally and logistically.

Apocryphally, it would also answer Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh's recently expressed wish to have inducted additional fighters “yesterday”.

Crucially, a direct Rafale purchase would also build upon the technical groundwork laid out during the MMRCA process, like price benchmarking and compatibility assessments and other time consuming details, significantly reducing timelines.

IAF sources said it would also circumvent delays typically associated with evaluating an entirely new fighter platform from scratch.

But above all, official sources said a French partnership offered India greater strategic autonomy, free from the political conditionalities and transactional dealings that tended to complicate Delhi's military commerce with Washington under the Trump administration.

“In essence, by doubling down on a proven platform, the IAF is opting for expediency and continuity and deftly short-circuiting bureaucratic procedures,” said the three-star veteran fighter pilot quoted earlier.

For now, it seems to be the quickest route for the IAF to enhance airpower, he added.

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