Rahul Bedi 
New Delhi: Symbolism remains an important and subtle ingredient in bilateral diplomatic and national security dealings between countries. India and France, with robust, longstanding and ongoing materiel commerce, are certainly no exception.
Hence, the imagery of France’s President Emmanuel Macron as the chief guest at next month’s annual Republic Day parade in New Delhi, will not be entirely lost on many, given that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has, once again, fast-tracked its long overdue plans to acquire 114 multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) to boost its flagging combat squadrons.
“Apart from the reciprocity in inviting President Macron for the January 26 spectacle, in return for making Prime Minister Modi the chief guest at France’s yearly Bastille Day parade in Paris in July, the prospect of India acquiring additional Dassault Rafales for the crucial MRFA tender, loomed in the background,” said a veteran three-star IAF officer.
Such activity was all a part of ‘discreet signalling’ by the two sides with regard to these potential purchases, he added, declining to be named for fear of official retribution for speaking on such matters.
An assortment of serving and retired IAF officers, security officials and analysts broadly agreed. They also stated that the ‘ground reality’ with regard to the IAF’s chances of inducting Rafales under its proposed MRFA programme was high on a number of counts.
Foremost, these included the 36 Rafales that the IAF had acquired in 2016 for around $9 billion, its first overseas combat aircraft procurement in 23 years, after the first lot of Russian Sukhoi S-30MKI (India) multi-role fighters were first imported in the early 1990s before their indigenous licensed production began.
Thereafter, the Indian Navy (IN) had earlier this year opted for 26 Rafale-M (Marine) fighters, including four dual-seat trainers, for embarkation on the INS Vikrant, its newly commissioned aircraft carrier, making it a total of 62 French combat aircraft in service with India’s military, all of them manufactured by Dassault.
According to media reports, negotiations over cost and delivery schedules for the Rafale-Ms were underway in the government-to-government deal between Paris and New Delhi, and the deal was likely to be inked after a new Indian government came into office following parliamentary elections in early 2024.
“Adding to these 62 Rafales made eminent commercial, logistical and operational sense as the support infrastructure and servicing and maintenance systems for them had already been established,” said the above-mentioned IAF fighter pilot veteran.
More importantly, acquiring tried and tested Rafales would also hasten fighter inductions by dispensing with extended evaluation and trials, and in turn would speedily boost the IAFs fighter squadrons, which had depreciated to 29-30 from a sanctioned strength of 42, he declared.
Moreover, industry officials said that acquiring supplementary Rafales would also streamline the IAF’s diverse fighter catalogue, which presently features seven different aircraft types, sustaining all of which was not only an enduring logistical nightmare but also a hugely expensive affair for the financially strapped force.
Besides, Rafales were already in ‘serious’ contention for the MRFA buy, which envisages importing a squadron of 18 shortlisted fighters in flyaway condition from amongst seven models on offer from overseas original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who had responded to the IAFs April 2018 request for information (RfI).
The remaining 96 platforms would be built indigenously via a collaborative venture between the qualified OEM and a domestic strategic partner from either the private or public sector, with progressively enhanced levels of indigenisation, in the overall MRFA deal, estimated at around $25 billion.
Industry and official sources said the MRFA tender was expected imminently, and senior IAF officers estimated that the initial number of fighters (114) could increase to around 200 units, in addition to possible export options, resulting in the platforms’ cost amortisation.
The six other OEMs, besides Dassault, who had responded to the IAF’s RfI included Eurofighter (Typhoon), Sweden’s Saab (Gripen-E), Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation and Sukhoi Corporation (MiG-35 ‘Fulcrum-F’ and Su-35’ Flanker-E’), and the US’s Boeing and Lockheed Martin (F/A-18 and F-15EX and the upgraded F-21).
However, in view of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the IAF is believed to have jettisoned the evaluation of the two Russian fighter types, given the grave spares and components crisis it is continuing to face with regard to its fleet of some 12-odd squadrons of around 263 Su-30MKIs and 50-odd upgraded MiG-29M fighter-bombers.
Besides, at his annual press conference in October, Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhuri had declared that the IAF planned on domestically upgrading 84 of its Su-30MKIs to ‘Super Sukhoi’ status for Rs 60,000 crore, a venture that had earlier focused heavily on direct Russian involvement, which presently was questionable.
Alternately, shortlisting the Typhoon would only mean adding to the IAF’s massive continuing logistic challenges, whilst the US’s F-18 and the F-16 – a precursor to the F-21 – had both been rejected by it on multiple capability counts during trials conducted 2010 onwards for the binned Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contract floated in 2007.
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 to its operational superiority over its competitors that has repeatedly been acknowledged by the IAF and, more recently, by the IN.
Furthermore, there was also the abandoned contractual template for the terminated MMRCA tender in which the Rafale had bested rivals Typhoon, F-16C/D, F/A-18E/F, MiG-35 and JAS 39 Gripen.
Industry officials said this could ‘easily be tweaked’ to suit an analogous MRFA purchase by resolving earlier glitches that would significantly compress negotiations, which in most instances stretched on interminably, way beyond the officially prescribed deadlines.
These previous anomalies in the MMRCA deal had centred on insistence by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that Dassault shoulder eventual quality control responsibility for the 108 Rafales that were to have been licence-built by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore.
This unwarranted conditionality had emerged as the deal-breaker for the MMRCA deal and had led to the MoD procuring just 36 Rafales in fly-away condition many years later.
Even geopolitically, Indian diplomats, security officials and analysts conceded it was less ‘arduous’ conducting materiel commerce with Paris than with Washington, as the former was more flexible and pragmatic than the latter, especially with regard to transferring high-tech military knowhow and passing on source codes that manage fighter weapon and flight control systems.
The US, for its part, remained constrained by rigid export and associated regulations in this regard, and hidebound by personal political and diplomatic considerations over platform deployments.
France, on the other hand, was more ‘relaxed’ on all these counts, displaying Gallic savoir faire that strategically suited India, even if its platforms were somewhat dearer.
Thus even though President Macron was a ‘replacement’ chief guest at the Republic Day parade after US President Joe Biden had declined Delhi’s invite due to pressing domestic compulsions, his attendance could eventually end up precipitating the IAFs long-deferred modernisation.
Likewise, it may well also facilitate multifarious engagements for India on a range of space, advanced technological spheres, environmental and nuclear-related issues with a Western country that had unconditionally and categorically backed Delhi after its 1998 Pokhran-II tests.