FROM IMPORTS TO SELF-RELIANCE IN ARMS

Self-reliance in Defence Production needs new ideas, new definitions _es and an appropriate methodology, argues AMIT COWSHISH

- AMIT COWSHISH

India's military destiny was written in April-May 326 BCE during the Battle of the Hydaspes (Jhelum River) in the Jhelum District of today's Pakistan. The swift Cavalry of Alexander the Great crossed the rain-swollen Jhelum one dark night, a skirmish at the crossing site by the Cavalry of Porus being brushed aside to get behind the far larger Army of Porus; its top echelons mounted on elephants whose mobility in muddy flats resulted in a battle that Alexander acknowledges was his toughest yet. Alexander's Cavalry and his military genius thus carried the day.

It was a watershed moment for India when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez inaugurated a plant in Gujarat's Vadodara on October 28, 2024, where Tata Advanced System Limited (TASL) will assemble C-295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Most of the airframe components are being manufactured and assembled at TASL's Hyderabad factory, from where these will be transported to Vadodara for integration of some critical components, testing and final delivery to the IAF.

Initially designed and manufactured by the Spanish company CASA -now a part of Airbus Defence- this medium tactical transport aircraft will replace the IAF's aged fleet of British-origin Avro 748 aircraft which entered service in early 1960s.