Surged by the growth from the Indian startup sector from the expertise coming in from MSME and other growth drivers, the Indian defence industry is on the right track to global growth. Now the strength of any country’s military comes from the strength of the industry which is about building capabilities.

For a country with the world's third-biggest army, the eighth-largest military budget, and the world's largest importer of weapon systems and platforms, defence indigenization has remained an inner calling. India must do much more to cultivate the seeds of a financially viable and technologically robust indigenous defence industry base as it draws closer to realising its due strategic autonomy.

“It’s indeed a fact that the strength of any country's military, diversity, complexities and problems that we have, we need to have Aatma Nirbharta (self-reliance) in defence. Gone are the militaries who could acquire arms and remuneration from the world over and leverage that to create a strength for themselves. Now the strength of any country’s military comes in from the strength of the industry of that country,” said SanjayJaju, Additional Secretary (DP), Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India.

Further, he added, “This is the time we start looking at defence as not just a paradigm for meeting our strategic requirement but also start looking at the sector as an economic multiplier, and not just make in India for India but make in India for the world.” 

“India is at an inflation point and very optimistic about Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, there is huge potential. We have dynamics at plates through the cord and geopolitical situation that the world is in today. India has scale, it has innovation and therefore the defence sector can be a huge benefactor and an economic drive. There is a huge opportunity and potential here so let’s work together with the government and industry to make it happen and take defence aerospace manufacturing engineering ecosystem to the next level,” added Ashmita Sethi, President & Country Head, Pratt & Whitney, UTC, India.

“The country has made up its mind that they have to be self-sufficient so far the armed forces are concerned because you just can’t have your ambitions to be a regional player unless and until you make your arms and your equipment towards that particular goal. I think lots of things have been done and more required to be done but they are being done and the difficulties are very much there but they are now removed gradually and slowly,” said Lt General (Retd.) R K Sawhney, Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Centre Head & Senior Fellow, National Security and Strategic Studies & Internal Security Studies, Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF). 

The experts were speaking at a BW Businessworld’s BW Defence forum that took place in New Delhi on November 11, 2021.