Muhammad Abrarnow, Daily Dawn +Dawn TV Report
New Delhi: Amid the growing war tension with Pakistan in South Asia, India has unannouncedly admitted its defense weakness by asking France for the “source code” of Rafale fighter jets. According to the Indian news agency “India Sentinels”, India has increased pressure on France to include indigenous radar, missiles and avionics in the Rafale aircraft and to hand over the complete code to India.
The Rafale aircraft were provided to India by the French company “Dassette Aviation” under a “government-to-government” agreement, of which there are 36. These aircraft are now deployed at India’s Ambala and Hasimara airbases, but India has no control over their actual systems.
According to defense experts, India’s own technology is so poor that it needs France to add indigenous weapons to these modern aircraft.
Interestingly, India had also bought Mirage-2000 fighter jets from France in the 1980s but has not been able to get the source code for them till date. Due to this, many Indian missile systems have not been compatible with these aircraft. The same situation is facing Rafale as well.
The “Active Electronically Scanned Array” (AESA) radar and “Modular Mission Computer” (MMC) present in Rafale are state-of-the-art systems, which control the entire digital network of the aircraft. Until India gets their source code, it will have to depend on France for every minor change or weapon upgrade, which is delaying defense planning and increasing costs.
Pakistani defense observers say that India’s growing anxiety is a reflection of the fact that it cannot afford any war without modern technology. While Pakistan is improving its defense capabilities with its own resources and expertise, India is at the mercy of technology despite buying weapons from around the world.
Questions are also being raised at the global level that if India were truly an independent defense power, would it have to beg for technology from another country every time? In the current circumstances, India’s war madness is leading it into a dead end where only the display of weapons remains, with no evidence of real power.
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