Chandigarh: In a bid to halt the steady erosion of its fighter squadrons, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is believed to be considering the imminent procurement of 114 Dassault Rafale jets under the long-delayed Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme. The move, if it materialises, would be steeped in strategic and political irony.Nearly 11 years earlier, in mid-2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government had terminated a tender to acquire and build 126 Rafales via the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender on political considerations, viewing it as an unwieldy acquisition inherited from the previous Congress party-led federal coalition.In its place, the BJP administration arbitrarily opted for a sharply reduced, off-the-shelf purchase of 36 Rafales for the Air Force as an emergency capability infusion in September 2016, at a cost of Rs 58,000 crore (around Euro 7.87 billion or USD 8.8 billion at the time).Nearly a decade later, this acquisition was supplemented by a similar Inter-Governmental Agreement in April 2025 for 26 Marine Rafales – including four twin-seater trainers – for the Indian Navy, at approximately Rs 63,000 crore. Together, these purchases total 62 Rafales – give or take a few aircraft that military sources claim were lost during Operation Sindoor last May – making a compelling case for acquiring additional aircraft through the MRFA programme.However, in retrospect, a cross-section of IAF planners, including senior fighter pilot veterans and former Ministry of Defence officials involved in the abandoned MMRCA negotiations, privately acknowledged that, had the programme been completed rather than terminated, it would by now have yielded substantial operational and industrial benefits.The veterans said that, had the MMRCA deal been completed, by now the IAF would almost certainly have been operating a substantial fleet of ‘home-grown’ Rafales, backed by a stable domestic supply chain and a long-term sustainment ecosystem and would now have been contemplating upgrades rather mere squadron sustenance. They added that this lost opportunity could have gone a long way towards insulating the IAF from the fighter squadron attrition and operational uncertainty it now faced.“It’s uncanny how the IAF fighter acquisition story seems to have come full circle in the event of the MRFA gaining acceptance,” said a three-star veteran associated with the MMRCA consultations, who declined to be named.The IAF, he added, would be returning – through the envisaged MRFA programme – to acquiring almost the same number of Rafales it had originally planned to procure and build locally under the USD 10-12 billion MMRCA deal, only this time at a significantly inflated price, estimated at around USD 25 billion (an estimated Rs 2 lakh crore).Others from the Ministry of Defence involved in the MMRCA talks noted that many of the programme’s perceived flaws – cost escalation, disagreements over technology transfer, and, most prominently, Dassault’s refusal to assume operational responsibility for the 108 of the 126 Rafales that were to be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore – were all resolvable through negotiation. None of these challenges, they added, were insurmountable, as was typical for large, complex defence procurements of this scale.File image of a Rafale Marine aircraft. Photo: US Navy/Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.Building on this perspective, one such former defence ministry official argued that other than fighters, what the MMRCA programme promised was something India has since been unable to create – a robust ecosystem for military aviation encompassing trained personnel, infrastructure, industrial depth and a credible pathway to long-term sustainment and technological self-reliance in this sector. But presently, over a decade later, India must effectively start from scratch with the MRFA programme by launching many of the capabilities it once had the opportunity to establish, he said, requesting anonymity.Aviation industry officials and analysts in Bangalore were equally critical of scrapping the MMRCA tender, noting that not only would the MRFA’s costs be higher and timelines longer, but India’s negotiating leverage had also considerably weakened following recent diplomatic setbacks – despite a security environment that had grown more precarious. Over a decade later, the country was now attempting to do what it could have achieved years ago: build a fighter procurement architecture and industrial ecosystem from scratch, but at far greater expense and under significantly higher strategic pressure.A recap of past events in the MMRCA and presently in the MRFA context is 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 and 27 fighters, while simultaneously upgrading its overall operational capabilities. The global competition featured six original equipment manufacturers: Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-16IN (US), Saab Gripen (Sweden) and MiG-35 (Russia).Also read: IAF’s Reported Bid to Buy 114 Rafales Is Marked By Practical Benefits As Well As Deja VuAfter exhaustive and gruelling trials lasting over two years, Rafale emerged 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 HAL to manufacture the remaining 108 fighters through technology transfer and with an escalating amount of indigenisation of up to 50%.But in 2015, the deal, as stated earlier, was scrapped, the Union government changed, and the newly elected BJP administration opted for the direct purchase of 36 Rafales via an Inter-Governmental Agreement in September 2016, deliveries of which were completed by end-2022.Meanwhile, to address the IAF’s rapidly waning fighter squadron strength, it launched the MRFA programme and issued a Request for Information in April 2018, envisaging the direct import of 18 fighters from a shortlisted fighter-jet manufacturer. The remaining 96 fighters were to be built indigenously via a joint venture between the selected vendor and a domestic strategic partner-public or private-with progressively increasing indigenous content, in a deal estimated at around USD 25 billion.Seven fighter makers responded, offering eight fighter types.These included 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 United State’s Boeing and Lockheed Martin (F/A-18E/F and F-15EX ‘Eagle’ II and F-16V with 14 India-specific customisations). In 2024, Russia added a ninth to this number by offering its Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter.This broad array of responses offered the IAF considerable choice, but geopolitical realities soon intervened, most notably the war in Ukraine, which made Russian aircraft increasingly impractical amid US- and European-backed sanctions on Moscow and constraints on domestic production. These factors also compounded by the IAF’s existing logistical difficulties in sustaining its 260-odd Su-30MKI and 50-odd MiG-29 fighter aircraft, rendering continued reliance on Russian materiel progressively untenable.Alternatively, shortlisting the Eurofighter Typhoon only risked adding to the IAF’s already complex and burdensome logistical burden of sustaining six different fighter types, 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.Gripen-E, on the other hand, was a single-engine platform, and though the MRFA’s Request for Information 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 but thereafter by the Indian Navy in its purchase of 26 Dassault fighters. Additionally, the Rafale’s capabilities were further bolstered by its reportedly effective 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 had only 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 years of procedural red tape that typically bogged down major defence acquisitions in India. A direct deal with Dassault would allow the IAF to hit the ground running, both operationally and logistically, apocryphally also answering Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh’s recently expressed wish to have inducted additional fighters in the IAF “yesterday”.Crucially, a direct Rafale purchase would also build upon the technical groundwork for its local manufacture laid out during the MMRCA process, like price benchmarking and compatibility assessments and other time-consuming details, significantly reducing timelines. But most importantly, IAF sources said it would circumvent extended delays typically associated with evaluating an entirely new fighter platform from scratch.And, if approved, the locally licence built Rafales would also 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 an MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) facility in Hyderabad for the M88 power packs, expected to be operational by late 2026, serving both the IAF’s and the Indian Navy’s fleet of Rafales once deliveries are completed by 2029-30.Overall, a French partnership in miliary aviation 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 Donald 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 enhanced airpower, he added.Also read: India’s Fighter Engine Gamble: Will the Twin Deals With France and the US Fare Well?The IAF presently fields an ageing and dwindling fighter fleet, propped up by legacy United Kingdom-French origin SEPECAT Jaguars, middle-aged and upgraded Mirage-2000Hs and MiG-29Ms, Tejas Light Combat Aircraft still struggling to prove themselves, overstretched Su-30MKIs and too few Rafales.These totalled up to some 510-odd fighters divided across 28-29 squadrons-13 or 14 fewer than the sanctioned 42. These included 12 or 13 squadrons of Su-30MKIs, three each of Mirage-2000Hs and MiG-29Ms, six of SEPECAT Jaguars, two of Rafales and two of Tejas LCA, one of which had merely obtained Initial Operational Clearance, rendering it just partially ready for full combat deployment.This latter operational shortcoming was prompted jointly by the IAF and the Ministry of Defence, both of whom were in haste to induct Tejas into squadron service in 2016, some 35 years after the Light Combat Aircraft programme was initiated in 1981, and 15 years after the platform conducted its maiden test flight in January 2001 in Bangalore.Collectively, these IAF fighters barely outnumbered Pakistan’s 24 or 25 fighter squadrons comprising some 350-400 platforms, including some 140-150 4/4.5 generation Chinese-origin JF-17 ‘Thunder’ (Block I/II/III) and some 70-odd F-16A/B ‘Fighting Falcon’ fighters from the US.China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force, on the other hand, deployed some 2,300 fighters, which include J-20 and J-35 5th-generation stealth fighters. China is also presently flight testing its locally developed 6th-generation fighter prototypes to augment its stealth, networking and unmanned teaming capabilities. These advanced fighters are likely to imminently enter series production.