The Opposition Congress has criticised US President Donald Trump’s offer to sell F-35 fighters to India citing their high costs.
In the meantime, Russia has discussed producing its most advanced jets locally in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goals.
In multiple posts on X, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala flagged the alleged flaws in the F 35 aircraft noting that many accidents have happened, and the fighter jets have been labelled "junk" and "useless" by many.
"There is a lot of discussion about Prime Minister Modi buying F 35 fighter aircraft from America, but did the Modi government consider these aspects in the interest of the country," he asked.
The offer from both the US and India’s long-time defence partner Russia comes at a time when the Indian Air Force’s squadrons have fallen to 31 from an approved strength of 42 and it is seeking to acquire more jets to counter China, which is rapidly building its military.
After meeting Modi in Washington last week, Trump said the US will increase military sales to India starting in 2025 and will eventually provide the fifth-generation F-35 fighters made by Lockheed Martin.
Trump has declared that starting this year, the US would be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. “We’re also paving the way to ultimately provide India with F-35 stealth fighters,” he said at the joint press conference with the Indian PM after their meeting.
It is, however, unclear for now whether the F-35s would be part of the long-pending Indian Air Force (IAF) requirement for 114 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA), or an entirely separate deal to supplement the former acquisition.
News reports from Washington too said that neither the White House nor Lockheed Martin had elaborated on Trump’s announcement to sell F-35s to the IAF.
But, increasing military supplies to India worth “billions”, as Trump had stated, strongly suggests Lockheed Martin supplying a “substantial” number of F-35s to the IAF, in all likelihood via the US’s government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route.
The US government estimates that an F-35 costs around $80 million.
The Indian government has not said it intends to buy the plane and India’s foreign secretary told reporters last week that the US offer was at a “proposal stage”, adding that the acquisition process had not started.
In a November 2024 post Elon Musk shared a video of a drone swarm and captioned it: “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35”.
Musk later said in another X post: “Manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway”.
Russia has also offered to produce its fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 fighter in India with locally sourced components, saying production could begin as early as this year if India agreed.
“Russia has never shied away from transferring technology,” said Amit Cowshish, a former financial adviser for acquisitions at the Indian defence ministry.
“The problem is not with Russia offering transfer of technology … we will continue to deal with Russia and buy oil and maybe buy a couple of other things, but such a big [defence] deal is likely to create its own difficulties vis-a-vis [the] US,” Cowshish said.
"Has the Modi government taken note of the fact that the Indian Air Force fleet uses a variety of technologies - Russian MiG 21 and 29 and Sukhoi, French Mirage and Rafale? Has the Modi government studied another new technology and its impact on the pilot and maintenance wings of the Indian Air Force," Surjewala further asked.
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