Though the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been the pride of the country for the past 90 glorious years, it faces many future challenges. The Indian Air Force was officially established on 8 October 1932 as an auxiliary air force to Royal Air force with the enactment of the Indian Air Force Act 1932 on the same day. 1 April 1933 is another landmark day in its history when the very first group of IAF comprising four Westland Wapti II A army co-operation biplanes, six RAF trained officers and 19 Havai Sepoy (air soldiers) came into existence at Drigh Road, Karachi as the “A” Flight nucleus of No.1, Army Co-Ordination Squadron. On 8 October 2022, the IAF celebrated its 90th anniversary with full of glory and pride to serve the country.
During World War II, IAF had a primary task to halt Japanese invasion into Burma as well as to destroy Japanese air and military bases in northern Thailand. IAF was also instrumental to provide close air support, path finding and aerial reconnaissance to British and US forces in various sectors including North Africa and Europe. For its commendable contribution during Second World War, the King George VI conferred prefix Royal to IAF on 12 March 1945. Hence IAF was re-designated as Royal Indian Air Force. However, this prefix was dropped on 26 January 1950 once India became a republic. The IAF’s mission is defined by the Armed Forces Act 1947, the constitution of India and the Air force act of 1950.
At the time of partition, the nation inherited a split air force that was weak in quantitative and qualitative terms. The assets of the Royal Indian Air Force were divided on one-third basis, under which India and Pakistan got six and two fighter squadrons, respectively. The Indian Air Force, at that time, was composed of around 900 officers, 10,000 non-commissioned officers and over 820 civilian technicians and administrative staff. Independence and division of armed forces resulted in heavy loss to the armed forces in all aspect including depletion of infrastructures, human recourses, training as well as capacity building measures and took decades to recover. Since then, IAF has grown in strength and strike capability and now considered as third largest and competent Air Force in the world preceded by USA and Russia. Today the active strength of IAF is of around 170000 personnel, 140,000 reserve personnel and equipped with more than 1950 aircraft and other modern gadgets. Soon after independence, IAF was tasked to halt aggression of Pakistani forces in J&K so as to ensure implementation of accession of J&K in India. Though during the war, the RIF did not have direct air-to-air fight with Pakistan Air Force but was successful to ensure transportation of logistics and troops as well as crucial air dominance over PAK forces. The role of the IAF during the 1965 Indo-Pak war is a classical testimonial of valour and commitment. The Indo-Pak war of 1971 and liberation of Bangladesh indeed saw most glorious performance of any armed force in the world in recent past. IAF had achieved complete air dominance in both eastern and western sector within first two weeks. The strategic bombing attacks on crucial establishments, fuel depots and gas plants and runways in both the western and eastern sectors by IAF was most vital support for offensive advancement of Indian Army and Mukti bahini. IAF had also provided crucial support to navy during war in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. In the same way, Operation Meghdoot in 1984 in Siachen glacier, Kargil War of 1999 and role of IAF in the recent Indo-China conflict in eastern Ladakh are true testimonials of achievements and significance of air dominance in mountains and modern warfare. The Balakot air surgical strike of 2019 has given a new dimension of the offensive pre-emptive defence to the Indian security doctrine.
Indian Air Force has been engaged in various civil aid relief measures. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the IAF had launched several rescue operations to aid in civil operations within and outside the country to strengthen supply chain of oxygen containers, essential medicines as well as to bring back stranded Indians from other countries. IAF played a crucial role to evacuate stranded Indians from war-affected areas as well as to deliver humanitarian assistance to Ukraine through Poland by India.
Modern warfare tactics and dimensions are rapidly changing in the recent past. With the advent of rapid evolution in technology and world order, there is a definite need of keeping pace with latest development and challenges. The ongoing conflict in Russia and Ukraine and other areas in the world has established that modern warfare will be more focused on dominance in the field of cyber space, Artificial Intelligence, unmanned systems, network centric autonomous, multi-role Drone Swarms, lasers and nuclear weapons supra hypersonic missiles, aircraft as well as on the front of economy. IAF has to transform itself into a multi-spectrum strategic force and further alignment with India’s role, as a balancing power in central, south East Asia, Indo-Pacific and in Indian Ocean. IAF needs to adopt such transformation in a phase manner.
We have to analyze prospective development and dimensions adopted by Pakistan and China as security threat to our country is directly link with them. Hence, a realistic time frame has to be charted out to develop futuristic IAF as an aerospace force by 2032 and to reshape, further gear up to face challenges of 2050. It is very important to note that the present lot of aircraft may have residual life span of 15 years or so, hence we need to maintain and upgrade them during this period. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the subsequent role played by NATO countries has redefined the international doctrine of warfare and defence manufacturing sector in all the spheres including capacity and capability building of resources. Hence India cannot rely exclusively on import in the defence sector. At the same time, soaring expenditure on import of weapons, spare parts, upgrading and technology transfer is a huge financial burden on the country. Hence, Aatmanirbhar Bharat is the need of the hour.
Though initial measures have shown encouraging outcome, yet more efforts and initiatives are needed to develop congenital environment for research, technology advancement, manufacturing not only in the field of defence, but in associated sectors of electronics, AI, metallurgy, superconductors, space satellite and other relevant fields also. Hence, jointness and synergy not only in the defence system, but required in other fields to redefine module of joint planning, research, training capacity building and to develop an interface of execution among all the stakeholders.