India Gears Up For The New Way Of War: Drones

The Russo-Ukrainian war has delivered a textbook revolution in military affairs (RMA), compressed into a generational leap. Trenches are no longer merely guarded by barbed wire and artillery – surveilled and struck by a relentless canopy of autonomous and semi-autonomous flying machines. Commercial quadcopters, once the playthings of wedding photographers, now drop precision munitions into open hatches, while long-range loitering munitions wait and wait a little more as they dismantle everything from oil refineries, weapon factories, and electrical grids hundreds of miles behind the front lines.

The battlefield has become transparent, lethal, and devastatingly cheap.

For India, a continental power flanked by two nuclear-armed adversaries along some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth, the lessons from that war are clear. The era of relying solely on exquisite, multi-million-dollar manned platforms has to be complemented by drones to fight the new way of war.  

India is combining high-end imported muscle with deep, industrial-scale domestic mass.

A History Of Loitering 

India’s familiarity with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is not a recent phenomenon. Its initial foray began over two decades ago, driven by the intelligence failures exposed during the 1999 Kargil conflict. Turning to the world’s pioneer in drone technology, New Delhi imported its first fleet of Israeli UAVs in 2002. This initial batch consisted of the IAI Searcher, a close-range surveillance craft, and the larger IAI Heron Mk1, a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) platform designed for persistent reconnaissance along the rugged Line of Actual Control (LAC). These platforms established the foundational baseline for Indian aerial surveillance, operating silently over the Himalayas long before "drone warfare" became a regular fixture of evening news broadcasts.  

Yet, a fleet of several dozen foreign-built reconnaissance platforms is insufficient for a modern conflict. To build numbers, New Delhi is looking inward, where a cluster of nimble domestic defense companies is beginning to demonstrate genuine hardware capability.

Ankit Mehta, CEO, ideaForge, the company leading India’s drone development, told The Secretariat, “Global conflicts have made it clear that UAVs operating in contested environments must be able to handle jamming, spoofing, degraded communication, and GPS-denied conditions." ideaForge's drones, such as SWITCH V2, NETRA V4 Pro, and ZOLT, are purpose-built and battle-tested, including during Operation Sindoor, for military Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR), and tactical border operations.

Global conflicts have made it clear that UAVs operating in contested environments must be able to handle jamming, spoofing, degraded communication, and GPS-denied conditions

— Ankit Mehta, CEO, ideaForge

For long-range armed interventions, India has turned to the US, finalising a multi-billion-dollar deal to acquire 31 General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian drones.

Critics point out that large, non-stealthy platforms are vulnerable. Indeed, recent estimates from contested airspace in and around Iran suggest that approximately 30% of the Pentagon's pre-conflict operational inventory of MQ-9 Reapers has been shot down by sophisticated integrated air defense systems.

Yet, these losses reflect the precise nature of the platform's utility. The primary role of an advanced drone is to penetrate heavily defended, high-threat airspace to collect critical signals intelligence or deliver precision strikes without risking the life of a pilot. Losing a $30 million aircraft is an expensive setback; losing a trained fighter pilot behind enemy lines is a strategic catastrophe.

Naveen Navlani, VP Sales in NewSpace Research & Technologies, whose firm has provided over 1,000 drones to the Indian Armed Forces, including swarm drones that can saturate a battlefield, told The Secretariat, “The preferred route of procurement for drones is: Buy Indian (IDDM), followed by Buy Indian. Indigenous Content requirement for these two routes is 50% and 60% respectively. Therefore, manufacturing has to happen in India if someone wants to sell drones in India today. Moreover, today, there is a fairly vibrant drone manufacturing ecosystem available in India to address the demand and build a large inventory.”

Today, there is a fairly vibrant drone manufacturing ecosystem available in India to address the demand and build a large inventory

— Naveen Navlani, VP Sales in NewSpace Research & Technologies

However, the proliferation of unmanned systems is a double-edged sword. As India builds its own fleet, it must simultaneously defend its airspace against hostile swarms.

The military has prioritised the development of indigenous counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS). Two prominent systems dominate this effort. The first is Akash Tarang, a mobile electronic warfare system, cleared by the Ministry of Defence, that detects, tracks, and neutralises hostile drone swarms by jamming their control signals and satellite navigation links. The second is Bhargavastra, a hard-kill counter-drone system that relies on lightweight, guided micro-missiles and unguided micro-rockets designed to physically destroy loitering munitions that are hardened against electronic spoofing.  

Structural Gaps Remain

Despite these technological advancements, significant structural gaps remain in India’s drone acquisition and operational architecture. The most glaring vulnerability lies in the country’s low-flying detection radar network. Standard air defence radars are optimised to track high-altitude fighter jets or ballistic trajectories, but they often struggle to detect small, plastic drones flying close to the terrain, masked by ground clutter.

While India deploys systems such as the Bharani low-level lightweight radar and the Aslesha 3D low-level surveillance radar, the sheer volume of coverage required along thousands of kilometres of mountainous and riverine borders leaves critical gaps. 

Furthermore, the procurement process remains stovepiped across the three services, leading, at times, to duplicated research, fragmented logistics chains, and a lack of standardised data links between different drone platforms.

Closing Gaps With Industrial Strategy

Closing these gaps requires an industrial strategy centered on mass. In a high-intensity continental conflict, attrition rates for small tactical drones are staggering; Ukraine burns through an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 drones per month. 

India’s civilian electronics and manufacturing infrastructure possesses the latent capacity to meet this scale. By leveraging its vast automotive component manufacturing base and commercial software expertise, India can realistically achieve an industrial throughput of 4,000 drones a month during a crisis.

Achieving this requires deep regulatory reform, standardising components, and moving away from overly specific military specifications for low-cost tactical systems. The ultimate arbiter of modern conflict is the ability to out-produce the adversary. For New Delhi, the strategic trajectory is set.

(The writer is a senior journalist and analyst. Views expressed are personal.)