Yup, indigenous capacity means that the same defense budget can be used to make 4X what you purchase.
Indians have a very german mentality towards weaponry - something that sped up the demise of the Nazis - we are forever searching for a wunderwaffen that is gonna get like 30:1 kpd against the enemy and we can spend the least manpower for biggest wins ever.
This plan worked for germany to negate allied production superiority in early stages of ww2 but once Germany lost its airforce in Stalingrad and started its production being bombed the allies, the high end shit shouldve gone outta the window and they should've adopted the Russian principle of 'quantity is a quality of its own'
Its high time we learnt that lesson and so what if our MRCA is gonna be a dehati underpowered stealth jet with the worst stealthing of all 5th gen - build it, build a shit ton of it, like 500+ of it, induct it cheap cheap and work like China to get your numbers up, RIGHT NOW.
And then get to quality angle later.
Whats the worst thing is, our babus dont realize a SIMPLE axiom of industrial engineering : you CANNOT beat experience with degrees and genius and knowhow. Not possible in engineering : You cannot assemble the 300 best and brightest mechanical engineers in the world and ask them to build a more efficient engine than Honda.
Why ? Coz real life isnt books, you make shit, it doesnt work for some reason you never knew existed, you find it, you fix it, you repeat process for decades and you get newer generations.
Sure, with modern tech you can shorten the process somewhat- India doesnt need to wait 70 years for Caveri to work coz Rolls Royce had to wait 70 years for their 90Kn engine, but you cant expect version x of anything you dont have a history in making, to match the same version x of a company that's been making this stuff for decades.
Our babus want LCA to be F16 else we must buy F16. Which is impossible.