The Indian capital has quietly launched another dimension in fighter jet manoeuvres. As the Ministry of Defence continues to take France's new bid on board for 114 Rafale jets, it has informed Parliament that it has "taken up a concerted effort" to co-join the Future Combat Air System, the French-led project to get a sixth generation fighter into the air by 2040. The disclosure was in a report of the Standing Committee on Defence submitted to the Lok Sabha on Friday, which included the list of actions taken on the issue.The disclosure was embedded in an action taken report before the Standing Committee on Defence in the Lok Sabha, which had to be looked at in greater detail than a line in a parliamentary diary.

It's not coincidental. In its response to India's letter of request for the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft tender, now valued at around Rs 3.25 lakh crore ($34 billion), France has just sent its detailed techno-commercial response. Of the 114 jets being offered, Dassault Aviation will assemble 94 in India with its local partner and the rest 20 would be delivered from France. Safran, Thales and MBDA are all likely to increase their manufacturing presence here, and industry estimates peg the local opportunity to be close to Rs 1.6 lakh crore for Tata or Larsen & Toubro. India's fleet of 36 Rafales would increase to 176 if the deal comes through and the Navy is looking at a further 31 for its carriers, bringing the country's total to exceed 200 Rafales, one of the largest around the world.

It's this scale that makes the sixth generation over-important. It is not just about the hardware being bought, but about sitting at the table where the next generation's rules are written, such as manned-unmanned teaming, combat cloud networking, next-generation propulsion and stealth architecture that FCAS was built around a field that even the most capable Rafale never imagined. A second attempt at co-developing a fighter with a partner the air force has collaborated with since the 1950s is an obvious attraction for an air force that in 2018 walked away from the Russian-led Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft project, due to irreconcilable issues of work sharing and other design shortcomings.

It also has a clear caveat. FCAS is not a finalized programme. For years, the three countries have been squabbling over the technology-sharing, workshare and design responsibility for a project that is now valued at near $120 billion, and the leaders of both sides of the Rhine have sounded alarms at various points that the whole deal could come undone before a prototype flies. Enter into that argument as a fourth player, one with only a partial view of the way that the French, German and Spanish triangle is going to resolve its own differences, can be a risk, not a footnote.

There's an immediate tension much closer to home. The Indian Air Force currently has 29-31 squadrons of fighters in the air, but the sanctioned strength is 42.5 squadrons, which has not changed since the retirement of the last MiG-21s and several postponement of the Tejas Mk1A production line. The Cabinet had approved around Rs 15,000 crore for five prototypes of India's fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft in 2024, but it is still in the design and prototyping phase with the first flight expected sometime in the early 2030s, and induction of the squadrons off schedule. The engine issue is still undecided; the GE F414 contract for the Tejas Mk2 has not yet been signed after more than three years since the memorandum was signed and the local Kaveri has yet to deliver any result that is flight worthy for the AMCA Mk2 – even its own engine would rely on a foreign co-development arrangement which remains unfinalised.

Against this backdrop, a formal drive towards a 6th generation programme seems less about overreaching and much more about insurance, if New Delhi works on that premise. Ahead of this, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh had stressed that India would not rush the acquisition of F-35 and Su-57, while earlier this year he had made it clear that the nation would not buy F-35, the fifth generation fighter despite India's ambition of acquiring a fifth generation fighter. It's only a winning position so long as the programme continues to progress. China has already introduced its J-20 stealth fighter into service in significant quantities and is testing two 6th generation prototypes of its own, while Pakistan is seeking a 5th generation platform from either Beijing or Ankara. The strategic clock isn't waiting on the Delhi committee reports.

The economics, at least, seem to make sense on paper. This would consolidate years of precision manufacturing by public and private entities with an order of this size for the IAF, which has risen from 8.83 per cent in 2021-22 to 10.80 per cent for 2026-27. That will really depend on how hard the Indian negotiators will push for access to the source code and IP rights, which have been the issue in any offset-based defence deal India has done so far.

All of this does not render the FCAS prematurely. It makes it conditional. Slots in future fighter consortia are not reserved for a lifetime and countries that appear early in the process will have more influence on workshare than those countries that appear late when the design is finalized. A seat is worth just as much as an industrial base behind it, and that industrial base is still completing an engine contract, waiting on the first prototype of AMCA and still lacking a dozen squadrons of what it's own air force says it needs. This is about ambition and readiness on different schedules, and it's about getting those schedules closer together, not about the diplomacy over FCAS.