This Level of Ineptitude is a Luxury

China's economy and military are more powerful than India's. As long as China's military power was largely sufficient only for absorbing attacks on it, that greater power was not something that really affected India, practically speaking. Now that China is developing power projection capabilities on land, sea, and air, India can no longer afford a defense bureaucracy that minimizes rather than maximizes India's weaker hand.

I keep reading horror stories about Indian defense procurement waste and failures. Strategypage illustrates the general problem with a tale of woe over India's procurement of some conventional submarines:

After the bureaucrats and politicians dithered for nearly a decade, in 2005 India finally signed a deal to buy six French Scorpene class boats. The delays led to the French increasing prices on some key components, and India has had some problems in getting production going on their end. The first Scorpene was to be built in France, with the other five built in India. While some problems were expected (India has been doing license manufacturing of complex weapons for decades), the defense ministry procurement bureaucrats never ceased to amaze when it came to delaying work, or just getting in the way.

If this was a one-off problem, you could ignore it. But this is how India chooses, designs, and buys weapons. When Pakistan was India's biggest practical threat, that was livable (well, other than for the troops who'd pay in blood for procurement ineptitude).

Now that China is the biggest military problem that India faces, India needs to step up their game and spend money like their life depends on doing it right. Because it does.