Opinion Republic Day 2026: Behind tomorrow’s salute, indigenous steel and a year of reform
During Operation Sindoor, when Pakistani batteries attempted “shoot-and-scoot” tactics to target Indian civilian hamlets, it was the Swathi Weapon Locating Radar (WLR) that turned the tide
Tomorrow, the President of India will take the salute and acknowledge the uniformed men and women marching past, the scientist in a DRDO lab, the engineer on the floor of a drone factory in Nagpur, and the citizen at the centre of it all. By Kaustubh Rana
The rhythmic thud of marching boots and the growl of mechanised columns are sounds Delhi knows well. Yet, to a skilled ear, the acoustic signature of India’s 77th Republic Day parade is a distinct testament to the nation’s strategic transformation, forged in the fire of last summer. The shadow of Operation Sindoor — India’s 96-hour counter-offensive of May 2025 — looms large over these proceedings, transforming the parade from a customary display into a vindication of atmanirbharta (self-reliance).
To understand the gravity of January 2026, we must revisit the trauma of April 2025. The terror attack in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley by the Resistance Front (a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot) was a strategic provocation designed to bleed India’s economic resurgence. The targeting of tourists was a calculated brutality meant to shatter the normalcy of Kashmir. The response — Operation Sindoor — was a sustained, multi-domain operation. Unlike previous conflicts, which were fought with borrowed swords, this time, the decisive blows were struck by indigenous technology.
During the intense artillery duels of May 8 and May 9, when Pakistani batteries attempted “shoot-and-scoot” tactics to target Indian civilian hamlets, it was the Swathi Weapon Locating Radar (WLR) that turned the tide. Its algorithms traced the trajectory of incoming shells to their point of origin with lethal precision, feeding coordinates to our indigenous Pinaka Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers before the enemy rounds even hit. Developed by DRDO and built by BEL, Swathi WLR is a key air defence asset, a cost-effective competitor in global defence exports and the star of this year’s tableau.
Also part of the Special Forces contingent display will be the Nagastra-1, an indigenous loitering munition developed by Solar Industries in Nagpur. In the grey zones of the Line of Control, where terror launch pads are often embedded near civilian structures, the Nagastra offers a distinct capability. The drone operator could loiter over a target, confirm the threat via onboard cameras, and strike with surgical precision. If not, it can abort the dive if civilians are spotted. This technical capability provided our diplomats with the moral high ground to assert that our response during Operation Sindoor was strictly targeted against terror, distinguishing us from the adversary’s indiscriminate violence.
The success of 2025 was as much diplomatic as it was military. While the military exerted pressure on the border, New Delhi’s decision to dispatch multi-party delegations was a masterclass in coercive diplomacy. Opposition leaders went alongside government MPs to global capitals and dismantled the Pakistani narrative that the conflict was driven by the ruling party’s domestic political agenda. When voices like Shashi Tharoor or Asaduddin Owaisi articulated India’s security concerns abroad, it projected a unified national front that no amount of enemy propaganda could breach.
The Ministry of Defence declared 2025 as the “Year of Reforms”. While progress on theatre command integration was incremental and at best cautious, the objectives of “self-reliance” and “defence preparedness” were validated by the numbers as much as the test of war. Since January 2025, the Defence Acquisition Council has approved capital acquisition proposals worth over Rs 3.84 lakh crore, focusing mainly on indigenisation. Defence production hit a record Rs 1.54 lakh crore, and import dependency dropped below 35 per cent for the first time. The rigorous enforcement of “Positive Indigenisation Lists” continues to drive this shift away from imports. With defence exports touching Rs 23,622 crore, the target of Rs 50,000 crore by 2029 seems less elusive.
As we celebrate the valour of our Armed Forces this Republic Day, we must not succumb to hubris, given the global conflicts, turbulent neighbours, biting tariffs, and uncertain dynamics. The US military operation in Venezuela started the new year with a complicated matrix. China’s recent infrastructure build-up in the Shaksgam Valley is a stark reminder that New Delhi cannot afford to be distracted by global headwinds while Beijing quietly builds a two-front encirclement in Indian territory. The maritime domain needs optimisation as the Indian Ocean is becoming the world’s centre of gravity. Last year was full of case studies on drone warfare and air defence, underscoring that air power matters more than ever. In the cyber domain, agentic AI threatens to manifest as an advanced persistent threat (APT). The defining test for 2026 would be to prove that while we have successfully indigenised the hardware of defence, we also possess the jointness and resilience to secure the software of our national will.
Tomorrow, the President of India will take the salute and acknowledge the uniformed men and women marching past, the scientist in a DRDO lab, the engineer on the floor of a drone factory in Nagpur, and the citizen at the centre of it all. As the tricolour unfurls, it waves over a nation that is protected by a military increasingly forged by its own steel. Happy Republic Day!
The writer served in the Indian Army. Views are personal
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