Will India Become a Naval Superpower Thanks to Aircraft Carriers?

Robert Farley

Security, Asia

Maybe. 

With one large carrier in service and another on the way, India has become one of the world’s pre-eminent naval aviation powers. How did the program come about? Where is it going? And what is the strategic rationale for India’s massive investment in aircraft carriers?

The Origins of India’s Carriers

Despite considerable economic challenges, India took carrier aviation very seriously in the years after independence. Unlike China (or even the Soviet Union), India focused on carriers instead of submarines. INS Vikrant, a Majestic-class light carrier, served from 1961 until 1997, fighting effectively in the 1971 war. INS Viraat, formerly the Centaur-class carrier HMS Hermes, joined the Indian Navy in 1987 and served until 2016. These carriers gave the Indian Navy long-term experience in carrier ops, as well as a compelling organizational logic for maintaining a carrier capability.

The Current Situation

By the early 2000s, Viraat was showing her age. The supply of second-hand carriers, long dominated by the Royal Navy’s World War II relics, had narrowed considerably. Instead of building a new ship itself, India determined to acquire an older Soviet carrier, the former Kiev-class warship Admiral Gorshkov, which had been out of service since the 1990s. India paid in excess of $2 billion for a massive reconstruction that left the ship nearly unrecognizable, with a ski-jump deck and transformed weapon systems. When accepted into service in 2014, the new 45,000-ton INS Vikramaditya could operate around twenty MiG-29K fighters, along with utility helicopters. Despite cost-overruns and serviceability problems, the ship offered the Indian Navy the chance to redevelop its aviation muscles after years of operating only VSTOL (vertical and/or short take-off and landing) aircraft from Viraat.

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