Asad Mirza
India’s expansive showcase of advanced indigenous weapon systems at Eurosatory 2026 in Paris has highlighted the nation’s unprecedented export surge, providing a robust template for hosting a premier global defence exhibition.
The landscape of international military trade is undergoing a major structural realignment as emerging industrial powers transition from historical buyers into advanced system exporters.
At Eurosatory 2026 in Paris, the world’s largest land warfare exposition, India capitalised on this strategic evolution by deploying an expansive national pavilion featuring 31 public and private defence entities.
Spearheaded by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), alongside premier private innovators, the Indian delegation presented highly complex, combat-ready platforms to over 350 international delegations.
This aggressive marketing push aligns with India’s domestic manufacturing breakthrough, which saw total national defence production climb to an impressive 1.78 lakh crore rupees, driving global weapon exports to an unprecedented record of 38,424 crore rupees in the fiscal year 2025-26. The technological sophistication on display in Paris systematically challenged the legacy monopoly of Western arms suppliers.
A major highlight at the exhibition was the formal unveiling of the MArG-39 next-generation mounted artillery gun system, developed by Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited. The 155-millimetre, thirty-nine-calibre weapon system, mounted on a high-mobility four-by-four wheeled chassis, features NATO-interoperable ammunition lines and responsive shoot-and-scoot operational software engineered to completely evade modern counter-battery tracking arrays.
This engineering success was powerfully reinforced by the debut of the Simha four-by-four light armoured multi-purpose vehicle, co-developed with South Africa’s Paramount Group. Designed from the ground up around standardised aggregates, the modular vehicle is optimised for rapid local industrialisation across partner nations.
Simultaneously, the state-backed sector showcased high-tier strike technologies, including the long-range Pinaka guided rocket network, the RudraM anti-radiation missile family, and advanced light-weight anti-submarine torpedoes, proving India’s ability to deliver tier-one capabilities at highly competitive lifecycle costs.
For India’s rapidly maturing military-industrial base, continuous engagement with premier forums like Eurosatory is vital to sustain its current export trajectory. These large-scale conventions serve as critical strategic hubs where domestic manufacturers can directly interface with procurement authorities from the 80+ importing nations currently absorbing Indian hardware, while simultaneously forging deep co-production alliances with European original equipment manufacturers.
By securing validation on the global stage, Indian enterprises can seamlessly integrate their subsystems into multinational supply chains, accelerating the shift from component fabrication to prime systems integration.
Crucially, the success of the Paris showcase demonstrates that India has achieved the industrial weight and administrative capability required to host a mirror edition of such a global showpiece on its own soil.
To transition from a prominent participant into a central global node, New Delhi should actively expand its domestic exhibition strategy by transforming existing regional events into a singular, highly integrated mega-expo on par with Eurosatory.
By establishing a permanent, world-class exhibition infrastructure near a major aviation hub, implementing simplified, single-window visa protocols for international military delegations, and leveraging its unique diplomatic position as a leader of the Global South, India can create the premier defence marketplace for Asia and Africa.
This ambition, however, demands first addressing a glaring inconsistency closer home: India’s own flagship biennial exhibition, DefExpo, has effectively missed two editions on its regular cycle, with the 12th edition held in October 2022 in Gandhinagar after a logistics-driven postponement, and no edition convened in 2024, leaving a multi-year gap before the 13th edition, now slated for Ranchi, gets underway.
Hosting an institutionalised global exhibition of this scale would not only lock in billions of pounds in direct industrial offset investment but would permanently cement the nation’s standing as an independent, sovereign anchor of international security architecture – a credibility that depends as much on DefExpo’s renewed focus and disciplined, long-term scheduling at home as it does on showcases abroad like Eurosatory.
https://raksha-anirveda.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/RA_Jul_Sept_2026.pdf
