My father worked in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for thirty years. We lived in the HAL quarters, right opposite the airfield in Bengaluru. As a child, I proudly used to boast that my dad worked in HAL  the very heart of India’s aerospace industry. I had a front row seat to aviation itself: HF 24 Maruts, Gnats, and later MiGs roaring into the skies, airshows that turned the horizon into a theatre of speed and sound. Back then, I thought I was witnessing the future of India’s aerospace power. HAL was not just a workplace; it was a national symbol.

Being quite active on social media, I see news of the AMCA, LCA Mark 1A, and Mark 2 almost on a daily basis. AMCA will have this feature, Mark 1A has rolled out, Mark 2 will be India’s own Rafale. Let me clarify, I am as much a patriot as anyone and don’t mean to demean any organisation or group of individuals. But we have been seeing the LCA for 40 years, hearing of the MMRCA for 20 years, and now the AMCA. The pattern is familiar, and unless we confront the root causes, the story may repeat itself.

But what I didn’t know as a child was that behind the gleaming tarmac and the thunder of jet engines lay a slow moving, bureaucratic machine that has, for decades, failed to deliver on its promises to the nation. Today, after 85 years of existence, HAL’s record reads less like a list of achievements and more like a catalogue of delays, inefficiency, and missed opportunities.

The HF 24 Marut  A Dream That Died Prematurely
The HF 24 Marut could have been the aircraft that changed India’s aviation destiny. Designed in the early 1960s by the legendary German engineer Kurt Tank  the man behind the Focke Wulf 190 fighter of World War II  the Marut was India’s first indigenous jet fighter. Sleek, beautiful, and ahead of its time, it was the first supersonic capable fighter designed and built in Asia outside the Soviet Union and Japan.

But here’s where HAL and India’s leadership failed. The Marut was underpowered because the engines it needed were never acquired or developed. Political dithering, bureaucratic roadblocks, and a lack of urgency from HAL’s leadership meant that the aircraft never reached its full potential. Instead of giving Kurt Tank the backing and resources to deliver a world class fighter, the project was allowed to limp along with outdated Orpheus engines.

The Marut still saw service in the 1971 war and performed admirably in ground attack roles, proving its ruggedness and pilot safety. But its potential as a frontline fighter was squandered  not because of lack of design talent, but because of the absence of vision, urgency, and accountability in both HAL’s boardrooms and the corridors of power in Delhi. It was a foretaste of how India would repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of technological victory.

The Behemoth That Couldn’t Move
In my father’s time, HAL was a giant  over 25,000 employees, a massive fleet of more than 300 buses, trucks, vans, and cars to ferry them, and sprawling facilities that could rival any major PSU in the country. But size did not translate to speed or efficiency. It was heavily unionised, and strikes were common. My father often complained about the dismal productivity  stories of workers doing the bare minimum, of hours wasted, and of officers being threatened if they tried to enforce discipline.

The most shocking episode was a 69 day strike. Just think about that for a moment: the company responsible for maintaining and overhauling the Indian Air Force’s fleet simply shut down for over two months. In the middle of the Cold War era, when India’s security environment was anything but safe, HAL decided to ground itself over union demands. For a defence PSU, this wasn’t just irresponsible  it was dangerous.

 
Project by Project: A Legacy of Delay
LCA Tejas  Conceived in 1983, it was supposed to fly by the early 1990s and enter service by mid decade. The first flight came only in 2001. Induction into squadron service happened in 2016  over 30 years after conception. In the meantime, India kept flying outdated MiG 21s, costing lives and capability.

HJT 36 Sitara Trainer. Launched in the late 1990s, still not operational after more than 20 years.

Helicopter Programmes. The ALH Dhruv and the Light Utility Helicopter suffered repeated delays, forcing imports.

The Leadership Void
If HAL’s workforce was often lethargic, its leadership was worse unprofessional, complacent, and largely shielded from consequences. Many senior managers were more focused on pleasing political masters than meeting project deadlines. There was no real sense of urgency, no private sector like pressure to deliver, and no accountability for failures that set back national defence preparedness by years.

India’s political leadership, for its part, rarely cracked the whip. Too often, HAL was treated as a sacred cow of the public sector beyond criticism and immune to serious reform. Ministers would boast of “self reliance” in speeches while quietly approving fresh imports to cover for HAL’s inability to deliver on time. This cosy arrangement suited everyone in power except the Indian Air Force, and the Indian taxpayer.

 
The Cost to the Nation
HAL’s inefficiency has been more than a bureaucratic embarrassment it has been a direct threat to national security. Every year of delay meant ageing MiG 21s in the skies. Every missed deadline meant outdated pilot training. Every strike or production slowdown meant fewer operational aircraft.

Instead of becoming the ISRO of aviation, HAL became a monopoly cushioned by political patronage and shielded from competition. The very institution that was supposed to make India independent in aerospace kept the country dependent on foreign suppliers.

 
From Pride to Disappointment
For me, this is personal. I grew up watching jets take off from the HAL runway, thinking this was where India’s aerospace future was being built. My father gave three decades of his life to this organisation. I saw the pride he took in his work and the frustration he felt when politics, inefficiency, and lack of accountability undermined that work.

Even today, the pattern hasn’t changed. Almost daily, there’s news about the AMCA, the LCA Mark 1A, and the Mark 2 all billed as game changers. The AMCA will be stealthy, the Mark 1A is rolling out, the Mark 2 will be “India’s Rafale.” As a patriot, I deeply respect the dedication of our scientists and engineers. But we’ve been seeing the LCA project for four decades, hearing the MMRCA story for twenty years, and now AMCA headlines have taken their place. The risk is that, without urgency, accountability, and reform, the AMCA will simply be the next chapter in HAL’s long history of delayed dreams.

The HF 24 Marut proved that India could design world class aircraft. But leadership without vision, politics without urgency, and management without accountability ensured that this promise was never fulfilled. Eight decades later, unless HAL is forced to reform or compete, it will remain not the pride of Indian aerospace, but its most enduring cautionary tale.