Enhancing the Effectiveness of Defence Indigenization: The Case of Bullet-Resistant Jackets

Post-COVID, the renewed emphasis on indigenisation in India calls for a fresh, in-depth examination of the entire range of issues and policies pertaining to the development of a capable domestic base for the defence industry and technology. This study opens up the field of inquiry, first, by adapting the well-known Delphi method for the indigenous development and manufacture of bullet-proof jackets and then in trying to examine all the elements of the decision-making process—from framing requirements by the armed forces to final procurement by the government, through an elaborately structured, multi-stakeholder consultative process. The approach can possibly be tailored to examine more complex systems that require indigenisation.