Observers warn that India’s intensifying bellicosity masks both grave military deficiencies and deep social fractures that threaten to unravel the world’s largest democracy. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), what critics term the “BJPisation” of Indian society has, they argue, driven more than 1.2 billion citizens into cycles of division and disenfranchisement—pitting communities against one another while diverting attention from systemic failures in defense preparedness.

At the heart of this critique lies a startling catalogue of accidents within the Indian Air Force (IAF). Official Indian media figures reveal that, up to September 2023, the IAF suffered 2,374 aircraft losses in crashes: 1,126 fighter jets and 1,248 non-fighter planes. Trainer aircraft (229) and helicopters (196) account for additional tragedies, in total claiming the lives of 1,305 highly skilled pilots. When each squadron fields roughly eighteen to twenty aircraft, the attrition of more than fifty squadrons over decades signals an air arm teetering on the brink of unsustainability.

Historical patterns only amplify these concerns. Losing pilots and planes is a harsh reality of conflict, and India saw this during the wars with Pakistan in ’47-48, ’65, ’71, and ’99. But looking at the bigger picture, the highest toll hasn’t come from combat. It’s the accidents during peacetime that have led to the most losses. Take the 1965 war as a stark example: the Indian Air Force had to admit it lost far more aircraft........

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