The logic in your statement is sound, and it exposes a quiet contradiction in how the Indian Air Force’s modernisation is usually talked about.
Run the numbers honestly and the conclusion is unavoidable: the Rafale and the TEJAS MK-1A, impressive as they are, do not by themselves take the IAF back to where it needs to be, and the TEJAS MK-2 is not a luxury the service can afford to skip.
The arithmetic is worth laying out plainly, because it is the single most important fact about Indian air power today.
Start with the sanctioned baseline. The IAF’s authorised fighter strength is 42 squadrons, a figure the service has repeatedly told Parliament is the minimum needed to fight a simultaneous two-front war against China and Pakistan.
In practice the force has been hovering at roughly 29 to 31 active squadrons since 2025, the lowest level since the 1960s, and the last MiG-21 squadrons were finally retired at the end of 2025 after more than six decades of service. That leaves a gap of around 12 squadrons against the sanctioned target before a single new aircraft is counted.
Now add what is actually coming. On the Rafale side, India already operates 36 jets across two squadrons at Ambala and Hasimara, and in February 2026 the Defence Acquisition Council cleared the long-delayed Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft deal for 114 more, worth roughly ₹3.25 lakh crore, with around 94 to 96 of the airframes to be built in India under the Make in India framework.
Those 114 aircraft translate into about six additional squadrons. On the indigenous side, the TEJAS MK-1A program has grown to 180 aircraft on order across two contracts, 83 cleared in February 2021 and a further 97 in September 2025, and at roughly 18 jets per squadron that is about ten squadrons’ worth of light fighters. Add the two together and the IAF is looking at roughly 16 new squadrons of combat capability.
The problem is the other side of the ledger. The Jaguar, the MiG-29 and the Mirage 2000 are all scheduled to leave service, and together they account for about 12 squadrons. The Jaguar fleet, six squadrons of around 110 to 120 aircraft, is being phased out progressively from 2025 through the early 2030s.
The MiG-29 and Mirage-2000, three squadrons each, are expected to follow, with the bulk of the retirements concentrated in the mid-to-late 2030s as airframes reach the end of their fatigue lives.
So the IAF is simultaneously adding roughly 16 squadrons and losing roughly 12. The net gain, on the most favourable reading, is only four to six squadrons, lifting the force from about 30 today to somewhere between 34 and 36.
That is the heart of your question. If the sanctioned goal were 36 squadrons, then the Rafale and the MK-1A alone would indeed be sufficient, and the TEJAS MK-2 could be quietly shelved.
But 36 is not the goal. The goal remains 42, and even that figure is increasingly regarded as a floor rather than a ceiling by strategists who argue that a credible two-front posture, against an expanding People’s Liberation Army Air Force and a nuclear-armed Pakistan, may demand higher numbers still.
From 30 squadrons today, reaching even the sanctioned 42 requires a net addition of at least 12 squadrons, not four to six. The Rafale and the MK-1A close only part of that distance, and the arithmetic shows they do not close it by themselves.
This is precisely where the TEJAS MK-2 becomes indispensable rather than optional. The MK-2, also known as the Medium Weight Fighter, is designed from the outset to be the direct successor to the Jaguar, the Mirage-2000 and the MiG-29, the very fleets whose retirement is creating the shortfall.
The IAF has so far committed to around 120 MK-2 aircraft, enough for six squadrons, with HAL planning first flight around 2026, series production from 2029 and deliveries beginning in 2032.
Even that initial commitment is not enough on its own, and sources have indicated the original requirement stood closer to 210 units, with the possibility of a second batch taking the total toward 300. Without the MK-2, the six squadrons of Jaguars and the three each of Mirages and MiG-29s would be replaced by nothing, and the squadron count would fall even further below the sanctioned level rather than recover.
There is a deeper point buried in the squadron arithmetic, and it concerns sequencing and risk. The Rafale and the MK-1A are, in effect, net additions that do not backfill the legacy fleets; they grow the force at the margin.
The MK-2 is the aircraft that actually replaces the retiring types, which means it is the one that protects the IAF’s baseline strength. Treating the Rafale as a substitute for the MK-2 is therefore a category error.
The Rafale is a high-end, expensive, largely imported capability that strengthens the top of the order of battle, while the MK-2 is the workhorse that sustains the numbers in the middle. The IAF needs both, and it needs the MK-2 specifically to prevent the retirement wave from erasing the gains that the Rafale and the MK-1A are meant to deliver.
The timeline adds urgency. The Jaguars begin leaving in 2025 and the MiG-29s and Mirages follow in the 2030s, yet the MK-2 will not be in squadron service until around 2032 at the earliest. That creates a dangerous window in which the IAF’s strength dips to its lowest point even as the sanctioned requirement goes unmet.
The 114-Rafale deal helps bridge part of that gap, and the MK-1A’s production ramp, with HAL targeting 25 aircraft by March 2027 and full delivery of the 180 by 2031-32, provides a steady stream of light fighters. But neither can compensate for the absence of the MK-2 in the mid-2030s, when the legacy fleets are at their thinnest.
So the answer to your question is clear. The IAF does not have a goal of 36 squadrons; its sanctioned objective is 42, and the squadron arithmetic shows that the Rafale and the TEJAS MK-1A, taken together, deliver only a net gain of four to six squadrons, leaving the force at roughly 34 to 36 and still eight or more squadrons short.
That shortfall is exactly what the TEJAS MK-2 is built to close. Far from being unnecessary, the MK-2 is the single most important program in the IAF’s plan to restore its numbers, and the notion that the Rafale makes it redundant collapses the moment the retirement wave is counted.
The IAF is not trying to reach 36; it is fighting to hold the line at 42, and it cannot do that without the TEJAS MK-2.
IDN (With Agency Inputs)
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