ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the history of the Indian missile program and assesses its current status and capabilities. It analyses New Delhi's motivations for missile development. The chapter looks at the capacity and likelihood for India to emerge as a supplier of missile and space technologies. From initial studies and research to the wide variety of missile systems in development, Indian efforts to design and build surface-to-surface missiles. Lacking resources, India's military R&D establishment first sought basic knowledge in rocketry and to increase awareness among service personnel of missilery and its military applications. The objective of self-reliance appeals to a nation that detests being in a position of dependence as a result of its colonial history. "Self-reliance" does have a distinctive ideological connotation in the Indian context, but it may also be seen as one means to achieve the substantive objectives of economic and technological development, and the insulation of Indian foreign policy from external pressures.
