I was roaming around the HAL center, feeding my curiosity, which led me to a huge open hall where a real aircraft was majestically parked. I couldn’t resist my curiosity and ran towards that majestic beast – it was the Marut, HF-Marut-24.
In the caption, it was written that the Marut was Asia’s first jet fighter, indigenously built and designed in India.
At that moment, a pinch in my heart reminded me of the ongoing Rafale controversy. Standing in front of this majestic bird, I felt a sense of pride.
We used to be the country that successfully produced Asia’s first jet fighter, not Japan, China, or Israel. It was India.
Back home, I did a Google search and found the unfortunate demise of the Marut, which carried the DNA to put India on the map as one of the nations capable of designing and building their own jets and engines.
The story of the Marut began in the 1950s when the Indian leadership recognized the need for self-sufficiency in the field of avionics and aviation. With this goal in mind, HAL was tasked with building a prototype for the jet fighter.
HAL was fortunate to hire none other than the father of modern jet fighters, Kurt Tank, who was in exile in Argentina. With the help of Kurt Tank, HAL successfully developed the first prototype of the HF-Marut in 1961. This marked the beginning of the Indian Air Force Jet era.
Over the years, the Marut evolved into a more mature and capable aircraft. However, it faced a setback. During the design phase, Tank intended to use Bristol Bor.12 Orpheus after burning turbojet engines.
Unfortunately, this was the era of socialism, and the socialist government denied the funds needed to establish an engine factory for building Bristol engines.
Years later, when HAL failed to find an alternative, they resorted to purchasing inferior jet engines. Due to the poor engine performance, the Marut failed to meet the requirements of the Air Force. Furthermore, the increasing Soviet influence posed another challenge for the Marut.
The Soviet Union’s dominance had almost halted most of India’s indigenous efforts, and the Marut fell victim to this curse.
Despite its lower engine performance, the Marut proved to be an amazingly effective and swift fighter for the Indian Air Force. To understand the power of the Marut jet, one must recall that iconic scene from the movie.
“Border,” where Jackie Shroff and his buddies decimated an entire fleet of Pakistani tanks. That fighter was Marut, the hero of Longewala.
The Marut continued to render exceptional service even during the 1971 war, dealing a massive blow to the Pakistani Air Force despite being an inferior aircraft compared to what the Pakistanis were flying. However, when the war ended, the Marut faced another fate.
Instead of receiving a hero’s welcome, the government planned to decommission the entire Marut squadron, replacing it with Soviet fighters.
By the 1980s, the Maruts were completely phased out of the Air Force, leaving them to rust away in graveyards. Finally, in 1990, the government retired the last Marut from service, effectively burying India’s ambition of building its own jet fighter for the next several decades.
Standing in the hangar of the HAL Aviation Museum, Marut probably laughs at the Indian government, corruption, and bureaucracy.
Reference:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/indias-disappointing-marut-jet-fighter-proved-itself-combat-21875
Feature image provided by author.