A fighter jet program is simply not developing a jet but the scientific research that goes into the associated tech and establishing the required supply chain. After our LCA Tejas Mk-1 which used several Israeli, Russian, French and American sub-systems, majority of it were indigenized in the Mk-1A from AESA, avionics, EW and integrated several indigenous weapons with only the ejection seat (Martin Baker) and engine (GE-404/414) being the imports. But the Mk-2 is delayed since IAF top brass wants more Rafales and are constantly changing requirements of indigenous programs so they can eventually kill the project by citing delays and go the import route. We're also now embarking on a $7.5B program to indigenously upgrade around 90 Su-30 MKIs' which is like $80-85M ish per unit which seems pricey considering considering that most of the upgrades are from domestic sources while a brand new Su-35 costs around $100M but we all know where half that $7.5B is going to
Simplistic take given the upfront capital costs amortized on just 90 now....including the AESA radar (not found on Su-35).
Good luck getting a Su-35 "new" for 100 million bucks these days heh. Demand pulling that away from Russian production line given Ukraine war ....will be at least double that if it even has a price for Russia now.
Not everything is an import-route conspiracy. Yes there is procurement requirement shifting and setting problem in IAF and IA for a long while. Perun on YT goes into quite good depth why. So no, we don't "all know" your insinuation here either.
Take it to another thread to unpack more if you want. Its off topic here.
We needed nukes front and centre during the cold war....hence missiles and space first along with them. It is what it is with the Capital and HR inertias present (especially their premium tier deployment) and a larger economy that is still way too small relative to population.