'Not Azerbaijan, India used drones first in Kargil. Israel gave us Searcher, Heron': Ex-army general sets record straight

India's use of drones goes back much further than commonly believed — well before the Azerbaijan-Armenia warfare brought UAVs to global attention. A senior defence veteran has now revealed that Israeli drones were used during the 1999 Kargil War, marking India's early experimentation with unmanned aerial surveillance.

Former Major General Ramesh Chandra Padhi, now Senior Vice President at IG Drones, said in an interview with Network18: "Many people think that it is the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict that is the starting point of drones. No, we used drones during the Kargil war. Not many people know about that. The Israelis gave us the Henron and Searchers."

Padhi, who served as a colonel during the conflict, explained the logistical challenges at the time. "The problem at that point of time was there were no digital maps and it was my responsibility to provide the digital maps. So we had to overnight digitize all the maps. Why digital maps? Because the satellite imageries are only two dimensions. The paper maps are also two dimensions. So we created a two and a half dimension digital maps. Otherwise, how do you do the surveillance and reconnaissance and find out the targets?”

Nicolas Blarel, in his book The Evolution of India’s Israel Policy, details how India turned to Israel for urgent support during the Kargil War. According to Blarel, "To address its surveillance and reconnaissance problems along the LoC, the Indian military establishment emphasised the need for drones."

He notes that India's indigenous UAV programs such as Lakshya and Nishant were either underdeveloped or still undergoing flight trials at the time, pushing India to consider "the more sophisticated and higher range Israeli Searcher and Heron drones as an alternative."

Blarel further highlights how the conflict exposed deeper structural gaps in India's military preparedness. He writes that "the Kargil conflict created a favourable environment for key policy reforms," especially after intelligence agencies failed to anticipate the infiltration in the inhospitable terrain. The absence of regular UAV-based surveillance along the LoC was seen as a critical shortfall that India needed to rectify urgently.

He adds, "The absence of AWACS technology also encouraged the Indian government to discuss with Israel the possibility of purchasing a Phalcon platform. India also reportedly acquired from Israel sophisticated sensors to monitor cross-border infiltration. In the aftermath of the Kargil war, the Indian army has maintained a constant surveillance of cross-border infiltration through its Israeli-made Searcher and Heron and sensing equipment."

Padhi, meanwhile, said his own involvement with drones has continued long after the war. He now leads IG Drones, one of four Indian firms recognised by the Government of India for their role in Operation Sindoor. "When the conflict started on seventh night of May, four of my boys were trapped in the Poonch sector. They were delivering drones. And I was a little worried about their safety. Then I rang up people and somehow I could bring them back from that conflict zone,” he recalled.

Highlighting the rapid indigenisation of India's drone sector, Padhi said: “We have got a very small drone called FPB Kamakaji. FPB (first person view) and we have got a goggle. You can see your targets and the speed goes up to 140 kilometre. And it cost only one lakh rupees. So cheap. We have got other drones also. We have got surveillance drones. We have got mapping drones. Everything is made by us only."

Padhi said the company was started by five engineering students from Odisha who initially developed a space technology project that was later acknowledged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann Ki Baat address.