MUMBAI: Aerospace and defence major Rolls-Royce Plc is borrowing from the India playbook of British energy giant BP Plc as it pursues billions of dollars worth of opportunities across defence, civil aviation and nuclear energy in the country.
To lead that push, Rolls-Royce has turned to Sashi Mukundan, the former head of BP’s India business, who spent 24 years building the energy company’s partnerships in the country across gas, fuel retail and mobility ventures.
The man who recruited him: Rolls-Royce chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic, who himself spent two decades at BP, including five years leading its downstream business.
“Tufan was also with BP before. He’s seen how BP built the relationship in India,” Mukundan, now executive vice president Transformation India at Rolls-Royce, told Mint. “He tapped on my shoulder and said, ‘Sashi, I’ve seen what you did with BP. Can you help me do the same thing with Rolls-Royce?’”
That relationship-driven strategy now sits at the centre of Rolls-Royce’s ambitions to make India its fourth home market after the UK, Germany and the US.
Erginbilgic was part of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s delegation during his India visit in October 2025. He met Prime Minister Narendra Modi again in February, when he reportedly indicated the company’s intention to invest up to $10 billion in India.
The opportunity spans India’s proposed fifth-generation fighter jet programme, a rapidly expanding civil aviation market and New Delhi’s renewed push into nuclear energy. For Rolls-Royce, the effort marks a shift from simply supplying engines to embedding itself deeper into India’s industrial ecosystem through technology partnerships, localization and long-term manufacturing and servicing plans.
Amca contest
At the centre of that effort is the competition to power India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (Amca), where Rolls-Royce is competing with France’s Safran and other global engine makers.
To strengthen its pitch, Rolls-Royce has proposed setting up a local design centre with an Indian partner. While intellectual property rights for the engine would remain with the Indian government, the British company said it was willing to negotiate a structure that would give the design centre access to more than 100 years of Rolls-Royce’s process and metallurgical know-how, provided such knowledge remained restricted to projects involving Rolls-Royce.
The company was already in talks with multiple Indian private and public sector companies to explore such a partnership, Mukundan said.
“We will fully transfer technology, we will develop IP in India, and regarding the transfer of know-how for background knowledge, we will work in a way in which the Indian government, the UK government and Rolls-Royce are satisfied,” he said.
Mukundan said Rolls-Royce remained open to discussions with the Indian government on how such technology-transfer arrangements would work.
The company may, however, have to offer more than intellectual property transfer alone. Safran, whose M88 engines power India’s Rafale aircraft, has made a similar pitch. Safran chief executive Olivier Andries told the Economic Times in November that the company had agreed to a complete transfer of technology to India for Amca engines.
Rolls-Royce engines already power India’s fleet of SEPECAT Jaguar aircraft, while General Electric supplies engines for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd’s Tejas fighter aircraft.
Expanding footprint
Beyond combat aviation, Rolls-Royce is also seeking to widen its industrial footprint in India.
The company is working with state-run Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE) to supply marine engines for the navy and coast guard. India’s Arjun tanks also run on Rolls-Royce engines, and the company is exploring local production for those systems as well, Mukundan said.
In civil aviation, Rolls-Royce powers all Airbus A350 aircraft globally. Air India and IndiGo have together ordered more than a hundred of the wide-body aircraft as part of their international expansion plans. While the engines themselves will not be manufactured in India, Rolls-Royce plans to establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in the country to service them, Mukundan said.
The company is also eyeing opportunities in nuclear energy through its small modular reactor business under New Delhi’s proposed Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill, 2025.
Mukundan, 68, took up the role at Rolls-Royce immediately after concluding his nearly quarter-century stint at BP. What was meant to be retirement—watching Formula 1 and racing Porsches— has instead become an assignment to help execute one of Rolls-Royce’s biggest strategic bets in India.