It was not corruption. It was about India learning how to make a better assault rifle. They made mistakes just like the atrocious M-16 failure rates due to poor production quality. India was at the same point of the learning curve.

The choices made in calibre were based on perceived western thinking about ammo carriage and lightweight ammo which has once again shifted from 5.56 to 7.62 based on Indian experience in the Kargil war. The Insas rifle required iterative development but was as usual sabotaged by vested interests much like the Arjun tank.

The Arjun was a virtual clone of the Leopard 2 with so much German tech it was 70 percent German tech and power. Just that agains some choices and internal goalpost shifts on armour protection and gun created havoc with the program timelines. A lot of suspicion is placed on elements paid by overseas vested manufacturers who did not wish to see India gain self reliance in tanks.... A view made abundantly clear when India was forced into purchasing 2000 T90 tanks which were completely against the design requirements foisted on Arjun including power, protection and manual instead of auto loading. The key point harped on was weight. Which equalled the Abrams. In performance the Arjun beat the T90 blindfolded in range, accuracy, km without failure endurance, reverse speed and agility firing (fire on move).

In any case the learnings are going into Indias future MBT