Sometimes they perform these primitive rituals to hopefully improve their weapon system. Here's India Defence Minister Rajnath Singh performing a primitive ritual by placing a coconut behind the Rafale IRST, hopefully it will help it to detect a J-20. Or maybe he placed it there to keep the coconut from rolling off the nose cone.
What he is performing is a dumbed down version of "Shastra Puja" . This Shastra Puja; literal meaning : Worship of Weapons, is performed by Rajputs Mr. Rajnath Singh is Rajput by caste.
The Shastra Puja is also performed by most Indian Army infantry regiments especially the Dogra, Kumaon, Gurkha Jat and Rajput infantry regiments .
All the weapons are stacked and worshipped. Significantly the Sikh regiments don't have Shastra Puja.
This is an ancient tradition going back a thousand years. Worshipping weapons are supposed to make them perform better. Earlier the swords and spears were worshipped. In the modern era it is a Rafale fighter. Notably the tech.savvy sections of the armed forces such as Air Force, Corps of Signals, Corps of Engineers, Army Medical Corps, etc. have until now shunned Shastra Puja. These are manned by a composite caste and linguistic population mix.
This is the very FIRST time a Shastra Puja has been performed on an aircraft.
The Rafale was beefed up ( oops ! ) rather fortified by the Puja which was deemed necessary after Mig 21s which had not undergone such a ceremony were found wanting in perfotmance against enemy F-16s and JF-17s .
