I don't see how democracy is related to global projection of power. It's not like China is a monarchy either. I believe the popular support for the current Chinese system is more than the popular support for the current system in India as China has been experiencing a rapid development in recent decades. On the other hand, you are facing violent protests in Kashmir at the moment and it seems that your Muslim population are not happy with the status quo. If I'm not mistaken, you have nearly 200 million Muslims in India.
Iran doesn't attack Israel because they are not our neighbors to begin with. The only way Iran can directly attack Israel is by missiles and Israel is capable of launching missiles against us as well. Meanwhile, Israel has been more or less contained as it is not expanding like it was back in 1970s. On the other hand, China is sitting there right next to you guys and growing more powerful day by day and shares borders with you. And just about a few weeks ago, you had a limited military clash with the Chinese. China is obviously a more powerful threat to India than Israel will ever be to Iran.
People use the word reverse engineering as if it's easy to build something once you have its blueprints. Technologies like this rely on several other industries that need to be established to support a jet engine program. I'm not saying that it's impossible. It's certainly possible to pursue such technologies. But it requires investment and as of now, India does not produce jet engines. Or does it? I can be wrong.
Did you produce its own jet engine too? Does India produce anything similar to J20?
India also has hundreds of millions of people that are currently working with extremely low wages. You can also do the same as China did. Why not? It's not like life in India is easy now for most people. Is it? At least China saved itself from poverty by working 2 shifts. That's nothing to be ashamed of in my opinion.
I wish Iranians were hard working enough to work 2 shifts a day. That's nothing to be ashamed of in my opinion.
Yeah. If you read my initial post, I said that I don't blame you for preferring the US over Iran. Many countries did the same too. It was about economic interests. But I think what we have here is a difference of insight as
@vi-va said. You want to be accepted in the current world order by the current holders of power while nations like Iran and China want to create a new world order where they have earned to play a role in it.