By the late 1970s, Indian Army HQ had decided to acquire new-generation replacements for its UK-origin fleet of Centurion and Vijayanta MBTs (based on the Vickers MBT), and consequently, paper evaluations concerning the firepower and mobility characteristics of the two principal contenders being offered for full in-country production— French-origin AMX-40 and the British-origin Chieftain 800 — were conducted by the Indian Army.

After the General elections in 1980, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi requested additional evaluation, including MBTs from the USSR, following which the Soviet Union's Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (which after 1991 morphed into Oboronexport, then Rosoboronservice and ultimately Rosoboronexport State Corp) made a formal offer to India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) for supplying the 37-tonne T-72M Ob'yekt 172M-E4 MBT off-the-shelf, and according an approval for licensed-production of the 41.5-tonne T-72M-1982 Ob'yekt 172M-E6 to the MoD-owned Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) in Avadi.

By early 1981, two T-72Ms—powered by a 780 hp diesel engine, armed with 125 mm 2A46M smoothbore gun and offering a power-to-weight ratio of 20 hp/tonne, were subjected to an exhaustive series of in-country firepower and mobility trials by the Army.

After review of trial results, T-72M and T-72-1982 (powered by a Model V-84MS four-stroke 12-cylinder multi-fuel engine developing 840 hp and offering a power-to-weight ratio of 18.8 hp/tone) were selected as Army's future MBTs.

[145] During the Russo-Ukrainian War's invasion by Russia phase from 2022 onward Ukrainian forces have used captured Russian tanks, including T-72s.