Designed by legendary German designer Kurt Tank (responsible for famed aircraft like the Fw 190), the HAL Marut was India's first indigenous combat aircraft as well as the first Asian aircraft to exceed Mach 1 in level flight. After World War II, Kurt Tank had left Germany for Latin America where he was active in Argentina designing state of the art designs which unfortunately were never produced. He then moved to India where he led the design of the Marut fighter. Although boasting supersonic speeds and ground attack capability, the Marut was woefully inadecuate due to its underpowered local built Orpheus engines and as a result, the aircraft was ordered in only limited numbers serving in just three IAF squadrons before being retired in 1985 and replaced by the SEPECAT Jaguar. Still, they saw action during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 where they performed quite successfuly despite their inherent limitations.

The first flight of the prototype Marut took place on 17 June 1961, these had been preceded by various glider versions which were used to test its aerodynamics. Production versiosn were known as the Marut Mk. 1 and were complemented by the Mk. 1T trainer. No other versons were built aside from various engine testbeds such as the Mk. 3 (Turbo Union RB.199), the Mk. 1BX (Bradner El-300), and the Mk. 1E and 1R with afterburning versions of the Orpheus.