‘Swadeshi should be mantra of life’: PM pitches for self-reliance

Swadeshi should be everyone's life mantra and irrespective of who is investing, production must take place domestically, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday, making a pitch for Make-in-India products a day before US President Donald Trump's additional 25% tariffs kick in.

- HT Correspondent

He was speaking after flagging off exports of Maruti Suzuki’s first electric vehicle, the e-VITARA, from the Hansalpur facility in Gujarat to over 100 countries and inaugurating production units for lithium-ion battery, cell and electrode manufacturing for hybrid e-vehicles.

“Swadeshi should become our life mantra. Let's embrace swadeshi with pride. The things that will be made here by Japan are also swadeshi,” Modi said on a day Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corporation committed to invest over ₹70,000 crore in the country in the next five to six years.

“My definition of swadeshi is very simple: it doesn’t matter whose money is invested, whether it is dollars, pounds, whether the currency is black or white, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that in production, the sweat belongs to my countrymen... Those products will have the fragrance of my country’s soil,” he added.

This is the latest in a string of speeches where Modi has pushed indigenous products and self-reliance, flagging global economic turbulence.