Heroes Of Enterprise Paving The Way To An Atmnirbhar Bharat

Narendra Modi is not the first Indian prime minister to embrace the idea of self-reliance but he has given the phrase a nationalistic ring. Can ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ become the soaring idea that lifts the Indian economy out of the doldrums?

- Raj Chengappa

“We want to develop a balanced economy and, as far as possible, promote self-sufficiency”

—JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, Prime Minister, 1952

“In the earlier decades, the rallying cry of the deprived was independence. Today it should be self-reliance...”

—INDIRA GANDHI, Prime Minister, 1972

“India is an old country, but a young nation, we are impatient. I am impatient and I too have a dream of an India—strong, independent, self-reliant...”

—RAJIV GANDHI, Prime Minister, 1985

“The state of the world today teaches us that an Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) is the only path. It is said in our scriptures—Eshah Panthah—that is, self-sufficient India”

—NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister, 2020

Every Indian prime minister since Independence has dreamt of a self-reliant and self-sufficient India. The most recent to chant the mantra is Narendra Modi who prefers to call it Atmanirbhar Bharat—using some Hindi gravitas to rescue the term from its tired English cliché. But as India completes 73 years of Independence, how different is the self-reliance that Modi propounds from the one Nehru talked of when he took over as India’s first prime minister? Does it hark back to the era of licence raj, import substitution and bank nationalisation? Is it just some fancy new nomenclature for the Modi government’s stillborn Make in India campaign? Or is Atmanirbhar Bharat, in its latest avatar, a soaring quest to liberate India from the woes of the Covid-19 pandemic, including an economy in free fall?