Growth story powered by indigenous engines

The year 2025 might well go down in Indian economic history alongside 1991 asa year that marks a decisive break with the past.

- Samir Saran

These were both years that accelerated our intent, ambition, and execution as a nation. But, if in 1991, the initial burst of economic reform was driven by recognition ofa balance of payments crisis, the 2025 reforms have been driven by understanding a balance of power opportunity. And this burst of reform, even more than those before, reflects how India’s leadership at the highest level — particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself — understands the way that growth is nurtured in this evolving, fragmented world.By creating a political and geo-economic challenge, Donald Trump invited the Modi of the past to reappear: The political and economic revolutionary who thrives by confronting stale orthodoxy and refuses to outsource national destiny. By revealing international relationships as nakedly transactional, the US president reminded New Delhi of one basic truth: Nobody is going to celebrate India’s rise. In a progress-starved global economy, growth is not shared. Instead, growth is competed for, hoarded, ‘weaponised. We might have been lulled into thinking, for a time, that growth would emerge from partnerships. But Modi has correctly identified that growth is DIY: We must do it for ourselves—and keep doing it. It must be incubated, nourished, and sustained domestically, like a household plant that needs constant water