In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' aspiration. Since the outbreak of COVID, Atmanirbhar has become the government’s signature slogan — part economic vision, part political rallying cry and part geopolitical posture. Four years on, it is time to ask: has Atmanirbharta delivered resilience, or has it slipped into old-fashioned protectionism under an Indianised label? The pandemic gave Atmanirbhar Bharat legitimacy. In March 2020, India had virtually no capacity to produce PPE kits; within months, factories were exporting them. Vaccine manufacturing, led by the Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech, turned India into the “pharmacy of the world.” Those early successes gave the slogan real credibility. For a moment, self-reliance was not a throwback to import substitution but a matter of survival. The government seized the momentum. Production-Linked Incentive schemes promised to lure investment into electronics, pharmaceuticals and auto components. Defence procurement policies tilted towards indigenous suppliers. Renewable energy goals were framed as a path to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. Atmanirbhar Bharat became shorthand for resilience in a fractured world. The initiative has produced some impressive results. Mobile phone exports crossed $20 billion in 2024–25, up from negligible levels just a few years ago, with Apple and Samsung expanding their Indian operations. Defence exports reached record highs, and Indian shipyards are producing sophisticated naval platforms for both domestic use and export. In renewable energy, India is now among the top five solar markets globally, and wind capacity is growing steadily. These are not cosmetic wins; they represent a genuine effort to close gaps in sectors critical to our security and sovereignty. But alongside these achievements lie worrying trends. Too often, Atmanirbhar Bharat has been used to justify protectionism. Import tariffs have been raised on electronics, solar modules and toys. The logic is familiar: shield local firms until they become competitive. The risk, as India learnt before 1991, is that protection becomes not a way of shielding infant industry but of harbouring incompetent adults. The PLI schemes, while successful in mobiles and pharmaceuticals, have delivered mixed results elsewhere. Sectors like textiles, solar cells, and auto components have lagged in attracting large-scale investment. Much of what has materialised is assembly operations rather than deep integration into value chains. Most worrying of all is the neglect of exports. If Atmanirbharta is reduced to import substitution, India risks repeating the mistakes of its closed-economy past. Our domestic market, though large, is not large enough to sustain high growth indefinitely. No country in the past 75 years has leapt from poverty to prosperity without riding on exports — whether Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, or China. Even in India, every strong growth phase, from the early 2000s to the post-2014 recovery, was anchored by rising exports. To imagine we can grow rich behind tariff walls is a seductive idea. It is also a dangerous illusion. The endeavour, therefore, should not be to make everything at home, but to play to our comparative advantage, while constantly working to sharpen it. Comparative advantage is not static. Countries that identified their strengths early and then invested in moving up the value chain — Korea in electronics, Taiwan in semiconductors, and China in manufacturing — ended up reshaping their specialisation. For India, IT services and pharmaceuticals are obvious areas of strength. But textiles, auto components, renewable energy, and chemicals also offer natural advantages that can be deepened through scale, technology, and logistics upgrades. Rather than spreading resources thinly across dozens of sectors in the name of self-reliance, India would do better to double down on areas where it already has a foothold — and push firms to move up the value chain. The combination of playing to today’s strengths while investing to build tomorrow’s is the only viable path to true competitiveness. Where Atmanirbhar Bharat has worked, it has combined targeted support with global ambition. Where it has stumbled, it has blurred the line between resilience and autarky. The former makes a country competitive; the latter makes it a laggard. The political appeal of Atmanirbhar Bharat is undeniable. But slogans cannot substitute for credibility. Global investors want predictability — stable policies, clear timelines for tariff phase-outs and regulatory consistency. They value ease of doing business. India has a unique window today: multinational firms are diversifying supply chains away from China. But they will only commit if India looks open, stable and competitive. Four years on, Atmanirbhar Bharat sits at a crossroads. At its best, it can be a blueprint for resilience: building capacity in health, energy, defence, and critical technologies, reducing vulnerabilities, and positioning India as a trusted global supplier. At its worst, it can relapse into protectionism, raising costs, blunting competitiveness, and stunting export growth. The Prime Minister is right to remind the country of the need for self-reliance. But India must choose carefully what that means. Self-reliance is not self-isolation. It is not about walling off our economy. It is about opening the doors wider, with the confidence that Indian firms can compete, and win, globally.
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