Opinion: Is Atmanirbhar a sustainable concept or philosophy?

What is this concept- Atmanirbhar?

Our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi during one of his recent speeches introduced the term ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. As expected, this term created a lot of flutter, both positive and negative among the people of India. People had their own interpretations which led to Twitter wars, clarion calls for the boycott of foreign goods especially the Chinese ones. This has grown a lot after the skirmishes at the Indo China border.

Connection between ‘Atmanirbhar’ and ‘Swadeshi’:

On hearing the term ‘Atmanirbhar’, I was reminded of another term- ‘Swadeshi’. People would associate this term to Mahatma Gandhi which he used effectively during Indian freedom struggle. But, many would not know that this term was popularly used even before Gandhi came to India from abroad. The term was popularised by Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal.

Now, let us discuss in brief on why this term or concept was used by these prominent freedom fighters. Here, I would like to bring in another term called ‘Swarajya’ or ‘self rule’. Swadeshi denotes one’s own country and this was used as a tool to attain Swarajya.

I would also like to enlighten about something here. Swarajya in its rightful form is the final goal of Swadeshi. To give a bit more context here, I would like to state few things here. According to me, a homegrown company exploiting people is worse than a foreign company. To give you a better example, from the freedom struggle, let us VO Chidambaram Pillai. He was instrumental in starting the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company to take on the unfair practices of the British Steam Navigation Company. VO Chidambaram Pillai created a transparent eco-system and fair means to take on the Britishers or aggressors. The point I would like to state here is that we should not forget the level playing field when we take the term ‘Swadeshi’.

Now let us take interesting discussion points one by one here.

i) Should we define what is a Swadeshi good?

Let us try to define a Swadeshi good with an example. Everyone is familiar with smartphone brands Xiaomi and Micromax. The former is a Chinese based company while the latter is an Indian one.

The interesting fact here is that while Xiaomi manufactures 90% of its products in India, Micromax assembles its products in China and sells it in India. Now, here comes a question. Which one is a Swadeshi product?

If we consider Xiaomi as Swadeshi and start buying their products, is there a guarantee that the company won’t share data and profits with the Chinese regime as the laws are not so transparent in China.

ii) Do we have Swadeshi goods?

Recently, I started exploring Swadeshi goods across sectors. To my surprise, there are few sectors such as electronics where the Chinese have a complete domination. Even the Indian companies in these sectors are sourcing either raw materials or finished goods from China. There are products such as mobile phones where the Indian makers are no match to the Chinese counterparts. The reasons cited for Chinese domination are value for money, quality, customer service etc.,

In my opinion, unless the Indian companies pull up their socks and mend their shortcomings, the Chinese domination is not going to end in the near future.

Also, there are state owned Chinese firms which are flushed with money. When these companies enter the fray, the concept of level playing field goes for a toss. It is the responsibility of the Indian Government to preserve the sanctity of the level playing field.

iii) What if other countries also start thinking inward?

India embraced globalisation in the 1990s. It has reaped its enormous benefits till now. If India starts looking inward through self reliance, will the dream of becoming a global superpower not become tougher? If other countries start looking inward, will it not halt India’s success story?

In my opinion, this is a very tricky situation and should be handled in a balanced manner.

What is the way forward?

India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty has to preserved at any cost. The best way to handle the Chinese crisis of dependence is to have a long term strategic plan for self- reliance. The path of self reliance must not be forgotten once the border tensions eases off.

Let the seed be sown and nurtured.