Atmanirbhar Bharat, which translates to 'self-reliant India', is a phrase the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and his government used and popularised in relation to the country's economic development plans. The phrase is an umbrella concept for the Modi government's plans for India to play a larger role in the world economy, and for it to become more efficient, competitive and resilient.
Modi has used the English phrase since 2014 in relation to national security, poverty and digital India. The first popular use of the phrase in Hindi was Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-Reliant India Mission) during the announcement of India's COVID–19-pandemic-related economic package in 2020. Since then, the phrase has been used by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence in press releases, statements and policies. The government has also used the phrase in relation to India's new National Education Policy and the 2021 Union Budget of India. The concept under Modi's premiership has been adapted from earlier uses of the phrase in the Indian sub-continent.
The swadeshi movement was one of India's most successful pre-independence movements. The concept of self-reliance has been used by the country's former Planning Commission in multiple five-year plans between 1947 and 2014. Commentators have noted India has been enacting policies and building institutions that promote self-reliance since its independence. Private companies and their products have been considered as examples of self-reliance in sectors such as beverages, automotives, cooperatives, financial services and banking, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
History
Political self-reliance and self-rule
India saw a promotion of political self-reliance for swaraj (self-governance or self-rule) during the independence movement. Activists such as Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore explained self-reliance in terms of the nation and of the self. This included the discipline of an individual and the values of a society. With the foundation of educational institutes such as Visva-Bharati University, Tagore had a role in bringing India closer to self-reliance in education. M. S. Swaminathan said in his youth is the 1930s, he like his peers, "young and old shared the dream of a free and self-reliant India. Purna swaraj (total freedom) and swadeshi (self-reliance) were our goals ..."
In 2022, Union Home Minister Amit Shah acknowledged slogans such as "atmanirbharta", "Make in India" and "vocal for local" were adapted from Gandhi's efforts towards swadeshi. Pre-independence aspirations that had been forgotten are now being revived and adapted, and are being put into practice.
Economic self-reliance and dependence
The swadeshi movement was one of the Indian sub-continents most effective pre-independence movements. It was successfully implemented after the partition of Bengal in 1905.
Indian nationalists emphasised economic self-reliance, of which planning was an important part, in the years before independence. The National Planning Committee of the Indian National Congress (INC) was formed in 1938 under its president Subhash Chandra Bose. The committee was multi-disciplinary and composed of well-known personalities from across the sub-continent. Bose lent his full support to the planning efforts to make independent India an economic unit that was industrialised and self-sufficient. There was, however, much opposition to these plans, including non-cooperation by Gandhi, who opposed the type of industrialisation being championed and he called the committee's efforts pointless. Another pre-independence effort to plan the economic development of independent India was the Bombay Plan, whose authors include J. R. D. Tata, G. D. Birla and A. Dalal. The Bombay Plan sought to make India self-sufficient by increasing the role of the state in all aspects of the economy, a contrast to 21st-century India. In the following years, India took cues from economic models in the Soviet Union, later becoming aware of other models such as those of South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.
Independent India's first major policy document, the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948, echoed the "national consensus" regarding how India was to proceed. This national consensus called for a mixed economy and self-reliance. Under Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, India's Green Revolution and White Revolution (Operation Flood) helped India to become self-sufficient and a world leader in agricultural products such as milk and tea.