New Delhi, Jan 29 (PTI) Focus on Swadeshi is inevitable and necessary in India amid increasing export controls, technology denials by developed nations, and carbon tax mechanisms, which signal the end of globalisation, the Economic Survey said on Thursday.
The pre-Budget document said that India must pursue its near, medium and long-term policy priorities of import substitution, strategic resilience, and strategic indispensability simultaneously.
“There is no time to waste. It is like running a marathon and a sprint at the same time, or having to run a marathon like a sprint!” the Survey said.
It said that a country at present is operating in an environment where access to inputs, technologies, and markets cannot be assumed to be frictionless or permanent.
Export controls, technology denial regimes, carbon border mechanisms, and industrial policy in the West and East alike signal the end of naive globalisation, it said.
“In such circumstances, Swadeshi becomes a defensive as well as offensive policy lever,” it said, adding it has become a means to ensure continuity of production in the face of external shocks, and a pathway to build enduring national capabilities that reinforce economic sovereignty.
The policy question is now no longer whether the state should encourage Swadeshi, but how it should do so without undermining efficiency, innovation, or global integration.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has time and again called for adoption of Swadeshi (locally made) by people as well as industry.
The government has taken a series of measures to promote domestic manufacturing to reduce the country’s import dependence on countries like China.
The Survey said that not all import substitution is desirable, and not all forms of protection support long-term competitiveness.
The most persistent objection to Swadeshi-oriented policies is not ideological but empirical.
“Swadeshi is a disciplined strategy rather than a blanket doctrine,” it said, adding permanent protection is inappropriate in sectors where India is already cost-competitive, where exports are being undertaken at scale, where products serve as general-purpose intermediates across supply chains, or where inputs are critical for labour-intensive industries.
It cautioned against protection that shields poor-quality producers, entrenches incumbency through inverted duty structures, or severs the link between support and innovation, learning, and global integration.
“A disciplined approach to indigenisation requires clarity on when intervention builds long-run capability and when it merely preserves inefficiency,” it said. PTI RR MR
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