The Rise of a Truly Atmanirbhar India: From Assembly to Imagination

 

At the outset, allow me to recap a key point from an earlier blog in which I discussed what, in my view, embodies the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat. (The piece is referenced at the end.):

Two tribes of opinion repeatedly torment me. First are the zealots who chant Vishwaguru while reality smoulders quietly behind them. For them, Indian Railways (IR) is racing ahead, facts and derailments notwithstanding, and hype substitutes for delivery. At the opposite pole sit those who view IR as a hopeless relic, incapable of tightening a nut without divine intervention and a five-year committee report. In their eyes, every success is a fluke and every reform a failure.

Both camps are insufferable in their own ways. One worships the global to the point of paralysis, the other clings to a parochial fantasy world. The truth, as we see frequently, lies somewhere in between. We need to be sensibly local without being delusional, global without being derivative or imitative. For all who avert their gaze from reason’s middle road, I offer Touchstone’s timeless reminder from the Bard’s As You Like It, "…The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool…".

My point was simple. If the global gap is bridgeable, then beg, borrow, transfer, copy adapt, adopt, reverse-engineer, but let the final outcome bear our own imprint, our creativity, our imagination. Ownership followed by pride comes from creation, not oxymoronic transfer of technology. And this pride alone can make us do wonders.

Our habit of celebrating mediocrity is perplexing. Nearly 100 years ago, a famous economist named Horace Secrist wrote a book with the provocative title The Triumph of Mediocrity in Business, after spending ten years collecting and analyzing data on the success of companies in dozens of industries. The book details his conclusion that competitive forces drive businesses toward average results, with top and bottom performers regressing to the mean. It’s so true for India in all sectors as all organizations which show promise soon regress to mediocrity, which continues to be glorified. I can say without hesitation that the Vande Bharat, a subject I should know well as the project leader, was a proud first step toward an indigenous train set, but it was never the world-class marvel it is often portrayed as. We hoped that the technology would evolve rapidly through our own efforts toward higher speeds, greater reliability and better passenger amenities. Instead, it has multiplied to nearly 160 services with little meaningful improvement. Even a basic Sleeper version remains unfinished, though it should have been ready years ago. The only bright spot is the push for an indigenous high-speed train capable of 250 kmph, but even that arose not from a natural progression of capability, but from a failed negotiation with the Japanese.

I was happy to discover during a recent interaction with the leadership of a major multinational in semiconductor equipment, services and software that experts with deep insight into the sector think very much like I do. A large share of their IT and design work is already done in India, yet they have no domestic market. With India’s new push for semiconductor manufacturing, they see opportunity, but they also emphasise that true progress will come only when India develops its own design capability and intellectual property. Manufacturing alone cannot create a semiconductor ecosystem.

A strong manufacturing base is vital for growth and jobs. However, manufacturing that remains detached from design and development, as is often the case today, cannot make India a global force. Our pharmaceutical industry illustrates this point clearly. India produces more than twenty percent of the world’s generic drugs, yet depends heavily on imported ingredients and contributes little original R&D. We have capacity but only modest influence in the global value chain. Production increases output, but without embedded design and innovation, it does not create leadership.

The semiconductor landscape has become central to almost every modern technology. Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, electric mobility, renewable energy systems and telecom networks all depend on specialised chips. India’s demand for semiconductors is rising rapidly because of population growth, expanding digital services, the adoption of electric vehicles, booming consumer electronics and the rollout of 5G networks. The pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains when chip shortages paralysed automotive and consumer durable sectors. This disruption accelerated India’s resolve to localise semiconductor production. Transport and mobility alone now require a wide range of specialised chips, creating space for innovation that India must seize.

Policy support has improved substantially. The India Semiconductor Mission, backed by a large outlay, offers up to 50 percent capital support for fabrication units. The Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors provides a 25 percent incentive for photovoltaic polysilicon, wafers, solar cells, electronic components, subassemblies and e-waste recycling. The Production Linked Incentive scheme has boosted the manufacturing of mobile phones, components and semiconductor packaging. India’s semiconductor market, currently around 25 billion USD, is projected to grow at more than 15 percent, attracting entrepreneurs and investors who hope to build a more self-reliant supply chain.

Even with this momentum, India will not acquire the stature of China, Taiwan or Singapore through demand and manufacturing alone. Many global firms operate chip design centres in India and a large pool of chip design engineers works here, but this is design undertaken for others. India owns almost no significant chip design IP and its fabless ecosystem remains nascent. Manufacturing and design must develop together to create true technological depth.

India is at a crucial juncture. We have excelled in large-scale manufacturing and efficient service delivery, yet the engines of invention often lie elsewhere. Whether in electronics, mobility, renewable energy or digital platforms, we have long relied on technologies imagined outside our borders. This pattern must change if India is to claim genuine leadership in the global technology arena.

Artificial intelligence provides a revealing example. India is a major consumer of AI solutions and uses them in banking, taxation, agriculture, e-commerce and public service delivery. Companies everywhere are experimenting with chatbots, predictive tools and data analytics. Yet it remains difficult to identify an AI application created in India that has gained global traction or set a new benchmark. We remain enthusiastic users rather than influential contributors. Without ownership of underlying AI architectures and foundational modules, we will continue to rely on imported models and frameworks, limiting our role in shaping future innovation.

Microsoft’s announcement of a 17.5 billion dollars investment in India is undeniably encouraging. It promises better access to compute infrastructure, development platforms for startups, and AI tools for small businesses that once seemed far beyond reach. It signals that India is being positioned to be central to the next decade of global technology.

Yet major questions remain. India’s AI regulatory framework is still incomplete, infrastructure outside big cities is inadequate, and the talent pipeline may falter if skilling does not keep pace. Investments on paper must be matched by power reliability, coherent partnerships and policy clarity. Most importantly, these global investments should not result in India remaining only a user base and delivery centre. India must ensure that the excitement around foreign commitments does not overshadow the deeper goal. Real technological leadership will come not from deploying AI made elsewhere, but from designing and owning AI products and architectures conceived in India.

The story in hardware parallels the situation in software. India is one of the fastest growing markets for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, metro systems, medical devices and communication equipment. Yet many of the critical components that determine the sophistication of these products continue to come from abroad. Controllers, sensors, battery management systems, communication modules and advanced chips are sourced from global suppliers. In areas where India aspires to global reach, the strategic technologies remain outside national control.

Correcting this imbalance calls for more than enthusiasm for domestic manufacturing. It requires a firm commitment to original design, R&D and product development. Countries that dominate semiconductor technology or artificial intelligence did so through integrated ecosystems where design, fabrication, R&D and IP creation strengthened one another. India has the talent for a similar ascent. Our engineers and researchers are among the best in the world, and many start-ups are attempting breakthroughs in materials science, automotive electronics, deep learning, industrial automation and biotechnology. What we lack is an innovation chain that connects universities, research institutions, industry and investors into a coherent system that converts ideas into prototypes and then scales those prototypes into viable products.

A deeper challenge lies in the mindset that often prefers incremental improvement over bold breakthroughs. Too many Indian products are engineered as low-cost adaptations of global designs. This approach creates competence but not leadership. India’s real opportunity lies in creating solutions that address global needs in new ways. Our scale, demographic strength and wide diversity of use cases provide an unparalleled test bed. We must use it to nurture high-risk, original innovation rather than modest optimisation.

The essential principle emerges clearly. Nations that lead in semiconductors or artificial intelligence succeeded because design, R&D, IP creation and manufacturing functioned as a single reinforcing cycle. India’s manufacturing push must now be matched by an equally strong deep tech and chip design ecosystem. The next leap involves more than making chips or deploying AI. It lies in imagining, owning and exporting the technologies that the world will require next; the government must contribute not only through major investments but also by sharing risks with developers and tweaking fresh policy initiatives. When India closes this gap between production and invention, it will cease to be only a workshop for global needs and will become a workshop of global imagination.

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References:

 

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-indian-railways-fantasy-between.html

 

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/01/will-mediocrity-triumph-the-fallacy-that-will-not-die/

 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/the-ai-race-is-india-falling-behind/articleshow/123454073.cms?from=mdr