IT was in May 2020 that Indian Prime Minister Modi made a clarion call for a Bharat that was "Aatmanirbhar". It is important to clarify what this meant and what it did not. While a rough translation of the word is no doubt "self-reliant," it is nevertheless not the kind of self-reliance that India arguably believed and practiced in the early years of its independence up until the '70s and '80s. It is easy to state what it is not. It is certainly not autarchy; it is certainly not inward-looking; and it is most certainly not stopping imports and making every product at home. It may be more prudent to think of "Aatmanirbharta" as Self-Reliance 2.0.

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