Atmanirbhar Bharat: Self-Reliant Defence

True sovereignty is not only the ability to defend your land — it is the ability to forge the means of that defence yourself. For decades India was one of the world's largest arms importers. Today, under the banner of Atmanirbhar Bharat ("self-reliant India"), it is working to change that.

From buyer to builder

India's drive for defence self-reliance spans all three services and many institutions — the design houses of the DRDO, public-sector giants like HAL and the shipyards, and a fast-growing private defence industry.^[1] The government has used measures such as "positive indigenisation lists," which progressively bar the import of items that can be made at home, to push the shift.

The results are increasingly visible: the indigenous HAL Tejas light combat aircraft, the home-built carrier INS Vikrant, a widening range of missiles, artillery and equipment — and a rise in defence exports, as India begins to sell, not just buy.^[1]

The roots of freedom lie buried in loss, every victory forged from what it costs.

Why it matters

Dependence on foreign suppliers is a strategic vulnerability: spares can be withheld, deliveries delayed, prices dictated, and political conditions attached at the worst possible moment. A nation that builds its own arms controls its own defence in a way an importer never can.

Self-reliance also builds jobs, skills and an industrial base — turning the act of defence into an engine of national development, binding "Jai Jawan" to "Jai Vigyan," the soldier to the scientist.

The deeper sovereignty

My poem The History of Sovereignty reflects on how dearly a nation's freedom is bought. Self-reliant defence is the modern continuation of that idea — the understanding that independence won in 1947 must be perpetually re-earned, not only on the battlefield but in the workshop and the laboratory.

A country that can feed itself, defend itself, and build its own shield is a country no one can easily bend. That is the quiet, ambitious meaning of Atmanirbhar Bharat — and it honours, in steel and circuitry, the same independence the soldiers in my book defend in snow and silence.