I was visiting Northwest London, a region with one of the largest concentrations of the Hindu diaspora in Britain, during the auspicious season of Navratri.
The festival, celebrated with music, devotion, and community gatherings, signifies the triumph of good over evil, the victory of righteousness over arrogance, and the worship of the Divine Mother (Shakti) in her many forms — Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and others — embodying both the force that destroys injustice and the grace that nurtures creation.
Amidst this vibrant atmosphere, I found myself drawn into a conversation with a friend, in which I mentioned the forthcoming birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on 2 October. To my dismay, the response was dismissive yet candid: “Forget it here — most Gujaratis nowadays are deeply immersed in the Hindutvavadi pool of propaganda, and any mention of Gandhiji would be frowned upon.”
The remark stunned me. Not surprisingly, the irony was stark in that moment: a festival symbolising resistance to arrogance and evil seemed overshadowed by political narratives that undermine the very ideals Gandhi embodied — truth, non-violence, compassion, and moral courage. These were values not confined to his time, but principles meant to serve as the conscience of India across generations, including its diaspora worldwide.
As we commemorate Gandhi’s birth anniversary, it is worth pausing to recall the son of Mother India who never claimed to be a politician or a saint, but described his journey as nothing more than “experiments with truth.” In his simplicity lay his uniqueness, in his humility his greatness. He was more than the leader of a nation — he was an invaluable gift to humanity, a voice of conscience in an age when social justice, economic equity, and political morality were under trial. His message continues to cut through the noise of globalisation, reminding us that dignity, compassion, and the courage to resist injustice without violence remain the truest measure of civilisation.
As Gandhi himself reflected in his later years: “If I am true to my ideals, I shall speak even from my grave.” These words, preserved in his own writings and in the memories of those who stood close to him, still echo with undiminished truth today.
Crisis of Dependency in Contemporary India
As we celebrate Gandhi’s birth anniversary, our generation is reminded of the son of Mother India who rose above politics and sainthood, describing his life as “experiments with truth.” In his simplicity lay his uniqueness; in his humility, his greatness.
More than the leader of a nation, he became a gift to humanity — a voice of conscience in times when social justice, economic equity, and political morality were under trial. His words still pierce the noise of globalisation, reminding us that dignity, compassion, and the courage to resist injustice without violence remain the truest measure of civilisation. As Gandhi himself said: “If I am true to my ideals, I shall speak even from my grave.”
It is to this moral ground that we must return when examining the meaning of self-reliance. Gandhi’s Atmanirbharta was never a slogan but a social revolution. For him, the spinning wheel was not a quaint relic but a profound symbol of decentralised dignity. It restored economic independence to families, empowered the poorest villager, and became a moral weapon against foreign monopoly. Gandhi’s boycott of Manchester cloth was not only resistance to colonial economics but also a movement to protect India’s artisans, handloom weavers, and self-sufficient village life.
By contrast, under a decade of Hindutvavadi rule, Atmanirbhar Bharat has been invoked endlessly, yet the nation has drifted into deeper dependency. India’s trade deficit swelled from US$136 billion in 2013–14 to over US$265 billion in 2022–23, and touched US$26.49 billion in a single month of August 2025. With China, the imbalance is staggering: imports exceeded US$113 billion while exports were only US$14 billion, creating a deficit of nearly US$100 billion in 2024–25. From Russia, India imported crude oil worth US$61 billion in 2023–24 while exporting barely US$4 billion. More than 85 percent of crude oil is imported, largely from OPEC and Russia, leaving the nation exposed to global shocks. Even in food, the nation imports vast quantities of edible oils, pulses, and fruits, undermining farmers’ livelihoods.
These dependencies have crushed India’s productive backbone. Cheap imports and policy concessions have devastated small and medium enterprises, the very industries that once employed millions. The textile and garment sectors, once built around Indian cotton, have been undercut by imported yarn and synthetic fabrics. In February 2020, during Donald Trump’s state visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conceded further market access to American agricultural goods — including cotton — at a moment when India’s farmers were crippled by debt. In August 2025, his government suspended the 11% duty on cotton imports, favouring mills in the US while betraying India’s farmers. Such concessions strike at the very heart of Gandhi’s call to boycott Manchester cloth and protect India’s weavers.
The rhetoric of innovation is faring little better. While the government promotes “Make in India” and Digital India, much of the research, technology, and intellectual property is imported or owned by foreign entities. India’s mobile phone assembly plants rely heavily on Chinese components; its electric vehicle ecosystem is dependent on imported lithium-ion cells; solar panels, touted as symbols of green self-sufficiency, are sourced largely from China. Even in pharmaceuticals, India’s celebrated generic industry depends on bulk drug imports, particularly active pharmaceutical ingredients from abroad. Instead of fostering deep, home-grown research ecosystems, India has become a site of assembly and consumption, its policies shaped not by innovation but by global supply chains controlled elsewhere. The result is a fragile, superficial layer of manufacturing that leaves sovereignty compromised.
This dependency extends dangerously into defence — the very sector that defines sovereignty. Despite decades of rhetoric on defence indigenisation, India remains the world’s largest arms importer, accounting for about 11 percent of global defence imports between 2018 and 2022 according to SIPRI. Fighter jets, submarines, missiles, and even basic rifles continue to be sourced from Russia, the United States, France, and Israel. India spends billions annually on imported weapon systems while domestic defence R&D languishes at under 1 percent of GDP. This heavy reliance not only drains foreign exchange but also leaves national security hostage to external powers.
Gandhi’s self-reliance was meant to prevent precisely this — that the sovereignty of the Republic should never rest in the hands of outsiders. Instead, India’s inability to produce critical defence technologies has created a structural vulnerability, where the call for Atmanirbharta in defence masks a deep dependency on global suppliers.
Meanwhile, public wealth and natural resources are being concentrated in the hands of a few corporate families whose monopolies span energy, telecommunications, ports, agriculture, retail, and even media. Policy itself appears increasingly moulded to their advantage — through land acquisitions, mining leases, and privatisation of airports, coal blocks, and rail assets. The Republic’s sovereignty, won by generations of struggle, is being traded piecemeal to a new corporate elite. What emerges is not Gandhi’s vision of an India built on Gram Swaraj, but a Mark II version of the East India Company — a corporate colonialism sustained not by foreign powers alone but by collusion between the state and domestic oligarchs.
The fallout is visible in unemployment and poverty. MSMEs, which contribute nearly a third of GDP and employ more than 110 million people, have been throttled. Youth unemployment has soared above 20 percent in some states, while over 100 crore Indians live in economic insecurity, and 80 crore depend on free grain distributions to survive. Behind the triumphalist language of growth and national pride lies a silent crisis of livelihoods. Gandhi’s vision of spinning one’s own yarn and sustaining one’s own village has been buried under glossy slogans and imported goods.
The hypocrisy of the ruling elite is underscored by their rhetoric. On 21 September 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared: “A lot of products we use daily are foreign made, we just don’t know … we will have to get rid of them.” He urged Indians to stop using foreign-made products and instead “buy products that are made in India.” (Reuters, 21 September 2025). His words came at a time of heightened tension with the United States over tariffs, framed as a patriotic call to embrace self-reliance.
Just weeks earlier, on 27 August 2025, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, regarded as the ideological compass of the Hindutvavadi project, had similarly weighed in on the trade dispute, insisting that “international trade should happen voluntarily and not under pressure.” He added, “Being aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) does not mean halting imports … the world functions because of interdependence.” (The Economic Times/NDTV, 27 August 2025).
Yet these calls ring hollow after a decade of policies that dismantled domestic self-sufficiency and deepened India’s reliance on foreign imports from China, Russia, the Gulf, and Western corporations. Gandhiji’s historical boycott of Manchester cloth was a movement of principle that empowered the powerless by building an indigenous moral economy. By contrast, today’s boycott rhetoric is opportunistic, divorced from structural reality, and serves as little more than political theatre in an economy hollowed out by dependency.
Equally alarming is the surrender of India’s digital sovereignty under this decade of Modi’s administration. Policies heralded as “Digital India” have, in practice, entrenched dependency on foreign corporations for cloud storage, satellite communication, e-commerce, and social media platforms that mediate the daily lives of citizens. Giants such as Amazon and Walmart (Flipkart) dominate online trade, while Google and Meta monopolise communication and information flows, shaping not just markets but public discourse and electoral influence.
Microsoft and other U.S. firms control critical cloud infrastructure, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink projects are being courted to provide satellite internet — a move that risks ceding long-term control of India’s digital skies to a private foreign billionaire. Even in electric mobility, Tesla’s potential entry threatens to overshadow India’s fragile domestic EV ecosystem.
These trends extend beyond commerce. Data, the new oil of the global economy, has increasingly slipped into the hands of transnational corporations through regulatory concessions and opaque partnerships, while India’s satellite navigation, cyber-security, and 5G ecosystems remain heavily reliant on imported technologies.
This dependence not only grants foreign corporations economic leverage but also exposes India to vulnerabilities in a potential data war, where control of networks, servers, and communication grids by outside powers could compromise national security. The right to secure communication, to protect information flows, and to preserve citizens’ privacy — all hallmarks of sovereignty in the 21st century — are being steadily eroded.
The gravest danger, however, lies in the twin dependencies on China and Russia, whose growing strategic partnership has left India trapped in a perilous bind. Despite bans and political rhetoric, Chinese technologies remain deeply embedded in India’s communication infrastructure — from network switching equipment and submarine cables to satellite ground systems and defence communication modules. This creates vulnerabilities ranging from espionage and data interception to the possibility of shutdowns during conflict.
At the same time, Russia continues to supply over 60 percent of India’s military arsenal — aircraft, submarines, missile systems, and tanks — tying India’s defence capability to a single foreign source for spare parts, maintenance, and upgrades.
On their own, each of these dependencies is dangerous; together, they are catastrophic. With Moscow and Beijing now locked in a tightening strategic embrace, India’s sovereignty is caught in the vice of a bloc whose interests are increasingly at odds with its own. In a war scenario, including trade wars, India risks fighting with communication lines compromised by Chinese technology and weapons sustained by Russian supply chains — both potentially influenced by adversarial coordination.
Even outside open conflict, these dependencies curtail India’s diplomatic autonomy. Every assertive foreign policy move carries the shadow of economic and strategic retaliation from powers on which its survival depends.
This is not merely an imbalance of trade or industry but a compromise of sovereignty itself. Gandhi’s Atmanirbharta was meant to prevent precisely this condition — that the Republic’s freedom should never rest on technologies and arsenals supplied by those who might one day turn against it. Today, the illusion of self-reliance is belied by a reality where India’s most vital lifelines — its data, communications, and weapons — remain hostage to a Sino-Russian axis of leverage, while simultaneously being filtered through Western-controlled digital monopolies.
The illusion of prosperity is further darkened by mounting debt. The World Bank confirms that India’s external debt has crossed US$620 billion, while banking sector non-performing assets continue to swell despite repeated write-offs. At the same time, billions in black money stashed abroad in tax havens drain resources that could have funded schools, hospitals, rural employment, and social security. Instead of sovereignty, what we see is dependency; instead of empowerment, dispossession.
The economic burden of this rising debt is not confined to ledgers in Delhi or Washington — it seeps into the everyday struggles of citizens. Every rupee the government sets aside for foreign debt repayment is a rupee denied to classrooms, hospital wards, rural roads, and food security programmes. Servicing nearly a tenth of the government’s annual revenue, external debt repayments function as an invisible tax on the poor. The wealthy shield their assets abroad, and corporations enjoy policy concessions, but ordinary Indians bear the cost in rising indirect taxes, higher fuel prices, and shrinking welfare budgets.
For the middle class, the burden translates into eroding job security, stagnant wages, and inflation that quietly empties savings accounts. For farmers, it takes the form of collapsing crop prices under the weight of cheap imports, trapping them in cycles of debt and despair. For urban workers and small entrepreneurs, it is seen in the credit drought created by banks paralysed with non-performing assets. And for over 80 crore Indians surviving on subsidised grain, it reduces life to dependency on rations instead of the dignity of secure livelihoods.
Instead of generating secure, dignified employment within its borders, India has become increasingly dependent on the labour of its citizens abroad. More than 18 million Indians are currently living outside the country, making India the largest source of international migrants in the world (United Nations, 2023). Lacking opportunities at home, millions seek work in the United States, Europe, and the Gulf.
Their wages, earned under often precarious conditions, sustain India’s foreign exchange reserves: in 2022, India received US$111 billion in remittances, the highest in the world according to the World Bank.
This heavy reliance on the earnings of migrant workers is a stark reminder of the paradox of “Atmanirbharta”: while the rhetoric speaks of self-reliance, the reality is that India’s economy is propped up by the labour of its citizens abroad, whose remittances function as a substitute for the domestic employment that successive policies have failed to create.
This is the paradox of India’s growth story: while glossy statistics trumpet GDP expansion and stock market highs, the lived experience of the majority is one of vulnerability and dispossession. The state’s priority is no longer to secure the dignity of its citizens, but to reassure foreign creditors and serve corporate monopolies. Gandhi’s vision of Atmanirbharta was the opposite. For him, self-reliance meant weaving not just cloth but security, justice, and dignity into the very fabric of the nation. It was a shield for the weakest, not a mortgage of their future to the dictates of global markets.
Atmanirbharta, in Gandhi’s hands, was a lived practice of dignity — spinning, farming, sharing, resisting exploitation by creating self-sufficiency. In today’s discourse, it risks being reduced to a mask for dependency, authoritarian consolidation, and corporate capture. Seventy-seven years after Gandhi’s assassination, his warning echoes with painful clarity: freedom without self-reliance is hollow, and self-reliance without equity is a fraud. His spinning wheel, once an act of defiance against Manchester cloth, remains a timeless reminder that India cannot purchase sovereignty in foreign markets, nor outsource dignity to corporations, nor rent its safety from foreign armouries; it must spin all three — bread, dignity, and security — from within.
Epilogue
As the world stands at another crossroads of economic turbulence and political uncertainty, Gandhi’s voice speaks with unnerving relevance. His Atmanirbharta was not framed in the language of market shares or tariff barriers, but in the moral conviction that true freedom begins when the poorest can live with dignity. He insisted that self-reliance was not isolation but interdependence built on fairness, compassion, and the strength of one’s own labour. That vision was rooted in the Bhagavad Gita’s call to righteous action, and in the Upanishadic spirit of unity in diversity, yet it was deeply modern in its anticipation of global justice.
In contrast, India today finds itself ensnared by the very forces Gandhi resisted — foreign monopolies, corporate capture, debt-driven growth, and an economic model that privileges consumption over creation. The slogans of Atmanirbhar Bharat mask a hollowed-out reality: millions without secure work, industries dependent on imports, research outsourced, and sovereignty bartered for corporate wealth. It is here that Gandhi’s moral warning becomes prophetic. “If I am true to my ideals, I shall speak even from my grave,” he once reflected. And indeed, in the silence of India’s villages, in the anxieties of its unemployed youth, in the struggles of farmers betrayed by imports, his voice still resounds.
Eighty years after independence, India is confronted once more with the dilemma Gandhi named — whether to seek freedom through self-reliance or remain bound by chains, gilded but foreign. The crisis of dependency is not merely economic; it is civilisational. Gandhi’s spinning wheel was not only cloth but conscience. If our Republic is to avoid becoming a new colony of global markets and domestic oligarchs, then the lesson of Atmanirbharta must be reclaimed — not as rhetoric, but as living practice.
That is the unfinished task Gandhi leaves us with. Not statues, nor slogans, nor ceremonial anniversaries, but the hard labour of building an economy where sovereignty, justice, and dignity are not traded commodities but the birthright of every Indian. Only then will his grave be silent — not because his ideals ceased to speak, but because we finally began to listen.
As a member of the Indian diaspora, to question the abandonment of Gandhian principles of self-reliance or Nehruvian economic planning through the Panchvarshi Yojanas — Nehru’s Five-Year Plans for ecological and industrial development — in today’s climate often risks being branded as “anti-national.” Yet the danger lies not in recalling those ideals but in forgetting them. Gandhi’s Atmanirbharta was rooted in dignity for the poorest, while Nehru’s plans sought to translate political freedom into economic sovereignty by building industries, research institutions, and public sector enterprises insulated from foreign dominance.
Both visions, though expressed in different idioms, converged on one truth: without economic independence, political freedom would remain fragile. By contrast, the Hindutvavadi — the Modivian economic and trade model, celebrated in rhetoric — has left India in the past decade deeply dependent on foreign technology, capital, and commodities. To raise these concerns is not to weaken the nation but to defend it, for the sovereignty of India’s economy, defence, and trade must always come first — above partisan slogans or ideological convenience.
Based in the UK, Buddhdev Pandya MBE is a prolific writer from a freedom-fighter heritage. His works include Gandhi: My Hero and Essential Truth of Hinduism. He was honoured with the title of Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Queen of the UK in 1995. A version of this article was published as Thoughts of the Day on October 2, 2025
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