Industry 2025: Time to pivot

THE world is no longer predictable. Wars in Europe and West Asia drag on. Supply chains are weaponised — from chips to APIs to energy. Tariff walls rise faster than agreements. The WTO limps; our neighbourhood — the Gulf, Pakistan, China — adds its own risk premium.

Nor is India alone. The United States shields its industries with tariffs, and now H-1B. Europe deploys carbon walls, Africa grapples with dependence, and ASEAN struggles with supply chain fragility. Each geography seeks insulation; only those who build inner resilience can offer stability to others.

Atmanirbharta as compass

For India, survival is no longer enough. Atmanirbharta is not a slogan but a mission: a country dependent on others for its core needs cannot claim autonomy in a fracturing world.

This is why the Finance Minister’s call to industry carries unusual urgency: invest and pivot.

Globally, Industry 4.0 is shorthand for smart factories, automation and digital integration. For India, it must mean something deeper. Industry 4.0 is our own compass — Inquiry, Inclusion, Investment, Innovation.

Inquiry in classrooms must breed creators, not imitators. Inclusion should unlock the widest talent pool. Investment must treat profits as seed corn, not disposable cash. Innovation should build ownership instead of paying royalties. This is not the West’s Industry 4.0, it is India’s version, rooted in conscience and scale, aimed not just at efficiency but to inclusivity devoid of crutches.

Breaking the vicious cycle

Margins are thin because scale is weak, and scale weak because purchasing power is low. The way out is global markets with higher margins, comparative advantage and reinvestment into R&D.

Our much-celebrated IT industry is another case: a high-margin business that prefers to return cash rather than build translational AI models. The result: leadership in services but not in global products.

The mirror

Too often, we mistake volume for value. We celebrate scale, but not substance.

India assembles cars, yet no indigenous 300-350 HP engine has gone commercial. Railways still relies on foreign-designed diesels. Defence shells without power plants. Strategy cannot ride on borrowed transmission chains and horsepower.

A Stanford study ranks India fourth in AI vibrancy, engineers flood GitHub, discourse is active, skills abundant. But in patents, investment, infrastructure and foundational models, we lag. We contribute to AI, but do not own it. Vibrancy without platforms is dependency.

This is the mirror: horsepower borrowed, chips outsourced, APIs dependent, telecom leased, batteries bought. A nation of engineers still running on royalties.

The choice is stark: to persist as an IT service economy without its own products, and a hard-engineering base running on borrowed parts; or to pivot to inquiry, innovation and ownership.

Not without success

This is not failure alone. When inquiry, investment and resolve align, India delivers.

- ISRO put probes on Mars and the Moon at a fraction of global cost.

- Aadhaar, UPI, CoWIN show digital inclusion at scale.

- Despite API dependence, pharma made India the world’s trusted generics supplier.

- Unicorns in fintech, logistics, SaaS prove entrepreneurial fire.

- Mission for 6G, though nascent, and Quantum, both on the way.

These successes prove the point: when policy, profit and shareholder value align, India performs. The pivot is not just technical but mental. Dependency cannot remain strategy; innovation must.

Time to pivot

Industry cannot be a bystander. It must be co-traveller, not passenger. The state can de-risk, but only industry can take the risk. Shareholders must see themselves not only as collectors of quarterly returns, but as partners in a 25-year journey. Each rupee of profit is not an end, but a passport to global presence. The nation’s comparative advantages, scale, talent, geography mean little if companies aim only to survive. They must aspire to lead, co-invest with the state and carry the flag abroad.

They have the responsibility in shaping the nation’s arc. The mirror is harsh, but it is also generous: it shows a vast, unfinished canvas. The call is not to retreat behind tariffs but to venture into global markets with confidence. If industry travels this path, it does so not alone but alongside policy, capital and people. Together, this quartet forms the true engine of Atmanirbharta.

Industry is not being summoned to serve policy; it is being invited to script history; and bring in the tide that raises all boats.

Learning from global practice

Apple, Microsoft, Google plough billions into risky research; the few wins lock in leadership. Amazon reinvests in logistics and cloud. Huawei and BYD build ecosystems in telecom and mobility. Israel turns defence R&D into startups. Everywhere, profits are treated as seed corn, not disposable dividends.

Unlocking advantage: Where policy, shareholders & capital unite

This is where India’s true edge lies: policy and capital acting in concert to build global players, not domestic survivors. If both sides rise to this compact, India’s advantages will no longer turn ironic; they will be iconic, compounding into returns, resilience and reach.

A yearly “conscience call” should stand beside quarterly results, measuring inclusion and responsibility.

Policy must de-risk

Policy must:

- Reward long-term R&D, not just capital expenditure.

- Co-invest through sovereign innovation funds.

- Simplify regulation so startups build, not drown in compliance.

- Guarantee swift IP protection.

- Ready Indian exports for carbon tariffs.

- Channel pension and insurance funds into innovation capital.

- Lay down norms; benchmark companies; incentivise compliance; scale up the willing and performing firms into global players.

The clarion call

This is a call for all hands on deck — policy, academia, scientists, entrepreneurs and veterans who can transit from uniform to seed unicorns. Atmanirbharta here is not exclusion but creation: a knowledge powerhouse that is non-invasive, inviting, sharing and caring.

India’s industry has always risen when the world doubted, in Y2K, in the IT boom, in digital public goods. Today, the doubt is within: are we content to assemble and re-label, or will we design and own? The answer will not come from policy alone, but from boardrooms that choose civil courage over comfort (exceptions apart).

Blessed by geography, we anchor the global maritime lifeline in the Indian Ocean; powered by demographics of age and scale; held by a civilisational unity-in-diversity. With both successes and failures as proof, it is time to pivot. No nation of our size and talent is better placed to lead the Global South. Industry’s unique opportunity is not just to ride the highway to 2047, but to lay its stones, test its spans, and open its toll gates to the world.

Lt Gen SS Mehta (retd) is ex-Western Army Commander and former DG, Confederation of Indian Industry.