WHEN Prime Minister Narendra Modi first spoke about the concept of atmanirbharata, many mainstream economists criticized him for reverting to a discarded view of ‘import-substituting industrialization’. Part of the initial confusion about what he meant was based on the fact that many within the Sangh Parivar, led by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, had been critics of India’s economic liberalization programme after 1991. Even though the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took forward the trade and industrial policies initiated by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991-96, many in the. . .