Get a tech list to tick: Can India achieve true self-reliance without an evidence-based technology list?

Aatmanirbhar, read literally, is being dependent on oneself. Independence or self-reliance is a condition. Dependence on oneself is a capacity, built and maintained. The PM used the word in that sense in May 2020. 'When the country talks about self-reliance, it is different from being self-centred.' In August 2026, he said, 'We must systematically increase our own capabilities and securely protect our interests ourselves.' Capabilities, not walls. The direction is settled. A direction leads to a choice of road.

Results so far are not small. Three semiconductor plants are operational, as is National Quantum Mission. PLIs cover more than a dozen sectors. An indigenous 4G/5G stack has been deployed. Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) has been established by statute. Research, Development and Innovation Fund (RDIF) carries ₹1 lakh cr for R&D in private sector. India sits among the top 5 research nations in most technologies Australian Strategic Policy Institute tracks. GoI has shown it can move capability when it decides to.

Dependence on oneself for everything is not a capacity. It is a fantasy, and an expensive one. No country makes everything. So, the question is not whether to depend on others but for what. Which technologies can India not afford to depend on others for? The US, China, the EU, Britain, Australia and Canada have each answered that question with a list, and they arrange funding, export controls, investment screening and diplomacy around it. India has the instruments. But it doesn't yet have an evidence-based list.

Why does a list matter now?

Capability compounds: You learn it by doing, and you can't buy it off the shelf when the need arrives. Lead times in chips, engines and grid storage can run into years. So does addressing a denial. A list says where the clock has already started.

Tech leverage: Technology sovereignty has acquired a new dimension, and supply denial is now statecraft. In October 2022, the US cut off advanced chips and chipmaking tools to China. China responded with controls on gallium and germanium in 2023, and on rare earths and magnets in April 2025. Car plants on three continents stopped within weeks. Dependence is tolerable when suppliers are many. It is a liability when there is one. A list tells the two apart before the denial, not after.

Market won't generate the list: Private returns to deep research fall short of social returns, so firms underinvest. Technologies that matter most spill into dozens of industries that no single firm can capture. A list tells public and private capital where the state believes the constraint lies, and holds the state to that judgement.

Quantifiables: Every programme, every mission argues for itself being the most critical, and the sum of the parts is not a strategy. What is not measured, drifts. Three things should be measured:

Sovereignty risk: How concentrated the supply is, whether a substitute exists, and how fast one can be found.

Economic impact: How many industries the tech feeds and how quickly the import bill grows.

Private capital: Where investors already are, so that public money catalyses rather than substitutes.

The list should also ask where in the value chain India sits. Assembly and system integration are not materials, sensors, controllers and capital equipment. Being critical is not the same as being winnable. The list should also say which one is winnable.

Once the list exists, instruments should target it. ANRF can reserve part of its mission portfolio for technologies named. RDIF can issue directed calls against the list. Production-linked and design-linked incentives should reach the components on it, not only the finished goods.

Public buyers, in defence, railways and power, should use innovation procurement and advance market commitments to give the first domestic maker an assured order book. Each component could ideally carry an import-reliance target, reported every year. Most of these instruments were decided in the last two years. A common reference could strategise and bring coherence to all transformative schemes, as GoI has done in last few years.

Arthashastra lists what a treasury must hold, and in what quantity. It does not say hold everything. Kautilya understood that a store is defined as much by what it leaves out. Aatmanirbhar is the same idea. An evidence-based list of critical technologies can turn a portfolio of programmes and missions into a national strategy.