The Self-reliant India and Development Trajectory Process: Emerging Regional Strategies in Sustainability Paradigm

Abstract

Development means to bring a kind of change and improvement in lives of humans and societies inhabiting settlements, areas and regions. The process has never been uniform in practice as humans live in varied places and manifest complex socio-cultural geographies. To improve life conditions is to provide for basic amenities and necessities. This requires coherence and integrated management of environmental conditions which are subject to unprecedented changes and effects. However, to a majority of people improvement in living status still persists as the bigger challenge in countries of the Global South. In India, the new economic policy-led economic reforms and subsequent increase in economic activities has had a greater pressure on the natural environment. In this backdrop, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a blended policy and strategy since it has bundle of targets to be achieved in order to address basic necessities of human population and maintaining society-nature relations. The performance of regions in the country in delivering SDGs has been a geographically variable phenomenon. The regional inequalities including social, economic, infrastructural, and environmental aspects are the emerging geographies of the post-liberalized India which need to be tackled under newer development policy. To check further exaggeration of environment and society-nature relations, and upholding position of a vibrant economy, the Self-reliant (Aatmanirbhar Bharat) approach of India is to strengthen planning, governance and management of sustainable development process more in an integrated regional development framework and utilization of indigenous resources. Study is based on secondary sources of data and information, this provides a constructive perspective in understanding regional performance of sustainable development and the role that self-reliant strategy is to play strengthening process of development in the country.