Rising to a Higher Level With Self-Reliance

There’s a passage of dialogue in a popular Bollywood movie, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge, where the lead actor making a winning move on the chess board is complimented on the achievement with the words, “You are a genius. In fact, you are Indigenius!” It is difficult to ascertain whether it was deliberately clever wordplay (since it also implied being a genius from a family of Indian origin, hence indigenous to the region), or an off-the-cuff remark made in a burst of enthusiasm.

In any case, somewhere it clicked and entered our unofficial dictionaries alongside words like Indi-pop (Indian pop music). That unique word, to some extent, resonates with the content theme for this issue of ELEVATOR WORLD India magazine — Atmanirbhar (self-reliant, self-sufficient) Bharat.    

The other reason for reminiscing about that film, released in 1995, is that it was also a year when the winds of liberalization were slowly making their way across India. Suddenly, brands and products hitherto only considered possible beyond its borders gradually began to make their presence felt. That phase successfully laid the foundation for a remarkable development of real estate and, simultaneously, vertical transportation (VT), as well. Since then, we have witnessed rapid progress across the spectrum, in almost every aspect related to both sectors.  

While the emphasis on “Make in India” and promotion of “Made in India” continues to grow, side-by-side, the question that has to be invariably posed at this juncture is, “Where do we go from here?” Manufacturers in India have been taking impactful steps along with tangible measures to ensure these terms are accorded their deserved respect and acknowledged as conforming to internationally specified quality standards required in the global markets going forward.

If one considers the VT sector alone, real estate project developers of this country appear to have gradually gained the confidence to say “yes” to Indian-made components, as well as end products. The next, logical step is to also increasingly target customers worldwide at a parallel level. The cream, as they say, always rises to the surface, and that adage best describes the brands that have built their reputations with sustained effort over the years. We now await their raising the established benchmarks even higher.