India needs a Trishul (Three-Pronged) Development Strategy
India needs a Trishul (Three-Pronged) development strategy to regenerate and grow simultaneously its three core sectors: Agriculture, Industry, Services.
In the 80s, when I studied Economics at the French high school in Pondicherry, India, I was told all nations *invariably* go through a predictable and linear development pathway by evolving from a primarily agrarian society to an industrialized nation and then to a services-led “knowledge” economy.
To convince us of this theory, my French teachers gave the examples of European nations like France, the UK, and America where, over the past 3 centuries, the “primary” sector (Agriculture) gradually took a back seat to the “secondary” sector (Industry), which itself was overtaken by the “tertiary” sector (Services) which today contributes the most to Western nations’ GDP and employs the most.
But today, this linear development paradigm — at least the lofty belief in the ineluctable PROGRESS from agrarian -> industrial -> services economy — is being challenged as Donald Trump plans to massively revive the industrial sector in America, and European nations scramble to “reindustrialize” their economies.
What can India learn from all this ?
Rather than try to LEAPFROG from an agrarian economy to a services-led economy (as it has vainly tried to do since 1991), India must TRAILBLAZE a three-pronged (Trishul) development model which, over the next two decades, will simultaneously:
- upgrade India’s agricultural sector by leveraging both modern technologies (AI, IoT) and ancestral wisdom*
- decentralize India’s industrial sector by “scaling out” manufacturing across all districts**
- “glocalize” India’s services sector by leveraging online marketplaces and B2B Sharing platforms, but also turning tier 2–3–4 cities into innovation hubs ***
Just like the Trimurti (Triune Hindu Godhead), India needs to invest and grow all 3 sectors to become a *well-balanced* Viksit Bharat by 2047.
In the picture above, I show MULTIPLE Tridents to imply that this Triune Development Strategy of India must itself be DECENTRALIZED and ADAPTED to each region, state, and even district across India.
* To learn how to modernize India’s agriculture using modern technologies, read the excellent new FAO report.
** To learn how to decentralize and “scale out” manufacturing across all Indian districts, read my Sustainable Brands article.
*** To learn how to “glocalize” India’s services sector, stay tuned :-) I will be publishing ideas and proven best practices on it during 2025.
