The India We Are Building: The Future of Policing, Security, and Global Strategy for Viksit Bharat @2047

By Mohit Garg, PGP 2012

From Vision to Execution

When we speak of Viksit Bharat @2047, the conversation naturally gravitates towards factories, fintech, and foreign trade. But no nation has built prosperity on contested ground. Security, internal and external, is the invisible infrastructure on which every other ambition of this republic rests. Having served through some of the most challenging years of India’s internal security landscape in Chhattisgarh, I have witnessed how policing and security architecture are quietly transforming, and why this transformation is as central to Viksit Bharat as any highway or semiconductor fabs.

The Bastar Story

For nearly four decades, the Bastar region symbolized the limits of the Indian state’s writ. Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) was not merely a law-and-order problem; it was a governance vacuum exploited by an armed insurgency. The turnaround we are witnessing today did not come from force alone; it came from a doctrinal shift.

The National Policy and Action Plan, guided by the SAMADHAN framework — Smart Leadership, Aggressive Strategy, Motivation, Actionable Intelligence, Dashboard-based KPIs, Harnessing Technology, Action Plan for each theatre, and No access to financing — meant new Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) were pushed deep into erstwhile “liberated zones,” followed immediately by roads, mobile towers, schools, PDS shops, banking and health centres.

The numbers reflect this shift. LWE-affected districts have fallen dramatically over the past decade, and for the first time in a generation, government offices are opening in areas once considered inaccessible even to security convoys. Surrender-and-rehabilitation policies, backed by skill training and livelihood support rather than mere amnesty, have turned adversaries into stakeholders. 

Technology as the New Force Multiplier

At the heart of Viksit Bharat lies the transformation of India’s internal architecture—its governance models, infrastructure, and human capital. Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has revolutionized public service delivery. Transparency and accountability are no longer bureaucratic buzzwords; they are integrated into daily administration, bridging the gap between the state and the citizen.

The next decade of policing will be defined less by boots on the ground and more by the intelligence that guides those boots. Drone-based surveillance now routes around ambush-prone stretches that once cost units dearly. Satellite imagery and GIS mapping identify camp movements before a foot patrol is even planned. Facial recognition and data fusion across state and central databases are collapsing the time between a tip-off and actionable response from days to hours.

Equally important is the human intelligence architecture. District Reserve Guards (DRG) recruited from local, often tribal communities, combine terrain knowledge with combat training in a way no outside force ever could. This localization of security forces is, in effect, an employment and empowerment programme as much as a tactical innovation.

“Made in India, Made for the World”: The New Global Footprint

India’s growth story is no longer inward-looking. Across manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and finance, Indian capabilities are scaling global value chains.

• Resilient Supply Chains: As global economies diversify their dependencies, India is emerging as a trusted, reliable manufacturing and logistics hub.
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Our startup ecosystem is solving complex domestic challenges while simultaneously exporting scalable technological solutions to emerging and developed markets alike.
• Indigenous Defense Manufacturing (“Made in India for Global Defence”): India is rapidly shedding its legacy as the world’s largest defense importer. Through indigenous production of platforms like the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, Prachand Light Combat Helicopters, advanced artillery systems, and next-generation naval destroyers, our tactical capabilities are entirely home-grown. This insulates our strategic supply chains from geopolitical shocks.
• Global Public Goods: From vaccine diplomacy to sharing our digital stack (UPI, Aadhaar) with partner nations, India is positioning itself as a provider of global public goods, championing the Global South.
• Projecting Regional Security: India’s defense evolution has elevated its role as a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia. Joint military exercises, defense exports to friendly nations, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations underline our capacity to project stable, reliable power internationally.

The Road Ahead

A Viksit Bharat cannot be built on ground where the state’s authority is contested or where citizens live under the shadow of violence. To realize the full potential of Viksit Bharat, alumni, policymakers, and security leaders must champion three critical pillars:

1. Institutionalizing Civil-Military and Inter-Agency Synergy: Bridging the gap between police intelligence, central paramilitary forces, intelligence agencies, and corporate technology providers to counter hybrid and asymmetric threats.
2. Accelerating Defense R&D: Deepening collaboration between premier institutions like IIMs/IITs, DRDO, and private defense tech startups to dominate future battlefields involving robotics, quantum computing, and autonomous systems.
3. Sustaining Inclusive Development in Border and Remote Areas: Ensuring that economic growth reaches the last mile, making local populations stakeholders in national security.