Empowering India's Journey to Self-Reliance

Make for India serves as a centralized platform for discovering indigenous innovation. Our simple goal is to highlight high-quality Indian alternatives to global brands, enabling consumers to support the domestic ecosystem through informed choices.

The Swadeshi Movement began as a fight for political sovereignty. Today, it has matured into the economic framework of Atmanirbhar Bharat. This evolution isn't about isolation but about building world-class capabilities within India to serve both local and global markets.

Strategic Impact

• Economic Sovereignty — Reducing dependence on critical imports strengthens national resilience and ensures economic stability against global shifts.
• Innovation — Supporting local enterprises funds the R&D needed to create globally competitive products and drives technological self-sufficiency.
• Employment — A thriving domestic manufacturing and digital sector creates sustainable, high-quality jobs for India's growing workforce.

The Power of Choice

Adopting a #VocalForLocal approach is a direct investment in India's future. Every purchase decision shapes the economy. Prioritizing Swadeshi products builds the foundation for a resilient, self-reliant nation.

Our Philosophy

Make for India balances national pride with honest evaluation. Supporting Swadeshi products doesn't mean accepting mediocrity or ignoring reality. We're optimistic about India's capabilities, not blind to its current limitations.

"Made in India" means different things. Domestically manufactured products, Indian-owned companies with global operations, startups building for local needs, and legacy businesses modernizing for contemporary markets. In the best case, Indian innovation refers to products built with care, engineering excellence, and genuine value creation that can compete globally. In the worst case, it refers to rebranded imports or substandard offerings wrapped in nationalist sentiment.

We feature products of any scale while maintaining rigorous standards. Our curation process isn't perfect, and we're learning as we go. Rather than claiming comprehensive coverage or absolute authority, Make for India is a starting point for discovering alternatives you might not have known existed.

Extreme positions either dismissing all Indian products as inferior or blindly promoting everything local won't move the ecosystem forward. We favor a critically optimistic view. The goal isn't to convince you that every Indian product is the best choice, but to ensure you know your options and can make informed decisions.

What We Are & What We're Not

Make for India is a discovery platform. We celebrate Indian innovation while acknowledging where gaps remain. We don't shame anyone for using foreign products or suggest buying local is always the right choice regardless of quality or fit.

This platform is not anti-foreign or anti-globalization. India's economy thrives through global integration. Many entrepreneurs we feature have built businesses by learning from international best practices, partnering with foreign firms, or serving global markets. What we promote is the existence of choice and awareness that Indian alternatives exist across categories where they previously didn't.

We're not a marketplace or review site. We don't sell products, take commissions, or guarantee that everything listed meets your needs. Our role is curation and visibility, connecting people with options they can evaluate for themselves. The products we feature range from world-class and globally competitive to promising but still maturing. We try to be transparent about where each falls on that spectrum.

How We Define "Swadeshi"

We generally include companies that are majority Indian-owned, headquartered in India, conduct significant R&D in India, or manufacture primarily within the country. We also feature products built specifically for the Indian market even if the parent company has international ownership, particularly when they employ substantial Indian teams and contribute meaningfully to the local ecosystem.

What we exclude are rebranded imports with minimal Indian value addition, foreign companies with token Indian presence, or products that merely assemble components without genuine innovation or manufacturing depth. Modern supply chains are intricate, and very few products are 100% indigenous from raw materials to finished goods.

Some might argue our definition is too inclusive, others too restrictive. We've chosen pragmatism over purity because supporting India's economic growth means recognizing that integration with global systems is inevitable and often beneficial, provided the value capture and capability building happen domestically.

Why This Matters

Supporting domestic innovation isn't purely an economic calculation. It's about building institutional knowledge, creating reference customers for emerging companies, developing talent pools around promising sectors, and establishing the infrastructure for long-term competitiveness. When you choose an Indian product and provide feedback, you're not just making a purchase, you're participating in a feedback loop that helps that company improve and grow.

The psychological impact matters too. For decades, many Indians internalized the belief that local products were inherently inferior. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy as talented people avoided building for domestic markets, viewing them as second-tier opportunities. Breaking this cycle requires demonstrating that Indian products can be first-choice options, not just fallbacks for price-conscious buyers.

Building for Global Impact

The most exciting Indian products aren't just serving domestic markets, they're building solutions that work in India's challenging conditions and then scaling them globally. India's infrastructure constraints, price sensitivity, and scale requirements create a forcing function for innovation. Products that succeed here often have advantages when expanding to other emerging markets and sometimes even developed ones.

We're particularly interested in products that started by solving Indian problems and then discovered their solutions had global relevance. This pattern, seen in everything from payment systems to education technology, represents a new model where India isn't just catching up to the West but potentially leapfrogging it in certain domains.

About Us

Make for India is an independent project, not affiliated with any corporation or government initiative. The goal is straightforward. Make information accessible so people can make informed choices.

Make for India is built by Abhimanyu Rana (@planetabhi), a design engineer based in Gurugram, India. For suggestions, feedback, or to submit a new product, open an issue here. Help us spread the word!