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The Economic Times
The Economic Times
Shireen Hajra

Swadeshi 1.0 vs. Made in India 2.0: How India turned a 1905 boycott into a 2026 business strategy

In July 1905, Lord Curzon signed the decree to partition Bengal, inadvertently igniting a commercial firestorm across the subcontinent. Citizens emptied their cupboards of foreign trinkets, casting imported Lancashire cotton, British soaps, and imperial stationery into street corner bonfires.

The Swadeshi Movement did not merely ask Indians to make a political statement; it demanded an economic change.

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