Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s economic resilience, as highlighted in RBI’s October 2025 Bulletin, is impressive. But sustaining this momentum requires caution as much as confidence. The central bank’s assertion that the economy remains steady despite global turbulence is encouraging.
Yet policymakers and businesses must remember that resilience is not permanent — it must be actively nurtured through disciplined fiscal management, targeted structural reforms, and strategic skill development to maintain competitiveness.
“The Indian economy displayed resilience amidst broader global uncertainty and weak external demand,” the RBI has noted. Low inflation, robust corporate balance sheets, ample foreign-exchange reserves, and credible fiscal and monetary frameworks have provided the foundation. Governor Sanjay Malhotra emphasised that this balance allows monetary policy to support expansion while keeping inflation in check, giving the economy room to absorb shocks.
Domestic demand, particularly from urban revival and resilient rural consumption, has kept growth engines running. Government capital expenditure continues to stimulate investment, crowding in private participation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has pointed out that this resilience is the outcome of a decade of structural reforms, fiscal prudence, and infrastructure creation. International agencies, including the IMF and OECD, have noted India’s capacity to maintain high growth despite weaker global demand.
Yet, caution is warranted. Global headwinds — weak external demand, trade-policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, and potential capital outflows — remain real threats. Economists stress that reliance on consumption alone cannot ensure long-term growth. Former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian observed that the next phase must be investment-led. Increasing private sector capital formation, alongside infrastructure spending, will be crucial for productivity gains, technology adoption, skill enhancement, and sustainable job creation.
The RBI’s positive signals are valuable for business confidence.Industry leaders note that predictability in policy encourages long-term commitments. Foreign investors too are reassured; bankers emphasise that India’s combination of high growth and stability is increasingly rare globally. But confidence must translate into policy consistency, investment incentives, and reforms to enhance manufacturing competitiveness, logistics efficiency, digital adoption, and financial market depth.
Small and medium enterprises, the backbone of India’s employment, also benefit from a stable macroeconomic environment. Access to reasonably priced credit and protection from inflation shocks allows them to expand and innovate. For large corporates, stability underpins expansion planning and global ambitions.
India’s resilience is a platform, not a guarantee. Sustaining growth demands vigilance, forward-looking reforms, and continuous adaptation to global and domestic challenges. As Finance Minister Sitharaman aptly put it, “Robust domestic consumption is a bulwark against external shocks.”
But building on that bulwark requires reinforcing investment, productivity, competitiveness, innovation, and skill development across India has proven it can navigate turbulent global waters. The next test is ensuring that resilience evolves into enduring, broad-based growth — anchored in strategy, innovation, proactive policymaking, sustained private investment, skill development, technology adoption, and institutional reforms, as much as in optimism.
India has proven it can navigate turbulent global waters. The next test is ensuring that resilience evolves into enduring, broad-based growth — anchored in strategy, innovation, proactive policymaking, and sustained private investment as much as in optimism.