India enters the new year without the comfort — or the constraint — of a single doctrine

As the new year begins, many societies are reassessing their assumptions. Ageing populations, automation, and a global crisis of loneliness are forcing hard questions about how people live and work

The beginning of a new year invites a certain honesty. Resolutions are made not only by individuals, but by nations — sometimes explicitly, often through the choices they continue to make. The past few years have shown that growth alone is not enough, efficiency alone is fragile, and prosperity without belonging carries hidden costs. The question, as another year begins, is no longer just how societies grow, but how they hold together while doing so.

Most societies still lean instinctively towards one of two poles – individualism and collectivism. Some place the individual at the centre, celebrating freedom, competition, and personal ambition. Others privilege the collective, valuing order, stability, and social harmony. Both models have delivered results. Both now show signs of strain.

In highly individual-oriented societies, innovation and productivity have risen dramatically. Yet, the social consequences are becoming more apparent. In the United States, public-health authorities have warned that nearly half of adults report experiencing loneliness, despite material abundance and technological leadership. The lesson is not that individualism has failed, but that freedom without social anchoring exacts a psychological toll. At the other end, collectivist systems offer reassurance. Families, institutions, and social norms reduce uncertainty and soften risk. But over time, the same stability can harden into excessive caution. Risk becomes expensive, deviation scorned, and innovation incremental. Order is maintained, but renewal declines.

India enters the new year without the comfort — or the constraint — of a single doctrine. It never has. Instead, India has evolved a more adaptable balance, one where ambition is encouraged but not isolated; where competition exists but is cushioned by family, community, and the state. This balance is increasingly evident in how India thinks of development itself. Initiatives such as Make in India signal an embrace of enterprise, manufacturing, and global competitiveness — emphasising individual initiative and risk-taking. At the same time, the idea of Viksit Bharat is framed not merely in terms of GDP or rankings, but in terms of inclusion, dignity, and shared progress. Growth is expected to be broad-based, not merely spectacular. What makes this combination distinctive is the parallel expansion of welfare programmes. Food security, housing, sanitation, health insurance, and direct benefit transfers are no longer treated as residual safety nets, but as foundational structures. They absorb risk at the bottom, allowing aspiration at the top. In effect, they reduce the personal cost of failure — something purely individualistic systems rarely manage.

The numbers reflect this lived balance. Despite modest per-capita income, India today hosts well over 1.5 lakh recognised startups, making it one of the world’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystems, according to official government data and global ecosystem rankings. This is not innovation driven solely by capital or strong institutions. It is innovation made possible by social cushioning — families that share risk, communities that tolerate failure, and welfare systems that prevent collapse.

The structure of work tells a similar story. The International Labour Organisation estimates that more than half of India’s workforce is self-employed. Often described as an informal sector, this flexibility is central to India’s resilience. When shocks arrive — economic, technological, or personal — people adapt rather than fall out of the system altogether. Crucially, this embeddedness has not dulled ambition. Indian professionals occupy leadership roles across global technology, finance, medicine, and research. Debate remains noisy, norms negotiable, authority contested. Progress is uneven and dynamic; but stagnation is rare. India’s institutions remain imperfect, and its governance may be strained. Yet its social fabric is elastic. Rules exist, but improvisation is allowed. Belonging does not cancel ambition; ambition does not demand isolation. The tension between the self and the collective is not resolved — it is managed daily.

The author, an IAS officer, is a JDS Fellow at The Graduate School of Asia Pacific, Waseda University, Tokyo