I argue that in India you cannot be against the state. That would be madness … But the state should not be running five-star hotels, which it is still doing. – Hindol Sengupta
Thanks to NPR z(USA) for this review of a book that helps those of us working in India get a better grip of what we see around us. It is likewise an invaluable guide for those observing from afar the vibrant new economics of this ancient mix of cultures, all wrapped up in the largest democracy on earth:
It takes almost a month to get permission to start a business in India — a feature of the country’s four-decade experiment with centralized, state-controlled economic planning.
India began moving away from its old policies and opening up to outside investment in the early ’90s — but that movement towards a free market economy has happened in fits and starts, and is far from complete.
Hindol Sengupta is an editor-at-large with Fortune India, the magazine’s India arm, and he’s written a new book about the policy shift: Recasting India.
When I sat down with him in New Delhi, he told me that India’s greatest economic battles “are being recast, the debate is being reframed” away from the longstanding idea that India’s protracted problems can only be solved by its government.
Sengupta says that while it has an important role to play, “the government is not the only institution that can solve India’s problems. Society and enterprise have a huge role to play. But the role of enterprise and entrepreneurs has never been given its rightful place. So I went looking for the extraordinary enterprise of ordinary people.”
One of the “extraordinary enterprises” in your book is run by a Kashmiri woman who has restarted an ancient form of carpet weaving, traditionally done by the lower castes.
She can’t tell her parents that she is doing this, yet she is being recognized by the government as an entrepreneur. The young woman is battling and breaking barriers that are old and hardened. That’s extraordinary. What we need to do is allow these small entrepreneurs to flourish. Especially since, as my book shows, entrepreneurs are tackling and trying to solve some of India’s most vile problems — from militancy in Kashmir to domestic labor and caste.
Are these enterprises going to recast India because they’re reaching sections of society — like this woman in Kashmir — that would not be reached otherwise?
I would say, with qualifications, yes. Look at our history: India has always been an entrepreneurial society, except really during the colonial period. Such businesses have always existed. Enterprise in India is an integral part of our story, except we’ve forgotten that story.
I am arguing that there is an inherent entrepreneurial drive in India which is stifled by the state, and the state should continue to play its role — but the state should also allow this entrepreneurial drive to come out.
Read the whole review here.
Organikos 