So where is India heading?

Not just tech, India has not produced a single world class brand in any sector or domain. Small nations like Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Scotland... have dozens of world class brands.

We seem to lack the capability, desire, vision or the ambition. How can we? Easy money to be made by extracting economic rent by selling mediocre products to captive consumers. Cronyism, regulatory capture, barriers to trade allows mediocrity to thrive.

In the 1960s when the Gulf region started to see a massive inflow of dollars, they were keen to build their infrastructure, and they turned to India. All our companies behaved so irresponsibly, unethically and shabbily that we lost their trust. We were eased out and replaced by Western contractors. And we were quite happy shipping our labour work force.

We had a great opportunity with genetic pharma off patent drugs exports to the whole world really. We have the highest number of FDA approved pharma manufacturing plants. No one has even made a remote effort to go up the value chain to invest in R&D to develop new molecules.

In the 1970s we had an open access to the USSR to export consumer products in exchange for defence equipment. Rather than to export stuff that they could use, all the politically well-connected business houses saw a tidal inflow of orders to export tea, soaps, detergents, medicines, rice and leather products. But because there were equal sloppy and corrupt bureaucrats at the other end, our folks started to literally ship sand and enjoyed windfall profits. It went on for years and rather than cease the opportunity to treat this as a gateway into Eastern Europe, our chaps continued in this malpractice. It came to an abrupt halt when the system collapsed.

We had a great opportunity with genetic pharma off patent drugs exports to the whole world really. This has gone on for more than three decades. We have the highest number of FDA approved pharma manufacturing plants. No one has even made a remote effort to go up the value chain to invest in R&D to develop new molecules.

We had similar opportunity in ITES. For close to three decades. We have remained mired in backend work, happy to work on proprietary platforms, but develop any one here. Internet, mobile, chips, AI... again happy to develop linear scale. The IT sector has benefitted enormously from the steady depreciation of the Rupee.

See the pattern over the last 5 decades. From where, how and why do we expect any better? Further, in each case just the promoters prospered. (In IT although ESOPs distributed the wealth among the employees).

But the top leadership did not go deep in their respective domains to build global excellence and brands that could be like Samsung, Lenovo, Haier... etc.

They ploughed their wealth in diversifying into other sectors only to enhance their personal net worth further.

One does not know which way we are headed. The no-hopers could argue that India probably has three million people from rural India employed as drivers. Does that imply that we have a large pool from which an F1 champion could emerge anytime?

And look at the irony. In Bengaluru, perhaps just across the road or a few blocks away would be GCCs where Indian talent was working on high end and cutting-edge tech areas. But if the silo is in your mind, how can you think laterally and work ambitiously at a global scale?

The Chinese did stop in their minds. And today look at the difference.

Where are we really? During Covid even Egypt refused to buy our wheat despite being in dire need. Why? Because we could not satisfy their phytosanitary standards. We cannot even produce generic minimum quality in food grains.

One does not know which way we are headed. The no-hopers could argue that India probably has three million people from rural India employed as drivers. Does that imply that we have a large pool from which an F1 champion could emerge anytime?

The optimistic lot among us would point to our successful homegrown Covaxin by Bharat Serum during Covid; the DPI, the Vande Bharat trains and track record of ISRO and DRDO.

Our future relies on the latter lot prevailing over the former!

By Vikas Kuthiala

The author is an Independent Angel Investor at Global Assure, Founder & MD at First India Assistance.

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in