Loading ...“Don’t be an Idiot, you can’t do business here”
This is the exact statement supposed to have uttered by Nandan Nilekani’s uncle when he announced that he and six others will start Infosys way back in 1981!!!!
I am just done with “Imagining India” by Nandan Nilekani. This book in a way has nothing to do with his experience of Infosys nor anywhere does he discuss about the same. I might have come across the term Infosys may be just few times in single digit in a book that spans 531 pages, and completing this book really tests your perseverance 
This is not a must book for upcoming entrepreneurs but definitely a book worth reading to get a complete perspective of India in possibly all different angles right from historical, to humanitarian, to financial to demographics to politics to green to almost every possible perspective you can think of. The coverage is so comprehensive that you wonder where Nandan found time to do this!!!
I strongly recommend this book for those who dream for a better India, Indian entrepreneurs to get a different perspective, and definitely all those who dream a slot in politics and Indian civil service. To be honest, the book is very interesting in few patches and a drag in few but then again all depends on your own liking of the subject I guess. (It took me almost three months to finish this book and no book has taken that long but at the end I am very happy that I did finish it).
I really liked some of the tidbits which I read in the book and will try and reproduce here, such as a politician telling Nandan that “I don’t see much upside talking to you – you’re neither good for notes nor votes” J His admission of being an accidental entrepreneur “I console myself that I am but an accidental entrepreneur, who if he had not walked into the office of the charismatic N.R. Narayana Murthy in late 1978 in search of a job would probably have at best languished in a regular nine-to-fiver while living in New Jersey suburb, taking the daily train to Manhattan”. Many such books and biographies I have read of successful entrepreneurs talking about an incident which made them one, an accidental entrepreneur. He also shares his fool hardy venture of creating Infosys as “When founders contemplated the idea of Infosys in 1981, I had no shortage of friends and relatives trying to dissuade me from joining such a foolhardy venture. Don’t be an idiot an uncle of mine told me. A startup will find it impossible to do business here. Two decades later however I was feted as a first generation entrepreneur!!! “
Some of the learning’s for me has been great from this book. Such as how demographics of countries can in particular way drive the country’s growth. People say there is a 4-2-1 population structure in China – four grandparents, 2 parents and one child and prediction is that will create a huge gray population and less working population which can create a havoc in the future growth of the country. How English language played a significant part in the career growth of some of the elite people in the 60’s,70’s and 80s which he says as “the role of English as a career language in independent India remained for a long time as one of the unspoken truths in our politics”. He strongly stresses to adopt (learn) to English as a career language. He also argues that English has grown so much within our culture that it may be too much to get rid of it. He notes that the language (English) gained a foothold in India as a result of the outsourcing of government jobs from Britain in 1844 (Now we know you started the whole business of Outsourcing first J).
By the way, one of his quotes really stuck me – “Europe at the time was considered so backward that exiles from the Mughal Empire were sent to that Continent, into the wilderness, among the barbarians-as punishment”. Few facts I learnt are interesting and would like to share here such as “China attracts more foreign direct investment (FDI) than Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) and is less entrepreneurial than India. Two thirds of China exports are by foreign Multinationals or Joint ventures mainly owned by Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Japanese and US companies (now you wonder who gets affected most by Obama’s tax bill – Not Bangalore so much so as Shanghai I guess !!! Mr. President you got your cities Wrong J).
The funniest comments I came across are from an employer telling in the hay days that “Give me two hands, I don’t care if a brain is attached. To an entrepreneur of an ice-cream parlor who taught English for his employees to serve customers better, actually quitting him and joining BPOs, to one of the academics during Mandal issue telling that this is not Democracy but democrazy.
There is a whole section which talks about our political system, history of it and way elections are conducted and he laments that India is getting on the wrong almost irreversible path because of the subsidies and says that our elections are virtually defined subsidy promises.
He talks about how the global economy and the flat world like a potluck where every country has to get something to the table. He also quotes about Tom Friedman saying “I don’t think that this century can belong to a country that censors Google”.
He touches the today’s hot topic too – recession and his take is that crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Crisis often gives countries a chance to innovate and make a fundamental change in our approaches to the economy, resulting in productivity leaps, sorter growth paths and development models that are superior to the existing ones.
He also talks about how an average Indian is shy of the stock market and how in a way is hurting our economic growth. The book says that “Our over-reliance on foreign flows holds us hostage to global trends. We should instead be making sure that our markets reflect our strong domestic fundamentals, by bringing our domestic savings in them. We have foreign capital hugely benefiting from our stock market, while Indians are being forced to invest in low-return government bonds. Even after steep falls in September 2008, a fund that had invested money in 2004 would have turned in good returns (compared to government bonds).
Coming to the green revolution, he states that India sustains around 17% of the world’s population, but accounts for only 2.4% of the world’s surface and 3.5% of the world’s fresh water resources, and our forest cover averages at 1/3rd that of US. He also states that “development which destroys the environment eventually destroys itself. I was really shocked when I read that Israel uses far less water than we do per hectare and still surpasses us in agricultural productivity. Shows how much water we use and worse with the absence of pricing for ground water, and pretty much free power (because of subsidies) to pump those ground water, most water is wasted. India is just 1/3rd canal fed and rest depends on ground water. Anyone can easily put one and one together. Good thing about India is, highly entrepreneurial and one where development has been bottom-up rather than China’s top-down, state driven model.
Talking about Power Energy or lack of it, he says it would be economically destructive for India to go all the way up in our oil consumption, and then be forced to come down. According to him India is facing a challenge that the developed world never did – of driving our growth around an entirely new energy model. Great thing about India opening up in the energy sector is that India’s private companies have discovered more gas in the last decade than the government did in the past sixty years. Also he points out that India has a unique advantage as it sits in the middle of a natural gas triangle, with Iran in the west, Russia in the north and the Indonesia gas fields in the east. In today’s economy, getting more value for every unit of fuel is very critical. India should build habits of efficiency into the fabric of the economy, and into the consumer behavior even as it develops. At the same breath he cites that the majority of Indian cities lack mass transit systems, the most energy efficient form of travel (I am hoping when our own Bangalore Metro will start and will junk my car for sure as soon as it starts!!!!). He also suggests about getting rid of subsidized fuels and imposing additional taxes and top it off with carbon tax. That way we can fuel the growth of more economical and more environmental friendly alternative energies. He suggests that from India’s perspective, biofuel remains one of our most promising alternative energy sources, especially for India’s rural sector.
He concludes with a high positive optimistic note about India’s growth despite all the negative trends that comes with our country. “It is a country that is young, impatient, vital, awake – a country that may finally be coming close to its early promise”.
The book is filled with such facts and figures, great quotes and lessons and advices from the experts in the given fields; some of the facts are startling. Great thing about this book is not just Nandan talking about India but he quotes from many experts from each of the filed he discusses which gives you a totally different perspective of every issue that is concerning with the development of our country, Unfortunately I cannot quote everything nor state every fact I came across, nor is the right idea either. Overall I feel a must read for those who genuinely believe that India is the country of this century and if they believe that they can make a difference in this regard. So pick up your copy, and read it - who knows you might be the person and the reason, for a better India tomorrow.
Manjunath M Gowda, S7 Software
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Comments
Manju, thanks for the detailed post
Well, I havent laid my hands on the book yet, but interesting to see the facts and quotes! I really like the observations made w.r.t China, how India is in the middle of a gas triangle and the rest!
Looks a good read, will surely catch up with a copy!
Cheers,
Paritosh
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5, rated)
Hi Manju,
I read Imagining India and it had a profound impact on me. I do not agree with everything up there, but I love the way ideas have been laid out and real problems unearthed.
I am sure it is a great read for everyone out there.
Regards
Abhishek