India Needs Entrepreneurship 2.0

Our next-gen founders must be risk-takers, innovators and significant global players

- NITIN DESAI

The entrepreneurship that India requires must have two key characteristics. First, it must be willing to be innovative in the sense that it takes on new products and processes as part of its business. Second, it must be global in its marketing orientation so that it can compete with foreign suppliers in India and in global markets.

This was the case in the past. A very readable book by Lakshmi Subramanian provides useful information about entrepreneurship in the pre-Independence era. In Mughal times, innovation was not prominent, as it was a pre-Industrial Revolution era. What mattered was finance, where the rulers did not have enough control, and the finance and trading network was dominated by entrepreneurs. Two major examples of this are the banker Jagat Seth in Bengal and the trader Mulla Abdul Ghafur in Surat, who commanded an impressive fleet of ships and whose operations dominated the markets of West Asia.

India, in fact, was a major exporter to West Asia, where two large empires—the Safavid and the Ottoman—provided a lucrative marketing area. One must also recognise the economic boom, largely under private enterprise, during the Mughal era. In 1700, the peak of Mughal rule, India's share of the global gross domestic product (GDP) was 24 per cent, which dropped to 16 per cent by 1820. The decline became even sharper with the spread of the Industrial Revolution in the West.