“AI Is A Labour-market Disruption, Not Covid Or Cancer”

MANISH SABHARWAL, Co-founder, TeamLease Services and co-author of ‘Made in India’, speaks to Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld, about his book, entrepreneurship, AI, education, succession and India’s 2047 opportunity

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Why did you write Made in India now, and why is Desh Bandhu Gupta’s story relevant today?

The book is a synthesis of three things I have long been obsessed with — why countries are poor, the role of institutions, and how policy treats entrepreneurs. The dismantling of the Licence Raj began in 1991, but it was not enough. China and India had the same per capita GDP in 1991, but today, China is five times ahead of India. I attribute this to how policy treated entrepreneurs.

After 1956, we murdered entrepreneurship. We nationalised banks, created small-scale industry reservations and made the government run businesses. But government should not be running businesses. It has a very important role, but it has to move from a tug-of-war relationship with entrepreneurs to a dance relationship.

DBG’s story helps reframe entrepreneurship. He grew up in a house without electricity or water, and had a lifelong limp because he could not afford medical care. Yet he built Lupin into a company that could make in India and sell to the world. Pharma and software show what India can do when policy and entrepreneurship work together.

You also knew him personally as your father-in-law. What stayed with you most?