The
launch of the "Start-up India, Stand-up India" programme unveiled by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Jan 17, 2016 is much awaited brick for India’s
economic transformation and growth. The way, Prime Minister unfolded the
initiative is conveying an important message to our knowledge work force. Prime
Minister could connect to internal conscious talk experienced almost by every
experienced professional. He stated “Each of us, at certain point in time in
the past, must have associated with our intuitive instincts and wanted to do
something really new. However, as most of us could not meddle with the reality,
only few of us could walk to the last mile and converted our intuitive thoughts
towards reality”. This is where he stressed the need for our strong conviction to achieve despite
the possible odds and referred the Uber’s success story. Prime Minister’s depth
behind this cognitive statement is certainly touching the depth of our conscious
to associate with out-of-box solutions and become entrepreneurs. This is where PM
positioned his start up concept and asked India to stand up on it.
At
this juncture, it is worth understanding the backdrop of India’s economic
growth journey to learn the underlying forces that led to what we are today. Indian
economic growth is unfolding similar to Japanese martial art concept
“Shu-Ha-Ri” where “Shu” stands for
“Protect or learn the fundamentals under able hands”, “Ha” stands for “Breaking with tradition or Taking exceptions to
the preset rules” and “Ri” Stands
for “Leave or separate to innovate”.
Japanese martial art asks individual to learn this art using this concept. Post
our independence, if we retrospect, three major planning strategies have
influenced nursing of our economy growth trajectory similar to Japanese martial
art “Shu-Ha-Ri”.
“Shu-“: Indian government through
“Nehru-Mahalanobis” model established excellent economic foundation through emphasizing
rapid development of heavy industry so as to create an industrial base so that
India becomes self-reliant in the capital goods sector. Public sector was given
the responsibility to develop it since private sector was not willing to invest
in heavy industry which required lumpy investment, had a long gestation period
and low profitability.
Gandhian
model of growth later tried to strengthen our economic foundation through rapid
development of agriculture and small scale industries. Village and small
industries were emphasized from the point of view of production as well as
employment. Though, this model tried to seed strong roots like employment
oriented planning, it could not turn the goals into reality due to short stint
of Janata party government.
“Ha-“: It is the stage where government reflected
on the laws and brought in necessary exceptions to empower privatization
through “Rao-Manmohan” model of growth in 1991. It emphasized privatization and
globalization of the economy. It succeeded in opening hitherto reserved areas
to the private sector. It abolished licensing in all industries except a small
list of 18 industries. It freed MRTP (Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices)
companies from the ceiling limit. Foreign Direct Investment was facilitated.
Automatic approvals upto 51% of the equity was given. Public sector companies
were given autonomy to improve their growth and productivity.
“Ri-“: This is the stage where government wants to leave the future
economy outlay to experienced hands of India’s knowledge working class to try
something new and transform Indian economy. Our technology is touching 1.5
billion people every day. We have million problems at hand to solve.
India’s
knowledge workers indeed gained entrepreneurial skills since last 25 years through
partnering with foreign counterparts in various domains. We, the Indians,
certainly contributed to innovations and improvements across the globe being the
employees of large or middle scale corporate sectors. When we reap corporate experience
closer to 20 years, most of us may associate with intuitive insights and may
want to contribute to continuous improvement or innovation around us leveraging
our experience and intuition.
Today,
common man is impacted with distorting influence and growing grip of corporate
world. Corporate sector to a great extent reaping profits at the cost of common
man fundamental needs and natural resources.
Let
us take education as an example. When most of the intellectual class is
attracted to corporate sector, we see dearth for passionate and qualified
teachers in colleges and schools for the past 20 years. So far, India is known
to the world by its intellectual knowledge workers it produced. For the past 20
years, our education system is becoming marks securing operation contrary to our
erstwhile educational values and conceptual foundation. We certainly need to
fix this gap. Otherwise, ours current strength becomes future weakness.
Experienced and intellectual class need to think about this and contribute our
bit to save our future generations.
Let
us take healthcare as another example. Vaidyo Narayano Hari (Doctor is
equivalent to God)” was the faith rested on Doctors by our elder generations
when we had limited facilities and knowledge in olden days. With advent of new
technology, tools, depth of knowledge and skills, we expect our healthcare
sector to go leaps and bounds in servicing the mankind. Corruption and
unethical health care practices has irked current mankind in India to such an
extent that we need a culture where “number of rational and ethical doctor
should grow and it becomes national movement”. We may justify our experienced pain
when we go through the findings of the report titled, "Voices of Conscience
from the Medical Profession: Revealing testimonies by rational doctors about
the reality of private medical practice in India" has been put together
and published by SATHI (Support for Advocacy and Training to Health
Initiatives). In essence the sensitive “Trust Layer” between Doctor and
“Patient” communities has been consistently tested in the past 15 years on the
negative side. There is need to participate in India’s much needed national
movement for “building more number of rational and ethical doctors” for better
tomorrow through setting right culture. Society requires innovative solutions
in this space.
Today,
common man needs basic rights that include hygiene water, genuine medicine,
humane doctor, good teacher etc. Twenty years before, common man never felt
these needs as these were abundant and implicitly available. “Profit reaping”
private sector and “fixed mindset” public sector today are keeping future
generations in big void. This is where small scale industries (especially
start-ups) need to step up and re-engineer solutions with noble service
mindset. In this process our nation prospers and economy grows. When
“Start-ups” stand up to societal needs, India prospers towards nobler goals and
economy transforms to higher heights.
Prime
Minister’s ray of sight is exactly invoking India’s knowledge class to stand up
to this point and contribute value to the society. This is where Modi said
“Seeing is believing”. Enabling
start-ups is like sprinkling innovative solutions on various part of our land
where private sector and public sector cannot reach up to. Experienced
professionals need to strategize their intuitive instincts and their efforts
towards end user needs and societal re-engineering.
If
we connect the dots, Indian government nursed our economy first by protecting
and directing it towards strategic goals with stringent laws (Shu), then by liberalizing it (Ha) and now leaving the economic
levers to India’s knowledgeable working class to capitalize on our individual
intuitive instinct. This is where the Ri
phase commences. The onus now lies on India’s professional working class to
standup to this need of the hour and lay this economic brick to better our future
generations leveraging our intuitions, experience and technology engulfed with
noble service mindset.
Stand-up
India to this cause called “Start-up India”. Let us contribute so that mother
India’s future generations experience our enshrined value system.