Don’t Envy, Aspire

A FORTNIGHT AGO, WITH RATAN TATA’S death, India lost not just one of its most formida­ble wealth creators. India also lost a human being who always placed humanism and humanity much above the creation of wealth. Ever since 1991 and liberalisation, we have become a country that has begun to factor in wealth. Money is no longer a bad word. In the years preceding 1991, when India was more socialist and less capitalist, it was almost as if anyone who was making money was a crook. Thankfully, that has changed. What has not changed is the manner in which wealth is looked at, sometimes with admiration and sometimes with a lot of anger. The reason is that people believe the wealthy must share their wealth, which I have never been able to understand, be­cause they have absolutely no reason to. If wealth has been made legiti­mately, and wealth has been made for the larger benefit of both the person making that amount of money as also society, then there is no business for that person to always be under the radar. I have often assailed Rahul Gandhi’s vindictive outpour­ings against industry and industrial­ists. For a man who would not be able to employ one person, it is a bit rich to say that people who make money are the people who are destroying India. It was actually his grandfather who laid the early seeds of capitalist destruction by creating an economy built on socialism, but revelled in the licence raj.

Today, India has come a long way. We are now celebrating wealth. We are celebrating the rich. And yes, there are some who deserve our criticism, who deserve being knocked down. But surely, we cannot tar everyone with the same brush. As you look around India, you will see that wealth is no longer just something that is looked down upon. Wealth is no longer something that you hold in envy. It has almost become aspira­tional. And that is where, to my mind, India has achieved a lot. Any society that worships wealth in a legitimate, decent manner is a society that is often seeking the good of everyone. When people make money, everyone benefits, even if it is one individual making that money. The truth is that money ultimately is shared. It is not taken to someone’s grave. It helps in creating more employment. It helps in creating more op­portunities. And it helps in creating more and more work for people who are less privileged. We have to understand that by constantly decrying the rich, by constantly eating the rich, by constantly pitting the rich against the poor, we are neither help­ing the rich nor enabling the poor to get rid of the shackles of poverty. And that is something no one understands better than the poorest of the poor, because it is in their aspirational chart. It is in their minds to get rid of the poverty that they have either been born into or have embraced owing to various reasons.

Look around India today. Would you say that people should not fly? Would you say low-cost airlines should not exist? Would you say that people should not be given opportuni­ties to see their own land of birth? Money is what drives these things. Whether it is domestic tourism, whether the off-take of local produce, whether in the celebration of our festivals, we are seeing commerce play a hand. Yes, at times, that hand may not be the kind you would want. It may be besmirched with greed, with deceit; yet it is a hand that proves to the world that India has arrived. I have often said that the more billionaires India has, the more its stock at the global high table rises. And that is an important stock to have, because that opens up investments. That opens up the idea of India to the globe. That allows more and more people to participate in India’s growth and fuel India’s economy.

Today’s India has moved way beyond the established norms of either wealth or wealth creation. It has moved into villages, it has moved into towns, it has moved into tier-two cities, and what we are seeing today is a wealth revolution. And when I say wealth revolution, I do not crassly mean money-making. I am talking about people who are planting the seeds of employment, of industry, of e-commerce, and then making it all work. The fact that India today has more than 150 unicorns, that it is no longer a country that is captured or held to ransom by a minuscule definition of human success, is a tribute to the entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial spirit of every Indian. It is a tribute to the ability every Indian has to make money, and make money not just for himself or herself.

We are seeing more and more Indians giving back to society. Charity, which was never part of our lexicon, today has become an important measure of both people’s affections and companies’ stature. That in itself says a lot because it is these charities that help the less privileged, those who have been deprived of opportunities to come up the social ladder. Would you begrudge cancer centres from coming up? Would you not want to have more schools, more private universi­ties, more publicly funded ventures, more museums, and more art galleries? This cannot be done by the state alone. This has to be done by private enterprise. And private enterprise will only do this when it has the ability to make money and the desire to share that money. Walk around the streets of New York, and whether it is Rock­efeller Center or Carnegie Hall or the Sandy Weill Medical Center, you will observe that these have been made possible because of the large endowments given because people were able to make money. These endowments today fuel medical excellence, culture, and all kinds of things, be it museums or art galleries. Isn’t this the kind of India we want, where just the state alone cannot be held responsible for creating a more equitable and more just society, where private enterprise must be allowed to thrive in order to allow for that private enterprise to share its wealth, even in a small measure, with society at large?

I believe it is time for India and Indians to celebrate wealth creators. It is time for us to recognise that wealth creation is an integral part both of economic and human evolution. We have to recognise that wealth creation per se is not bad if done legitimately and within the means of societal justness. I believe that is the India we must seek; not an India that was mired in poverty and made poverty its leitmotif, and was willing to do what it took to remain poor.

Gandhi’s conception of India has been re­placed by a concept that goes beyond one Gandhi. It is now the preserve of every Indian as it should be and it is a recognition of Indian talent, Indian capability and, most importantly, Indian aspiration.

economic revivalemploymentinclusive prosperityIndian economyprivate enterpriseWealth Issue 2024