If asked to recount 5 top events of my life, I will perhaps always include my participation in the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra (Free India Train Journey) in 1997-98. A chartered train with over 200 students cris-crossed India in an exciting journey that celebrated India’s 50 years of independence. The second edition of this journey, called Jagriti Yatra (Renaissance Journey), takes place this winter, 24Dec08-11Jan09.

Jagriti Yatra (JY) succeeds the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra (ABRY) after 11 years. These 11 years have not been a blink in time for the world, and certainly not for India. We have seen a great deal of change in these years. As JY unfolds, we need to perhaps assess our ABRY direction and evaluate where we need an inflection and where an about turn is necessary.

To that end, the JY team has rightly positioned this journey as a forward-looking, future-oriented event focused on India’s need of the hour: Entrepreneurship. As an ABRY participant, I am also in position to point out certain themes & messages of the last Yatra that need to be revised for the consumption of the new generation that will come aboard.

As many participants will recall, we had a 5-point agenda on the train (Population Control, Environment & Sustainable Development, Values, India & the Globe, Agro-Industries & Entrepreneurship) and additionally, a focus group on an Ideal Village and Ideal City (which we named Azad Gaon & Azad Shahar). While certain messages have remained topical and have acquired an even bigger importance, a few themes need repackaging:

a) Population Control: ABRY’s consensus was that population growth is a problem and we need to control our numbers. This position was heavily conditioned by the state propaganda and our biases. Indians (and people from other developing countries) are sometimes diagnosed as possessing a ’scarcity mindset’ as opposed to an ‘abundance mindset’ of Westerners. Growing up, one would look around and easily associate the scarcity of resources with number of people claiming them. This thinking expressed itself during events like ‘load-shedding’ (this concept is unknown in the West) or queuing up at the railway station to purchase tickets or over rising prices and while dividing waters. Research (not necessarily recent) has revealed no causation between population and poverty. Thinly-populated countries can be miserable (think sub-Saharan Africa) and heavily-populated regions can be rich (think Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, New York etc). True, larger numbers require more resources but they also accelerate innovation. Innovation fuels prosperity which eventually shrinks the birth rate and populations reach stable levels. To focus on population control as a means of reducing poverty is like rowing against the tide to escape the storm. India needs to focus on creating opportunities for the people, accelerate development and reap what many economists are beginning to term as ‘demographic dividend’. In the process, population will take care of itself.

b) Ideal Village: There was a bit of Gandhian thought that hung upon us like still air throughout the journey, especially after the visit to the Sabarmati Ashram. While Gandhi was clearly a great individual and leader, no serious economist would term his notions of development well-considered. His focus on self-sufficiency may have been good as a tool of civil disobedience, but in post-independence India, it was a recipe for disaster. From that wellspring arose the idea of developing villages (because that’s where India lives, they say). Our well-meaning leaders relied unquestioningly on Gandhian insights and still do. However, this kind of thinking that treats assumptions as axioms is very harmful. Yes, majority of people live in villages but should they continue to live there? A cursory analysis of concentration of world’s wealth (and common sense) reveals that cities are where wealth is. In developed nations, very few people live in rural places or earn their living through agriculture. We can improve the lot of rural India by focusing on creation of cities, not on improving villages. There is a thin line between the two but this difference in paradigm has a powerful impact on how we allocate resources.

c) Agro-Industries: Similar to the Ideal Village discussion, the emphasis on agribusiness was not forward-thinking. In India, we often take agriculture as non-negotiable and then, proceed to think about how we can create more value out of it. It is a sound idea in the interim but our end-goal should be to wean our workforce away from agriculture, as much as possible. Today’s India is reflection of this trend where we have moved away from an agriculture-dominated economy to a services-dominated one. During 2005-06, agriculture accounted for 20 % of India’s GDP while Services accounted for 54%.

d) Values: I was a part of the Values group and remember that we created a poster of a Tree of Values which showed how there are some basic values (the trunk) and how they provide the bulwark for other values (branches) which ultimately help us in achieving success and joy (fruit/leaves). For us, the trunk was ‘Honesty’ and ‘Integrity’, and none of it is obsolete 11 years from then. This is a discussion that requires an inflection since a better understanding of values has assumed a much greater role in assimilating a global world. The more we are joining up, the more we need to learn to understand and respect differences. The predictions of homogeneity (’global village’) have fallen short and as different regions of the world develop at varying rates, the melting pot runs the risk of occasionally turning into a seething cauldron. Samuel Huntington’s 1993 thesis ‘Clash of Civilizations‘ appears full of prescience as he predicted that Post-Cold War conflict will stem from cultural, rather than ideological differences. At that time, this appeared counter-intuitive to many since ideology was supposedly a more powerful force than culture in modern times. Not many people doubt Huntington’s thesis anymore. 9/11 can be considered a watershed in this development and as an event, it stands between ABRY and JY. The next wave could be based on any other identity, beyond cultural or ideological. Therefore, it is important to widen the scope of the Values discussion and include not just culture/ideology but also gender, sexuality and race as possible fulcrums of the emerging world order.

e) Environment & Sustainable Development: We debated endlessly about how forests needed to be saved and rivers needed to be cleansed. The awareness regarding environment has peaked in the last few years with global warming taking centrestage with war on terrorism, so this presents another inflection point. While ABRY understood the importance of Sustainable Development and also endorsed several local and national solutions, I think JY needs to take this dialogue further and include the nuanced nature of the issues that now beset us on a global level. Some of the recent analyses have shown powerful connections environment has with peace (think Water) and terrorism (think Ivory), going beyond the traditional foil of industrial development. The debate has also taken on a moral shade due to clamor by the developed world that China & India need to rein in their emissions and energy hunger. While the West easily neglected any fallout on environment during its coming-out, developing countries are expected to show restraint when they need it least. This calls into question the fairness & politics of development. JY must explore these issues and present India’s case.

I am sure JY team is crafting a 5-point agenda for this year’s Yatra but if I may throw in my suggestions on which broad areas to focus on, these will be:

1. Role of Government & Civil Society
2. Sustainable Development & Environment
3. Religion & Values
4. Free Market & Regulation
5. Entrepreneurship & Education

I wonder what others think.

(The above is a reproduction of the latest post from my blog: serialbus.wordpress.com)

The growth of India over the next fifty years will mirror the growth that took place in North America over the past 200 years. An evocative book that captures this story is the Pulitzer Prize winning effort of Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Americans: The Democratic Experience.  The author traces the creation of myriad institutions in North America as it grew from a former colony of the British to the pre-eminent economic and social model of the last century. This story’s own context is starkly different from India. But the analogy of the story is helpful : institutions were created in a new country which had a different geographic, demographic, intellectual and emotional setting from Europe. The USA had a strong European intellectual influence to start with, but the reason it succeeded is because it adapted that mindset to suit its own environment. They created a national university system, which moved learning beyond the Ivy League colleges, they perfected an insurance network, they created a food distribution system, they invented an aerospace industry, where starting from PanAm onwards aviation brought the death of distance. India will have to create similar institutions and systems over the next 50 years. Boorstein also eloquently demonstrates that the process of building a nation is a two step forward and a one step back process. The important message though is that some of the seemingly ‘impossible’ problems India faces today were faced by other countries as they grew from a young nation to a mature democracy. When we are faced with those difficulties, we also need to take a long- term view and keep that positive frame of reference that comes across in Boorstin’s work.

However, as North America became a successful industrial nation powered by oil, Model T cars and the threads of Amtrak that started criss-crossing its vast land mass, Boorstin warned of the dangers in blindly following existing, ‘successful’ models and the ‘momentum’ they generate. He said: ‘The sense of momentum which overwhelmed Presidents burdened ordinary citizens. ….. the future of American civilization could not fail to be determined by the mass and velocity of enterprises already in being… Fewer decisions of social policy seemed to be Whether-or-Not as more became decisions of How-Fast-and-When.’

As globalization has made the world a smaller place, a number of emerging countries like India run the risk of not asking Whether-or-Not questions. As India starts accelerating forward in its own ‘democratic experience’, we have to be careful of not heading down the How-Fast-And-When tunnel. At the start of its own journey, North America borrowed its intellectual heritage from Europe, but moulded it to the reality of North America, and we face a similar challenge at this juncture.

What we must adopt from the West is the spirit of scientific inquiry. But the age of networks, electrons, biotechnology, agri-business and relevance of intangible assets must warn us against creating mechanical institutions. As this is the beginning of our own development journey, we can use and connect with the Indian mind which has always respected knowledge and respects service.

Recent environmental awareness in the developed world is asking fundamental questions of the industrial civilizations of Europe and North America. Commentators have declared that the ‘demand for carbon-free power is about to become the most disruptive force since the Internet’, and a new world-view is being called upon to stem the damage that may already have been caused by the industrial sprint of the past 200 years. In this context, China is already well down the how-fast-and-when tunnel by building large factories, industrial plants and carbon intensive industries. India, till recently seemingly a laggard in industrialization, still has an opportunity to ask whether-or-not questions, and perhaps put a healing balm on the Industrial damage already underway.

An even more important lesson from the ‘democratic experience’ is the dynamics of democracy. The real fruits of democracy come when citizens ‘work’ their democracy, when they engage to build institutions. More than the Roosevelts and the Kennedys, it was the cattle rancher and the railroad pioneer who built USA. Modern India and its race forward will be shaped not only in  state capitals but also by the bottom up entrepreneurial innovations taking place across the nation. India’s progress will take place not only in the halls of  Parliament, but by the various mini institutions that we visited during our travels. India will be shaped by the creation of a Tilonia, by the courage of a Kiran Bedi, by the experiences of the submarine commander in Vizag and by the innovative factory manager at  Bajaj Auto.

As countries like India start to take off, they will take off on the wings of passion of its young citizens. A country starts to prosper when the people – alongside the government – start building. While we have a number of seemingly insurmountable problems, we have a future that is powered by the momentum of a growing country. Gerd Behrens drew a contrast with the attitude in more developed economies, ‘The West resembles a marriage of convenience, while other growing civilizations are passionate affairs’.  

More so for those pouring to fill the glass of India.

‘Is the glass half empty or half full? Depends whether you are pouring or drinking’ said Bill Cosby’s mother in a conversation that reminds me of India in this 60^th anniversary year.

On the fiftieth anniversary of India’s independence, in 1997 we organised a national adventure – the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra. Two hundred young Indians participated in that Yatra and have since remained in close contact over the years. This is an extended family forged by the memories of twenty-two days of exhilarating, non-stop travel on a special train that covered 7,000 kilometers of India. We keep in touch through a web-based forum, and at heart; we simply remain attached to India. As I write this, these participants are planning another Yatra – the Jagriti Yatra with the theme of awakening entrepreneurship. 

Our aim for the Yatra was to discover the other India, an India beyond the English language. To me, this India was in the smaller towns where I had grown up as the son of an army officer; it was in my town of birth, Gorakhpur, and in Barpar, our ancestral village in the Deoria district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. During our travels we found more than one India. But the central theme that dominated the journey was India integrating with its own genius. By doing so will we build a country that is different and therefore able to compete and prosper in the new world. Only if we understand who we are and are comfortable with it, will we live lives of integrity. Participants discovered this first hand. They celebrated the integrity they saw amongst those they met during our travels.

Original article by: Dhawal Shah
Why is the US more prosperous than India? Is it because we Indians are less smart than Americans? No, Indians are universally acknowledged for their intelligence. Is it because they have greater resources? No, India is as much if not more rich in natural resources. Then, why is the US more prosperous than India? The US is more prosperous simply because they have more entrepreneurs.

If India needs to exterminate poverty, we have to grow. To grow, we have to employ the unemployed. NASSCOM and CII have estimated that if India wants to be a developed country by 2020, it needs to create 10 million jobs. The million-dollar

question is how these jobs are going to be created.

Neither the Army nor the police force can absorb such a large amount, nor can the Railways or the government. They can only be absorbed by the private sector. The industrial set-up is expanding, but not at the rate that can employ such large numbers. Is there any solution to this grave problem? Fortunately, YES, the answer is entrepreneurship.

But, why do we need entrepreneurs, because they create jobs as per TiE (The IndUS Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organisation, promoting entrepreneurship, www.tie.org), each entrepreneur creates 30 jobs. An entrepreneur creates jobs, setting stage for a flourishing economy, unlike an individual, a job seeker, a burden to the economy. Managers employed by large corporations use their creativity and intellect to make the Gates, Buffets and the Murdochs richer, whereas entrepreneurs make themselves and their nations richer.

Over 30% of Microsoft employees are Indians. The NASA relies on Indian brains for its various missions & IIT graduates are considered the worlds brightest. Why do these people flock to the US, simply because the US has more opportunities. What can we do to stop this self-ruining brain drain? The answer lies in promoting entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs are people who turn dreams to reality. They supply goods and services, which increase the standard of living of the entire populace substantially. They are wealth creators. This self-created wealth insulates the economy from recession and helps strengthen local economy. Global downturns will not affect us, as much as it much as it would have in other circumstances.

The benefits of entrepreneurship to the society and the economy as a whole are enormous. Entrepreneurship helps in avoidance of monopolies and cartels, which lower consumer satisfaction, one of the easier ways of checking large corporations and MNCs.

Entrepreneurs realise the tremendous demand for goods abroad and help to market the surplus. This will make the Indian market, export competitive and at the same time, the MADE IN INDIA brand more acceptable. The surplus footstock, which would have been otherwise rotting in the government storehouse, can be exported, thus serving to earn foreign exchange. The government gets rid of the excess stock while the exporter earns revenue, leading to a win-win situation.

It has been found that nations with more entrepreneurs always have a pro-liberal government supporting and promoting entrepreneurship; hence it is forced to enact policies favourable to businessmen and consumers promoting a market led economy.

An important factor influencing FDI, from developed nations to developing nations is the concentration of entrepreneurship. FDI is directly proportional to entrepreneurship. The highest contributor of FDI is the US. The US also readily welcomes Indian exports and also lists Indian companies on American exchanges. No wonder NASDAQ rocks on the beats of Infosys Chairman, NR Narayan Murthy.

So, the message is clear; we need more entrepreneurs. It is high time, the government realises that only and only entrepreneurship can help it grow at the high rate and rethinks its policies.

Dhawal Shah is a start-up enthusiast who firmly believes in entrepreneurship. Based in Mumbai, he regularly studies trends in Business, Franchising and Entrepreneurship. He can be contacted at dhawal@mail.com . Article on Entrepreneurship, National Contribution, Contribution by Dhawal Shah

Back home, in the heart of India it is nearly summer. The air is redolent with the heady potpourri of mango and citrus blossoms, roses and the smell of parched earth drenched with unseasonal spring rain. The tepid sunshine has given way to the smouldering heat of early summer across most parts of India. I heard the incessant call of a lone “brainfever bird” in the far distance when I spoke to my mum on the phone this evening. Waves of nostalgia wash over me. The call of the Indian hawk cuckoo has long been a harbinger of summer, the long hard toil of exam time and the promise of a long fruitful summer ahead packed with adventure and new discoveries.

Here in London, the cherry blossom still clings to the branches and the azure skies hold the gleeful promise of a hot summer. It will be an eventful summer-like the summers of my childhood. We have an ambitious project at hand. It will take commitment, determination and tenacious will power to nurture it to fruition. Each one of us on the organizing committee is currently battling tight personal deadlines- Kaustav, Mrigank and Milind are working hard to meet project deadlines, Karthik and I work towards finishing our Ph.D theses, Mohit has just relocated to the Big Apple from Gurgaon, Purva has regular patients clamouring for her attention…and despite all these challenges, we all strive to committing our time towards the Yatra.

The Yatra will be an incredible train journey. 300 people, 17 cities across the length and breadth of India, scores of “heroes” who will inspire and challenge us to devise a manifesto for change and find methods to chanelise those dreams into action. The Yatra will touch the lives of every participant in infinite ways just like the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra in 1997 coloured my view of India and spurred me on to contribute my miniscule share to highlight its conservation successes in the global arena. The tasks ahead may seem a trifle daunting but we are steadfast in our goal. We believe in “ The Indian Dream” and we cant wait to set off on this great journey of discovery with friends, colleagues and fellow believers. Yes, it will be a very busy summer ahead.