The Hindu Business Line : India@75 vision: Balance aspirations and resources

New Delhi, May 8 India should develop a “national aspiration” and shared goal if it were to transform into a global leader by 2022, management expert Prof C.K. Prahalad has said.

Capturing a vision for India@75, which is the year 2022, Mr Prahalad told members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) that India can be a major player in shaping the emerging world order through economic strength, technological vitality and moral leadership.

“Since poorna swaraj in 1929, India has never had a national aspiration which every Indian could share. A shared aspiration is fundamental for changing India. As a country, India must have high and shared aspirations”, he said.

Mr Prahalad said that India’s aspiration should be higher than the resources.

“The question that we should not ask is do we have the resources. If aspirations are higher than resources, you will innovate and thereby change the game. The issue is not resources but the balance between aspirations and resources. It is the conscious misfit between aspirations and resources that create innovation and entrepreneurial energy”, he said.

The management expert also said that one cannot get to the potential of India@75 by extrapolating what it did in the last 60 years, or even in the last 10 years. “You cannot get there (India @75) from here (the current state). You have to imagine India@75 and then fold that future in”, Mr Prahalad said.

Stating that incrementalism will not work, the management expert said that India should focus on the opportunities rather than looking at the constraints.

By 2022, Mr Prahalad expects India to have the largest pool of technically trained manpower anywhere in the world.

“This must be the starting point for global leadership. For this, we must universalise education. If India fails in its educational mission, the rest of my vision for India cannot be realised”, he said.

Mr Prahalad said that India must become the home for atleast 30 of the Fortune 100 firms. “I know this is an audacious goal. But this is possible”, he said.

The other potential of India@75 include the country accounting for 10 per cent of world trade; becoming a big source of global innovation and becoming the world’s benchmark on how to cope with diversity.

Mr Prahalad said that India should strive for the intellectual vitality it had in the 1920’s and 1930s.

“We should start looking at basic research as an integral part of innovation. We must celebrate the achievements of researchers as we do for bollywood stars. After all, people need recognition. Country will get only that kind of people who you recognise”, he said.

Underscoring the need for primarily market based solutions, Mr Prahalad said that “market based” does not mean private sector alone.

It could be public sector, NGOs, private sector or cooperatives.

“Market based means transparency in prices, transparency in decision making, enforceability of contracts etc”, he said.

Stating that India need to be more data driven than ideology driven, he also stressed the need to focus on “individual rights” rather than group rights.

“We have put too much energy on group rights. We must rebalance that with focus on individual rights. We must also deal with corruption head on”, he added.

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