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\n\t\t\t\t\tJanuary 12, 2026 07:18 AM IST\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tFirst published on: Jan 12, 2026 at 07:17 AM IST\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
January is named after the Roman God Janus, with one face looking forward and the other looking back. New Year reflection and planning feel apt this year, as we complete 35 years of the 1991 reforms. Those reforms were substantial but incomplete; China\u2019s per-capita GDP \u2014 the same as India\u2019s in 1991 \u2014 is now five times higher. Last year\u2019s economic reforms were brave. This year\u2019s agenda is bigger and bolder, but five revisions to our thinking about entrepreneurship are needed for massive non-farm job creation.<\/p>\n
The \u201csubstantial\u201d label for 1991 is delightful: Vehicle ownership has grown 45 times, Provident Fund contributions 75 times, foreign exchange reserves 120 times, stock market<\/a> value 500 times and phone connections 600 times. The \u201cincomplete\u201d label for 1991 is painful: 45 per cent of our labour force still works in agriculture, our 6.3 crore enterprises translate to only 8 lakh Provident Fund-paying employers, and manufacturing\u2019s labour force share equals that of post-industrial America (11 per cent). If India can create the world\u2019s largest democracy on the infertile soil of the world\u2019s most hierarchical and diverse society, why did we let China get ahead economically? They aren\u2019t smarter than us, and isn\u2019t politics harder than economics?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our poison was ideology that abandons abundance. And ideology \u2014 left- or right-wing \u2014 is a poor guide to policy anywhere. Research by economist Stefanie Stantcheva shows that zero-sum beliefs in the US, UK, France, and Germany on the left (people only get rich by making others poor) and the right (immigrants get rich by making the natives poor) reflect the same underlying worldview: There is only so much to go around, and heavy policy intervention is needed. The West is just catching up with our zero-sum economic ideology from 1956, 1968 and 1976.<\/p>\n This suspicion of entrepreneurship has cost us millions of non-farm jobs. This suspicion may have been justified in 1800 when economic output had been flat for 18 centuries, and entrepreneurship was mainly slavery, colonialism, exploitation, and violence. But a rethink 200 years ago \u2014 a modern state is a welfare state financed by taxes paid by thriving citizens and entrepreneurs \u2014 has meant that global GDP is up 1,600 per cent and most lives are no longer \u201cnasty, brutish and short\u201d or hungry. The divergent prosperity of countries suggests fitrat (culture) matters less than falsafa (thinking) and vikalp (choices) about entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n Not alleviating poverty preventable by entrepreneurship is a form of violence, yet entitled dynasts continue to peddle dated ideology that views suited-booted entrepreneurs as predators. This proves nostalgia is a dangerous emotion.<\/p>\n Of the five revisions needed to our thinking about entrepreneurship, the first is \u201cto get rich is glorious\u201d. This accepts that Garibi Hatao is impossible without Ameeri Banao and wealth creation motivates individuals, while only people born on the 10th floor look down on wealth or income. The second is \u201csome people will get rich before others\u201d. This accepts that throwing billionaire entrepreneurs or prosperous southern states into the Indian Ocean would reduce India\u2019s inequality, not poverty. The third is \u201ccross the river by feeling the stones\u201d. This accepts that a better recipe always beats more cooks in the kitchen; we need calibrated policy risk-taking, experimentation, and status-quo disruption. The fourth is \u201cdon\u2019t care if a cat is black or white if it catches mice\u201d. This chooses pragmatism over ideology by valuing any state (north, south, or west), sector (manufacturing or services), or firm (domestic or foreign) that creates high-wage, non-farm jobs. The fifth is \u201cwhen you open the window, some flies will always get in\u201d. This accepts that drunk driving is not an argument against cars; using cases of fraud like Satyam, Sahara and Nirav Modi to write laws and excessive prescription of jail for economic offences causes economic self-harm.<\/p>\n By now, many readers will be agitated with my five \u201cthought worlds\u201d. Rightly, because I paraphrase Deng Xiaoping. Wrongly, because it feels like I idealise China; I never want to live there. I paraphrase because the pragmatism common to the world\u2019s two best mass prosperity examples of flow (China moving 400 million from farm to non-farm employment since Mao died) and stock (America\u2019s $82,000 per-capita GDP) is under attack. Xi Jinping has compiled a list of things Deng did right and is cancelling each. US President Donald Trump<\/a> is corroding a lot of made America great: Stealing the best people in the world, public investment in basic science, and globalisation of company supply chains.<\/p>\n Predictions of pain from Xi\u2019s purge in China (export slowdown, debt crisis, or technology deceleration) or Trump\u2019s vandalism in America (inflation, labour shortages, or equity\/bond vigilantes) have so far been wrong or premature. Since pain for both will be unhelpful for India, let\u2019s hope it doesn\u2019t come or arrives as a gentle sunset rather than a bulb going off. Economist Gita Gopinath estimates a crash could destroy $35 trillion in global wealth, and foreign policy wonks predict a new cold war; our best preparation for both is domestic economic and technical entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n A younger me often mocked the same word for yesterday and tomorrow (kal) as passivity, but I now see the wisdom of kaal (perpetual time) in enabling constant revision to thinking and choices. This frames India\u2019s poverty as a disappointment rather than a lie. The PM has articulated an ambitious reform agenda for 2026; deregulation (implementing Jan Vishwas Siddhant for licensing, notices, inspections, penal provisions, instrument restrictions, and single source of regulatory truth), decriminalisation (rationalising an imperfect commercial deterrent through Jan Vishwas 2.0 and 3.0), digitisation (paperless, presenceless, cashless government interface), decentralisation (devolving funds, functions and functionaries) and democracy (interrogating and boundary setting for the administrative state). This overdue reform reflects the aspiration of the 1961 song from Hum Hindustani, \u2018Naye daur me likhenge nayi kahani (let\u2019s write a new story for a new era)\u2019 through nayee umangein (new aspirations). Rethinking entrepreneurship in five ways feels like a precondition.<\/p>\n The writer is co-founder of Teamlease Services<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January 12, 2026 07:18 AM IST First published on: Jan 12, 2026 at 07:17 AM IST January is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":510198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[228113,228116,64,228117,607,228120,228114,15997,228118,228119,228115,228121,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-510197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-1991-economic-reforms-anniversary","9":"tag-ameeri-banao-vs-garibi-hatao","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-deng-xiaoping-principles","12":"tag-entrepreneurship","13":"tag-global-gdp-growth","14":"tag-india-china-per-capita-gdp-gap","15":"tag-indian-express","16":"tag-labour-force-in-agriculture","17":"tag-manufacturing-employment-share","18":"tag-non-farm-job-creation","19":"tag-trump-policy","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115880645516736532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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