India’s time is now, as its wealthiest blaze to the top in Asia...
To be candid with you, I was almost beginning to feel world-weary with the Forbes list of our planet’s richest billionaires. Year after year, it invariably read the same: Bill Gates at the peak, with Warren Buffett in close succession, the illustrious from ‘developed’ economies like the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and France ruling the upper echelons of the global affluent, and India representing a flash-in-the-pan dotting the horizon somewhere, flaunting a handful of ubiquitous names that made it big.
So a few days back, when Forbes rolled out its latest rankings for the year, and India dethroned Japan for the numero uno slot among Asia’s most flourishing individuals, it was, to express it mildly – a pleasant surprise! Now boasting 36 billionaires with a combined net share of $191 billion between them, in contrast to Japan’s coterie of 24 worth a net aggregate of $64 billion, we didn’t just dethrone, rather we steamrollered Japan to end its 20-year-old dominion over the continent! With 14 newcomers striding into the high-game highway in 2007, and second only in number to the United States so far as the first-ten tier is concerned, the occasion does mark a landmark of sorts. And pleasant as the happenstance may be, I’d say it comes across as anything but as a surprise.
Two facts shine through: One, India’s traditionally super-rich players are steadily marching towards the pinnacle of international prosperity (a fact acknowledged by Forbes itself), and what is far more significant and a trend indicative of one likely to eventually rule the roost, the ascent of new-world entrepreneurs into the global big-ticket bandwagon (delightful coincidence that last year, at precisely this time, I had penned a piece on India Inc.’s resourceful fresh entrants gracing the world stage in times to come). So, apart from the uber-rich like L. N. Mittal, the Ambani Brothers, Azim Premji and Kumara Mangalam Birla, who constantly do our nation proud by exponentially reinforcing their legacy, I feel it’s the entrepreneurial talent on the list of the lately-arrived that merits close consideration.
Take the case of 39-year-old maverick Jignesh Shah, who created India’s biggest commodities exchange MCX or 41-year-old Kalanithi Maran of Sun TV, who took a very average publishing business to an enterprising conglomerate operating 14 channels and 4 radio stations, besides magazines and newspapers. Then of course, there’s the relatively older but no less spirited, Ramesh Chandra, who started off with a consulting company and amassed his billions providing homes for the country’s burgeoning middle-class. And K. Dinesh, among the founders of the legend that the world now knows as Infosys, who appears to give fellow founder Nandan Nilekani good company!
And then, of course, dazzle the prodigies of raw inventive genius that evoke inspiration. Sunil Mittal is a man who needs scant introduction, surging ahead to frontiers anew till today. 35-year-old IIT-Delhi Graduate, Anurag Dikshit, who moved to Gibraltar and produced a revolution with his online gaming portal PartyGaming, and Tulsi Tanti, who transited from the textile industry to alternative energy, resulting in the genesis of the country’s 15th most priced company, Suzlon. Subhash Chandra, Naresh Goyal...the legion continues to expand!
And while we rejoice in such individual accomplishments, the stark contradiction of circumstances that manifests itself in the malaise of poverty India is still ridden with, and the yawning per capita income chasm that exists between us and advanced nations, if allowed to endure, will shackle us from achieving – and making – true sense of any superpower vision. If anything than superficial, the current moment of glory must be construed as a vindication of the hope that a progressive and ethically sound entrepreneurial cluster that possesses the inherent gift of spawning opportunity, employment and talent, will unlock a veritable ‘world’ of wealth for a nation whose time has irresistibly dawned…
Written On:
25-10-2007
