Author : Dr. Rahul Shastri
After Sri Piyush Goyal regretted that Indian enterprise did not compete with China in deep tech, Mohandas Pai ji shot back with – where is the capital?
Another entrepreneur had earlier questioned the moral ground of politicians in challenging industry.
This type of public squabble over a real problem, between leaders of Indian society, is regrettable and counter-productive. It hurts India without helping anyone.
Both sides have elements of truth. Perhaps larger social organisations should mediate to discover and develop viable solutions.
That the tech-lag problem is real can’t be disputed. What is missed however is how China secured its lead.
First the USP of Chinese civilisation was technological innovation, just like our USP was maths, astronomy, spirituality. This provided spiritual insights to sages, into structure of the world, that are now finding support from science.
This difference between us, gives the Chinese a civilisational advantage in technical innovation. But such an advantage remains only a possibility without proper social conditions.
How did China develop these conditions after opening upto global capitalism? Their leafing motto was –
it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice (Deng Xiao peng).
In other words, economic development was only a tool to get communism, and so it did not matter whether it was capitalist or socialist so long as it served the purpose of securing communism.
And so China raided the universities and labs of the west while investing in its own technical infrastructure and education. Quality and millions, both received attention.
While pursuing this for two decades, the CCP brought private overseas capital into synergy with output of technical institutions, state needs and market possibilities.
It is said that investment projects and plans often pass CCP scrutiny which ensures an integrated outcome.
CCP apparently takes a share of the proceeds, insulates from market risk, sometimes with subsidies and marketing networks, smuggling in sanctioned products, even political alliances.
In other words, CCP politicians play a central role in tech transformation and economic enterprise, even providing capital directly or arranging for funding in other ways.
Politicians and pvt. Capital in China work actively and directly to bring together the flow of technical brains, know how, markets and material into economic enterprise.
The other model of tech growth is Western, where tech depends on entraprenual initiative, private capital flows, university output imported brains, all channelled by market stimuli.
The problem here is that tech responds to immediate domestic market stimuli and not to long term strategic needs.
We are now trying to get over this problem by engaging parts of private, even public sector with global markets in strategic or hitech areas. In this we are helped by the excellent brains coming out of tech education.
This process however suffers from a potential problem.
Capital that gains from global integration turns footloose and capitalists migrate to greener lands offering golden visas. Even the brains that find fulfilment through global integration have a tendency to drain abroad.
Adding to the problem is the AI revolution. An UNCTAD study suggests that in eight years 40 percent of global jobs will be affected. Link2.
This is bound to affect our youth within a few years, especially frustrating those brought up with dreams of foreign lands.
All this means that large social organisations may have to play a substantive role in mediating education, training, technical flows, enterprise and capital in order sustain the national vision.
If jobs do not flow, if youthful dreams are faulty, if training does not sync with entrepreneurial effort, social conflicts find congenial space to grow and be exploited by inimical forces.
Being proactive may require larger, multifaceted and organised mediation in economic life.
Link1 Where is the capital
https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/where-is-the-capital-mohandas-pai-fires-back-after-goyals-critique-of-food-grocery-apps-at-mahakumbh/3798448/
Link2 40% global jobs affected by AI?
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/ai-could-affect-40percent-of-jobs-widen-inequality-between-nations-un.html