🇮🇳 Let India build 🇮🇳
Why India must reclaim the spirit of creation: from silicon to steel
India has spent much of the last millennium recovering from a prolonged civilizational decline. Through centuries of foreign invasions, colonial exploitation, and internal stagnation, a once-thriving network of indigenous industries was slowly dismantled. India, which once led the world in areas as diverse as mathematics, textiles, philosophy, and metallurgy, found itself reduced to a provider of raw materials, labor, and cheap capital for others.
But the greater loss wasn’t just material. It was the erosion of confidence—of a culture that once believed deeply in its ability to shape the world. Over time, poverty became normalized, and aspiration was seen as either futile or inappropriate. Generations grew up adjusting to scarcity, told that survival was sufficient and ambition belonged elsewhere.
And yet, India didn’t collapse. Despite these heavy blows, it held on to its civilizational identity—an unbroken cultural continuity that’s rare among ancient societies. Where Greece and Rome fragmented into history, India retained a living tradition. But that continuity, while remarkable, came with consequences: it was accompanied by persistent poverty.
Most Indians, regardless of region or religion, have heard stories of deprivation in their families. These are not distant memories rather they are often only a generation away. They’re woven into the fabric of how we think, how we spend, and how we dream.
A system that prioritized security over creation
After independence, India adopted a centrally planned economic model. The intention was clear and, in many ways, understandable. Colonialism had left deep scars. Institutions were weak, industry had been hollowed out, and the state was expected to step in and rebuild. The instinct was to control and distribute, rather than to enable and grow.
But this model came with trade-offs. Wealth must first be created before it can be distributed. This simple truth was often overlooked. Instead of encouraging innovation, experimentation, and enterprise, the system elevated compliance. Government jobs became the highest aspiration. Prestige was found in degrees, titles, and designations, not in creativity or risk-taking.
At the same time, India’s spiritual heritage remained strong. Seers like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi offered profound insights into inner life and spiritual clarity. However, rather than drawing strength from this spiritual legacy to build outward, we often used it as an excuse to avoid engaging with the material world. Capitalism was dismissed as Western, greedy, or unspiritual.
That dichotomy is false. There is no contradiction between spiritual depth and material creation. A confident civilization should be able to hold both. India’s soul is not so fragile that it must be protected from prosperity. On the contrary, it is precisely because that soul is resilient that we can now pursue prosperity without losing ourselves.
Capitalism and the Indian context
When practiced with integrity and transparency, capitalism is not about unchecked greed. It’s about value creation, voluntary exchange, and individual agency. In India, where social mobility has often been constrained by caste, legacy, and geography, capitalism has the potential to create a more level playing field than any centrally planned system.
It doesn’t matter where you come from, what your surname is, or who your parents are. What matters is what you can build or offer. This is particularly powerful in a country like India, where inherited privilege continues to shape outcomes in education, employment, and access to networks.
That said, capitalism has its risks—concentration of wealth, environmental degradation, and short-term thinking among them. But these risks are manageable. The bigger danger is to avoid the system altogether and stay stuck in a place where very few have enough to begin with. India doesn’t need to chase wealth for its own sake—but it does need to build the foundation for widespread prosperity.
Why our definition of success needs to evolve
One of the most persistent features of India’s current system is its obsession with standardized exams. Whether it is JEE, NEET, CAT, UPSC, or GATE, the path to opportunity is tightly controlled by filters. These exams are designed to identify talent, but they also narrow the definition of what talent looks like. They reward conformity and precision, but often miss qualities like imagination, initiative, and resilience.
This overemphasis on ranking and gatekeeping explains why India produces so many technically capable individuals but relatively few original product builders. An entrepreneur does not need a rank. They need vision, courage, and the willingness to fail repeatedly. A society focused entirely on filtering ends up producing excellent administrators but fewer creators.
What we’re missing: The Hardware Gap
India’s growing momentum in software has rightly earned attention. Young engineers are building AI startups, participating in open-source projects, and increasingly working on global-first products. The entry barrier is relatively low — a laptop, a network connection, and time. This has created a sense of accessibility and progress.
Yet, this surge in software innovation makes our absence in hardware all the more striking. India’s capabilities in core hardware innovation — whether in semiconductors, sensors, batteries, or robotics — remain minimal. While our best minds are developing algorithms, we are still importing the chips they run on. This is not just an economic gap; it is a strategic vulnerability.
Hardware is slow, capital-intensive, and infrastructure-heavy. It requires patience, physical testing, and often a much longer time horizon to pay off. But it is also where real economic moats are built. If India wants to move beyond assembling components and into building enduring, defensible technology companies, we must treat hardware capability as a national priority.
A Personal Reflection
This failure is not just systemic. It shaped my own life.
I studied electrical engineering in my undergraduate years. I was drawn to the subject because it offered the possibility of building real-world systems. But by the time I graduated, it became clear that the opportunities were extremely limited. Outside a handful of public-sector firms like NTPC or BHEL, and even there mostly for top rankers, the options were meagre. The roles were often in remote locations with little room for creativity or innovation.
Eventually, I decided to switch to computer science. I had some experience with computer vision, a couple of Google Summer of Code projects, and a growing curiosity about the open-source world. With just a laptop and access to the internet, I began to find my path.
That pivot turned out well for me. But I do not think of it only as a personal triumph. I also see it as a failure of the broader system. A country with over a billion people could not offer a meaningful path for a motivated electrical engineer to build something new. That is a gap we urgently need to address.
Companies like NVIDIA or Apple were not built on software alone. They succeeded because they controlled the full stack, from hardware to software. If India wants to create truly generational companies, it cannot stop at code. It must learn to design, manufacture, and innovate in the physical world as well.
Learning from Zoho: A quiet blueprint for Indian capitalism
Among Indian companies, Zoho Corporation stands out not only for what it has built, but how and where it has chosen to build. Founded by Sridhar Vembu, Zoho is one of the few product companies in India that competes directly with global software giants, not just local startups or IT service firms. It has built a comprehensive suite of enterprise software products that go toe-to-toe with the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google Workspace. That in itself is remarkable.
But what makes Zoho even more fascinating is the context in which it operates. Zoho is headquartered in rural Tamil Nadu, far from India’s tech hubs like Bengaluru or Hyderabad. It has consciously avoided venture capital and has prioritized independent, long-term growth over short-term scale. This goes against the grain of most Indian startups, which are often funded by foreign capital and structured for rapid valuation rather than deep product development.
Zoho has proven that world-class software can be built outside urban centers, and that rural India can participate meaningfully in global technological innovation. Its approach is rooted in self-reliance and inclusion, not just disruption. It is not only building products, but also building people.
That’s where Zoho Schools of Learning come in. These are in-house training academies that admit students from modest or rural backgrounds, many without formal college degrees. Instead of requiring expensive credentials, Zoho trains them directly in relevant skills and integrates them into its workforce. This model bypasses the conventional academic-industrial pipeline, making opportunity available to those who might otherwise be excluded.
This kind of end-to-end ecosystem—education, employment, and innovation—grounded in Indian soil and yet globally competitive, is a blueprint for what Indian capitalism could look like. Ethical, sustainable, rooted in community, and yet ambitious on the global stage.
There is no other Indian company quite like it. Not in terms of its operating philosophy, not in terms of its rural investment, and certainly not in terms of its ability to compete globally on product quality alone. It proves that we don’t have to choose between serving India and serving the world. With the right kind of capitalism, we can do both.
And perhaps most importantly, Vembu is now using Zoho’s revenue to seed small, deeply technical hardware startups—quietly funding the next generation of makers India desperately needs.
Conclusion: A broader kind of trust
India’s next leap won’t come from more centralized control or regulatory oversight. It will come from trusting its people to build—and then getting out of their way. That means creating an environment where entrepreneurship is viable not just in Bengaluru or Gurugram, but in smaller towns and rural areas. It means funding R&D, reducing red tape, and seeing ambition not as a threat, but as an asset.
This isn’t a call for reckless deregulation or blind faith in markets. It’s a call to recognize that real creation—especially in a civilizational culture like ours—needs room to breathe.
My own journey may have worked out, but I want the next generation of engineers to have more options. If someone wants to work in core technology, build a chip, design a robot, or develop power systems, they shouldn’t have to abandon their path because the system doesn’t support them.
Let them build—so that India can build with them!
Well said, As someone navigating the creative field, I see parallels here too. Whether it’s an engineer designing chips or an artist reimagining culture, we all need ecosystems that support exploration and experimentation—not just in metro cities but across India. We don’t lack talent; we lack the freedom to let that talent flourish. Let’s build those bridges.