Coca-Cola , McDonald’s , Ford , Rahul Gandhi and the Hidden Question
Coca-Cola history is in limelight in India after Shri Rahul Gandhi – President of All India Congress Committee made a Statement about its origin during OBC Conference few days back. Following are some points with its point of view in which it was used.
1. Coca cola company owner started and grown to today’s success from as scratch as selling Shikanji.
2. In India no one did this kind of growth based on their skills in their area of expertise.
Its obvious that ruling party will blow this statement through its literal meaning. If we give RaGa benefit of doubt that he meant was selling cold drinks on streets of some American town/City/ Village , as Shikanji is sold on streets of North Indian towns and cities. It’s still a false statement. As Coca-Cola was invented by a Pharmacist as a Patented medicine. It was commercialised through another businessmen by buying it’s patent and selling it through aggressive marketing who was manufacturer of patented medicine.
If we go and find history of McDonalds and ford ,it seems all examples by RaGa will not stand on ground of historical facts. But the message what he was trying to deliver has to be taken seriously.
The message is In India we don’t have successfull first generation businessmen , who has started from grass root and achieved the pinnacle in their area of expertise e.g. ford did in automobile. Is it a real issue? Believe it or not but looking at larger picture it seems that it is a truth. But the question arise here is it the fact? If yes why so? And if not why it seems to be like it?
India is a land of people with talent who doesn’t have platform to showcase it. Reason is the old and infamous reason given we are 1.25 billion..... If you know how to bowl the probability to bowl for your country lies at below 0.00000125%. The issue is same in every industry be it service, manufacturing or for that matter farming. Most of our youth is behind securing future through secured employment in this sequence Central Govt. Job > State Govt. Job> Govt. Owned Company Job> Giant business house Job ... The entrepreneurship as a field of work is option to only those who has somewhat secured future through parental business/ Property. This is not 100% true in all Cases but it’s mostly the case. So we are killing probability to have first generation tycoon unless they are gifted with some special ability which cannot be cultivated in a human through training/ education.
Just for example
1. Would we allow our university student to create a platform that connects people and which is free to use. And he/ she want to pursue it as a career path. Answer honestly. That’s why we don’t have Zuckerberg.
2. Would we allow our child to get excused from math class and work on his/her interest on computers( think about the time period of late 60s and early 70s). Would we support our child who found a bug in programme and get free extra time for using computer and get caught and banned. If your answer is no. Then that no is the reason why we don’t have Bill Gates.
This is a social reason which is practical and nothing is wrong about it as a middle-class family in India was never provided the confidence to risk their earnings to think and work out of the box. That takes us to reason two and that’s political. Till 90s we were closed economy. No one was required to be entrepreneur was the motto of the government. What to produce/ how much to produce/ where to produce/ for how much it should be sold was decided and controlled by authorities. Practically speaking we wanted someone to use his own money and work for government. In doing so we missed that bus. However we caught next bus and we are seeing fabulous growth of enterprises across country generally through second or third generation business families. In last few years we have seen some first generation entrepreneur also but it will take time till we see them as tycoons.
Even after all this odds I personally don’t believe that we didn’t created first generation tycoons as we have many who sailed against this odds and created a fortune. To name a few Karsanbhai Patel of NIRMA, Dhirubhai Ambani of Reliance and Baba Ramdev/ Acharya Balakrishna of Patanjali.
Now the question is why can’t we see this success? The short answer is we love to empathize a poor for his poverty but if he breaks through that bane and become rich we start doubting the way he achieved that success. A last monologue by Abhishek Bachchan in movie Guru answers this very well.
May God protect our country from this shallow and complex driven mentality.
Jai Hind.
