A mood of positivism and a sense of pride in our history, culture, current progress and bright future is what every Indian needs to take our country forward in the years to come
The clarion call that is empowering many Indian youth today is a Naya Bharat or New India. This is an inspiring and engaging idea and can build a sense of patriotism and commitment across the nation. For the past many decades, some of us who have remained in the country have rued the fact that much of our best talent have built outstanding companies and capabilities in the US, UK, Middle East and South East Asia and all of us still shudder when our NRI and OCI friends show up in December and appear to be almost patronising about the challenges our cities and countries still face. A mood of positivism and a sense of pride in our history, culture, current progress and bright future is what every Indian needs to take our country forward in the years to come.
What all do we have going for the new India. For one, we certainly have some strong people leading key movements today. Where I am writing this, the city of Pune on a lovely Spring morning, the optimism is high because we have an outstanding Municipal Commissioner, a vibrant newly elected set of corporators, a dynamic Chief Minister in the State and of course a very strong Government at the Centre. All this gives us the confidence that the next few years are going to provide a fertile environment for stability and growth in the city, state and country and all it needs is highly motivated groups of citizens in each community and city to build “new India” as a reality and not just a thought or slogan! And the “new India” pride will come not only through job creation but also through a “Rediscover, Revive and Restore” approach that makes our cities and towns more liveable and new tourism and living destinations.
One excellent entity that our own meta startup 5F World has been in discussions with and will soon support through funding and mentoring is Live History India, founded by two TV veterans from CNBC and Bloomberg and one avid historian. Their dream is to give local and national history a fresh and exciting narrative, create an engaged network of historians, architects and specialists and build a powerful physical and digital platform that encourages rediscovery of a thousand plus new tourist spots in the country-by foreign national and local tourists!
On the topic of rediscovery most readers of this column would have visited the Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower and Sentosa Island in Singapore but how many have been on the eight temple Ashta Vinayak trail and seen the stunning sites in Bodh Gaya, Nalanda and Rajgir? Three years ago, after a nostalgia reunion in my alma mater Birla Institute of Technology Ranchi, my wife Uma and I rented a car and drove to all these places before finally reaching Patna to take a flight. It would easily rank among the most exciting three days of our life, not least because there was a murder in the local Gaya temple literally minutes after we left. Which raises the point that rediscovery should be minus the risks and we need to work with local and national authorities not only to promote but also facilitate a voyage of discovery to different parts of our country.
Rediscovery should be minus the risks and we need to work with local and national authorities not only to promote but also facilitate a voyage of discovery to different parts of our country.
If Rediscovery can happen through building safe travel, promoting new destinations and setting people off on new voyages of discovery, revival of interest in the country will need a large initiative to find and tell good stories, explore the origins of food, art, culture and monuments across the country and get a network of well-meaning experts in every city and town of the country to participate.And Restore is clearly a Government agendas where entities like Live History India can do a lot to influence policy and focus attention on institutions that can use the help to make themselves objects of attraction all over again.
At the risk of sounding preachy, let me say that the opportunities for well-meaning and reasonably wealthy people to do good inside the country are enormous. In our own city, we have social investors like Anu Aga, Meher Pudumjee, Rati Forbes, the Bajaj and Kalyani families and outstanding patriarchs like Abhay Firodia who is building an entire museum to showcase Jain culture and history in the city.
In the last three months, we ourselves have found social enterprises and people behind them as interesting and sometimes more than the digital transformation start ups we are funding. A case in point is Studio Coppre which is doing stellar work integrating the work of copper artisans, helping them with low cost automation and creating international quality designs that will enable them to sell more in discerning domestic and global markets.
The joy of helping an entity which may have been set up by a few committed people with a limited business plan and enable an impact to be made which is larger than envisaged is what true entrepreneur enablement is all about and will lead the way to the India of our dreams. Let’s make it happen!
by Ganesh Natarajan
