When I was in class 7th a new teacher came in my class and he started asking the aims of the student, everyone said he/she wants to become doctors, engineer, Civil Servant etc. But no one said I want to settle my career as an Entrepreneur or a Businessman. Because somewhere in our society it’s a dogma that after completing your study you have to do the job, you have to become the servant. You can’t think to start any business because it’s the matter of big businessmen like Tata & Ambani. As you belong to middle family or lower middle class, what you can do is that just serve them and help them to grow.
Entrepreneurship and Indian mindset
The growth of Indian entrepreneurship is rather slow. In spite of all the efforts made in India, ‘entrepreneurship’ has not gained the momentum yet. The most educated middle class people always prefer jobs either in government sectors or MNCs. In my observation, entrepreneurship is either pursued by the children who have family wealth to invest or traditional business background to follow, and the second group is by those who have no other option left with them than starting petty business like opening a roadside kiosk or shop. But, there is a big gap in between. People are very possessive about jobs, they have huge respect for jobholders. In India, various efforts have been made after independence for entrepreneurship development, but the result is not that satisfactory. In our country, most of the people have inclination for services and not for business. Unfortunately, our education system doesn’t highlight the importance of entrepreneurship. The technical institutes, IITs have come forward in promoting self-employment concept, promoting startups. Many IITians are quitting lucrative jobs to start their business ventures. However, it may not be adequate to prepare new entrepreneurs because of the type of education and training provided. Indian education system is not suitable for entrepreneurship growth. Talented minds are prepared to take white collared jobs, join government or other private jobs. There are so many reasons why Indian entrepreneurship scenario is so grim.
Among various reasons like joint family system, social pressure, India suffers from caste, class, creed and religion system. A traditional society with traditional mindset often creates obstacles on the paths of entrepreneurship growth. Lack of basic infrastructure facilities like raw materials, capital market, transport, lack of technostructure (lack of professional managers, experts, trained labour force) are some of the reasons why entrepreneurship can’t move fast.
But, of all other causes, the restricted and traditional mindset of the Indian people, of the parents and youths is the major cause that discourage many from taking up entrepreneurial activities. Lack of family support, societal pressure are the main reasons that prevents entrepreneurship growth. Parents always prefer their progenies to take up standard 10 to 6 jobs. The only obsession to be in a good job, doing jobs only, getting better jobs in the top companies, the expectation to work in multi-national companies, to do government jobs, to born, brought up and die with jobs are the acts of the jobholics which our people love to do.
We are born and brought up with such ideas, persuasions and when a child is born the parents start planning, “my son is going to be an IAS, an engineer, my daughter is going to be a doctor” and they spoon-feed their children to be doctors and engineers only when there are a lot of options available. Who cares about their passions, their interests? I have seen many young people suffering from such problems. Some of my friends have shared their unhappiness with me saying that “I wanted to be a banker, a singer, a painter, but our parents forced us to study engineering which I don’t like at all”. In the later stage, they have quit that engineering jobs to start banking careers or they have joined the careers of their choices. I feel that parents should guide their children, encourage them to study hard, but they shouldn’t impose on them what they supposed to be. It’s purely a personal decision and the children should enjoy full freedom for choosing the career of their preferences. Just allow them to grow with their dreams, passions, allow them to be a singer, a dancer, a painter, an actor, a teacher, an agropreneur and a journalist. If the children follow their passions and are nurtured with their talents, skills, they will grow and fly high and would be successful in life. It will make them happy from within and that is the true meaning of life. Then they will be able to contribute their best to the society.
Similarly, job should not be the only option left to the children. The parents should encourage their children to be business tycoons, entrepreneurs, industrialists, not only to be the jobholders but also be the job creators. And why 10 to 6 job only where no holidays, extra hours of work, non-cooperative colleagues, foul play by co-workers, diplomatic boss and handling all these we develop anxiety and stress which leads to fatal diseases among the youths these days. Long hours of sitting in front of the computers and working like machines make them diseased & unhealthy. Can’t we think of job creations, giving jobs to others? After all, we find that most of the successful people are among the top business tycoons like Tata, Birla, Ambani, and Adani who are big entrepreneurs. Had they thought of doing jobs only, they would not have created the most demanding huge jobs markets for the youths in India and abroad. We should come out of that stereotypes and not only to get jobs but also creating jobs for others should be our motto. In our country, people have a typical mindset pertaining to jobs. They only know to give respect to people with high-level jobs and even if a businessman is earning much more than those people, doesn’t get the same respect. Similarly, people with highly established jobs want their children to follow the same pattern even if their wards are not good at studies. If their children don’t get expected jobs and decide to start business careers they are mocked by their friends and relatives, i.e. “What? Son of Mr.X is going to sell clothes/sweets/vegetables? I have seen this happening in Indian families. We never appreciate the business, entrepreneurial activities, and the youths without getting any support from their parents and family members being frustrated, stressed start doing all the wrong things. Not only it leads to unemployment but also triggers poverty. Hence, entrepreneurship must be promoted, the people must understand its significance, and youths must be oriented to follow it as alternative career options. One entrepreneur can give jobs to many unemployed youths. Like American teens don’t get pressurized to follow a trend or a career path, our Indian teens should not be pressurized in any case. In America, they know each one of them is different from each other and they designed to do things differently. So they are free to choose their career paths. They do part-time jobs for running their expenditures and they don’t judge people by the work they do. In our country, the parents decide whether their children should go for medical or engineering. The Indian youths should be encouraged to follow the careers of their choices, there should be no compulsions. Similarly, entrepreneurship must be promoted among the youths to make our country developed, rich and to ensure adequate employment opportunities are available for the unemployed mass.
Changing Mindset
The Indian entrepreneurial spirit has risen remarkably as India stands third amongst the fastest growing startup countries worldwide – just after the US and the UK. Digitization is playing a vital role in this scenario and has provided ample opportunities to develop Indian online market. The opportunity today is not only for India but also for ‘Bharat’. In fact semi-urban and rural areas are on their way to get more focus than selected few metro cities.
Government Initiatives
Government of India has started several flagship programmes to encourage entrepreneurship culture. ‘Start Up India’ campaign aims to create start-ups in all districts, blocks and panchayats around the country. Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) including Self-Employment and Talent Utilization (SETU) serves as a platform for promotion of world-class Innovation Hubs, start-up businesses and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology driven areas. These are bringing together academicians, entrepreneurs and researchers to collaborate on concepts that could potentially drive economic growth and encourage more people to become entrepreneurs.
