Minister for disinvestment Arun Shourie speaks for many of us who are concerned and worried about the state of India when he says that if we do not pursue reforms and activist policies, we are tempting disaster. But his is a voice in the wilderness, and policy making proceeds at its usual leisurely, stop and go way. Worse still, there is no evidence of any real vision for India amongst our policy makers; our ministers of Finance, Commerce, and IT are more absorbed in turf battles and power balancing concerns than in building a new, successful and vibrant India. And while our Neros fiddle, the tiger cub economies of Malaysia and Thailand are zooming ahead and will soon become bigger players in the IT space than India is or will be 3 years down the line. China is already far ahead in hardware manufacturing, and is now building software capabilities which will rival’s India’s in a few years.

The success formula of the Asian tigers is well known, but because it has not been replicated in India, there is value in recalling that story once again. Across Asia, governments have played an activist role in conceiving and fostering new industries, especially high tech ones. Central to their whole effort was building a conducive environment for foreign investors in the form of low taxes and easy repatriation regimes. But they went beyond that, because there was a vision and a mission that underpinned their growth strategies, and the highest political authorities backed those mission goals. Consequently, they persuaded MNC tech firms to come in, they created world class infrastructure and robust financial institutions to support tech industries , and more importantly, they actively promoted local and international firms to supply inputs to high tech firms in what is known as the Cluster approach to investments. And they aggressively supported and pushed exports. And all of this was done as if it was a single cohesive whole. It is now well known than in country after country, such an approach has worked. .

By contrast, knowledge proof India is still debating the tax implications of creating a duty free regime for knowledge intensive IT industries; a vision and mission for Indian IT is not even at the stage of coffee table discussions and a coherent policy structure spanning across ministerial jurisdictions is simply not in the consideration set. When are we going to wake up? Or should we simply abandon hope in our political class, and look elsewhere for leadership? Thus far, industry bodies such as NASSCOM and CII have played a significant role in lobbying for tax conducive regimes, but even they have not attempted or aspired to the role of shadow cabinet. India’s software and hardware industries combined is a $15 billion industry today: perhaps it is time they began to think of building a future for themselves collectively in the form of developing a detailed vision and mission statement for India IT Inc.

— Michael Neri