'No leading Dalit entrepreneur, hence political tension'

There in not a single leading Dalit entrepreneur in India for all of the country's entrepreneurial success and hence the political tension in India with the likes of Mayawati, leading Indian entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani has acknowledged.

He also said that there is a huge difference between the north and south in India in terms of the castes that have gone into business, with the south being much more progressive vis-à-vis non-traditional business communities entering into the fray of entrepreneurship.

Nilekani, former CEO of Infosys and currently co-chairman of the companies' board of directors, who also now sits on the board of the Washington, DC-headquartered International Institute of Economics --now renamed the Peterson Institute of Economics -- said in Washington, DC during a lecture, "there is not a single Dalit who has become an entrepreneur and the part of the political tension is precisely that -- where you have a Mayawati saying that we want to have a piece of the action."

He said that what "she is basically saying is that we've been shut out of this economic game and therefore I think we really have to extend entrepreneurship to all castes."

"We have to create entrepreneurs from all backgrounds and only then will that really make the whole notion of markets more acceptable to all people," he said. "Otherwise, they rightfully say that all this is great but we are really not enjoying the fruits of this and that we are going to use the political process to get our share of rights."

Thus, Nilekani said, "While there is a fair amount of growth in different castes becoming business entrepreneurs, there is a lot yet to be done, and I think it is very different in north and south India."

"In south India, a lot more castes are now entrepreneurs," he said, "whereas in the north, the traditional castes are entrepreneurs and not enough new people have come into enterprise."

Nilekani noted, "Historically, there were a few communities that were business communities -- both in north India and south India -- and they provided a close-look system. They would support themselves, they would provide capital to each other, they would provide markets to each other, networks to each other."

"So, they were often inpenetratable -- you couldn't easily penetrate them -- and therefore business was the privilege of a few people," he said.

However, Nilekani argued, "Now, a couple of things have happened, especially in the south -- not so much in the north -- newer, newer castes have gone into business who were not historically from business backgrounds."

"For example, there is a village Tiripur, in Tamil Nadu, where a caste called the Gowdas run all the apparel manufacturing in that place. Or if you go to Andhra Pradesh, there are the Kammas and Reddys who are not from the classic business backgrounds -- they are more like rich farmers who have become entrepreneurs."

"Then there are people like us who are not entrepreneurs by birth because we are really more the office-type kind of guys, but now we have become entrepreneurs," Nilekani said.

"So, you've seen people from farms, from factories and from offices become entrepreneurs. So the number of castes practicing entrepreneurship has gone up a great deal," he said.