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NT Bureau
Chennai, July 8:
 

Columnist S Gurumurthy, Medimix group md V S Pradeep and Ma Foi Management Consultants founder chairman K Pandia Rajan at the awards function organised by Swadeshi Jagaran Manch in Chennai yesterday.

        One should not underestimate the economic capacity of India by looking through its prism of English-educated citizens. The social capital was massive in the traditional life with strong family values which nurtured entrepreneurs in the country.

        Thus summed up S Gurumurthy, columnist and all India convener of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch in a lecture on 'Methodology and Contribution of Indian Entrepreneurship' at an awards function organised by the Chennai Chapter of SJM here yesterday. To celebrate the first anniversary of its flagship event Pathai - Payanam - Paarvai, the SJM gave away mementos to 12 entrepreneurs who had shared their experience at its monthly conclaves. Recalling the economic crisis of the early 90s, he said the top officials of the government and the media had went to the extent of advising Indian corporates to hand over their production and enterprises to MNCs which had the expertise and reliability. 'Tatas were advised by global consultants at that time to close down production,' he claimed. But Ratan Tata, group chairman, woke up to the global conspiracy against India and set out to produce a swadeshi car through the indigenous Indica project. At that time, many editorials and analysis in the business dailies were critical of Tata's Indica car, which finally came to be accepted by the Indian public, he said.

        'We are not in a state of agitation but an all out economic war, a modern approach to win over nations, for which swadeshi ideology and principles have much to contribute,' Gurumurthy opined. Further, he said entrepreneurs who fought against all odds and work hard to establish the brand name of their products would make headway in the markets. Small, family entrepreneurs and cluster industries were not afraid of globalisation as they contributed nearly 64 per cent to the GDP, in comparison to 13 per cent by top industrialists, two per cent by listed companies, and 23 per cent by the government sector.

        Consumerist culture would not thrive in India which was knitted to family values, similar to the lifestyle in Japan which has domestic savings of $ 11 trillion. 'The economic power of the country is massive as the traditional life has enormous social capital for entrepreneurship,' he declared.

        Earlier, V S Pradeep, managing director, Cholayil Pvt Ltd of Medimix group, said any product brand could not sustain itself if it remained content to stay put at the local or regional market alone. 'There is an urgent need to make the presence felt in national and global markets for the competition is fierce,' he said. After he took over the reins of Medimix group in 1983, he recalled the distribution system and network of fieldforce have been strengthened and the company forayed into Maharashtra with success. Medimix, the toilet soap, was groomed into a national brand with active campaign and marketing, he said. 'Only the fittest can survive in the competitive markets and winning the consumers' heart is the key to increase the market share,' he added.

        K Pandiarajan, founder chairman, Ma Foi Consultants Ltd, said a nation's identity was not just confined to geographical borders as it involved the cultural values too. On the format of the monthly programme at SJM, he said the concept was borrowed from The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a catalyst group for Indian Americans at Silicon Valley.

        Latha Rajan, director, Ma Foi, read out the names of the entrepreneurs who were felicitated by Gurumurthy with mementos. SJM secretary Rama Nambi Narayanan and its Tamilnadu convener R Srinivasan spoke on the forthcoming events and plans of the movement.