Why Start-up India Needed a Tata, Not a Token Minister
When the government launched Start-up India in 2016, it promised to unleash India’s entrepreneurial spirit. There were speeches, roadshows, glossy brochures, and hashtags. The program was positioned as a visionary leap, with politicians posing as champions of the start-up revolution. But nine years later, the gap between optics and outcomes is glaring. The ₹10,000 crore Fund of Funds has struggled to trickle down meaningfully, while entrepreneurs still rely more on private industrialists for capital and mentorship than on the very scheme designed to support them. The irony is hard to miss: politicians who have never built a business preside over the future of India’s start-ups, while those who have actually created wealth and jobs are left out of the room.
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, the official guardian of Start-up India, embodies this contradiction. In speeches, he has publicly ridiculed delivery start-ups, dismissing them as “not real innovation,” even though they have generated far more employment than any government scheme has managed in the same period. To sneer at food delivery or logistics companies in a country where millions depend on them for daily livelihoods is not just tone-deaf, it exposes the yawning gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. For a minister to claim that India should aspire to have start-ups like Silicon Valley or Europe is laughable when the government has failed to address even the basics needed for start-up survival.
Let’s take infrastructure, the single largest barrier to scaling a business in India. In most major cities, an ordinary citizen spends nearly two hours traveling a distance of just 10 to 15 kilometers. This isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a tax on productivity, on logistics, and on any start-up hoping to build a delivery, supply chain, or on-demand business. In the United States, Europe, or even China, governments invested heavily in transport networks, reliable power supply, and digital infrastructure before claiming to be champions of start-up culture. What has India done in comparison? Beyond announcements and ceremonial launches, very little has changed on the ground to make India an easy place to build and scale.
Meanwhile, India’s industrialists have done the heavy lifting. Ratan Tata’s investments in Ola, Paytm, Lenskart, Urban Ladder, and Snapdeal not only gave them capital but also a stamp of credibility that drew in global investors. Azim Premji, through PremjiInvest, has quietly built a portfolio of Policybazaar, FirstCry, Fabindia, and Lenskart — all of which are household names today. Anand Mahindra has backed Zoomcar and SheThePeople, giving founders more than just funding: he gave them mentorship and networks. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance has strategically acquired start-ups like Fynd, Netmeds, Embibe, and Haptik, weaving them into the Jio ecosystem. These leaders understood risk, scale, and market realities — things no politician or bureaucrat in Delhi can replicate.
The fundamental problem is that Start-up India was never designed as a practitioner-led initiative. The fund corpus was large on paper but slow in reality, with bureaucratic vetting and compliance keeping disbursement painfully sluggish. Advisory councils were filled with officials rather than builders. Start-ups didn’t need certificates or tax-holiday announcements; they needed capital that moved quickly, mentors who understood markets, and policies that addressed their day-to-day challenges. Instead, they got slogans.
Now imagine if Start-up India had been chaired by Ratan Tata, supported by Azim Premji, Nandan Nilekani, and Anand Mahindra. Imagine a program where these leaders advised policy, mentored founders, and directed funds. Instead of token ministers taking credit, India could have had an ecosystem shaped by those who have built businesses worth billions. The credibility alone would have brought in foreign capital and global partnerships on a scale far greater than what government brochures can boast.
If India truly wants to build a start-up culture, it must abandon the fantasy of replicating Silicon Valley without building basic infrastructure. You cannot compare Bangalore’s traffic gridlock or Delhi’s choking air to the environment in Palo Alto or Berlin. Unicorns are not born in chaos; they are nurtured in ecosystems where governments lay down roads, ensure electricity, enable digital connectivity, and then step aside. India has done little of this but expects its founders to conjure miracles anyway.
Unicorns are not born in press conferences. They are built by people who understand grit, capital, and scale. Start-up India didn’t fail because Indians lack ideas; it failed because those with ideas were forced to operate under ministers who cared more about headlines than handholding. India doesn’t need token ministers mocking delivery apps while dreaming of Silicon Valley. It needs industrialists who understand the Indian reality and can set realistic goals that work here, not in Washington or Brussels. Until then, Start-up India will remain what it has always been — a tagline without a backbone.
