E-mail a friendNandan Nilekani
airdate April 9, 2009
Nandan Nilekani has been listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time and "Businessman of the Year" by Forbes Asia. He's co-chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited and one of the founding tycoons of India's technology outsourcing industry. He has also been involved in various initiatives of the central and state governments in his native country. In his book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century, Nandan looks at the evolution and future of the emerging economic giant.
Entrepreneur discusses India's population and its turnout for elections. (1:59)
Full interview. (12:54)
Nandan Nilekani
Tavis: Nandan Nilekani is the co-chairman of Infosys, one of the world's leading information technology providers. Previously he served as the company's CEO and managing director. He's also the author of an acclaimed new book. It's called "Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation;" the foreword to the text written by his dear friend and a friend of this program, Thomas Friedman, of course, of "The New York Times." Mr. Nilekani, nice to have you on the program.
Nandan Nilekani: Thank you, Tavis. Thank you for having me.
Tavis: I'm glad to have you here. Let me start by asking - I want to talk about India, of course, in detail, but I want to start by asking why India is such a topic of conversation. I can't find myself anywhere in a conversation these days where India and China, China and India, are not, like, the topics of international discourse. Why is India being so much talked about, and then we'll get inside the book?
Nilekani: Well, I think it's something fascinating to see a population of a billion people living in a democracy, all having aspirations, trying to make their lives better, and the sense that a country is meeting its destiny is always really exciting.
And the second reason, I think, is the world is changing. We're seeing more and more countries coming forward. The G8 has now become the G20. So I think you're seeing a new world emerging and therefore, people are keen about this.
Tavis: First, the population - tell me about the population of India.
Nilekani: Well, it's a billion people, but I think the difference is the way we thought about our population, because 40 years back we thought of the population as a burden, as a liability, and now we think of the population as an asset, as human capital, and we're having what is called a demographic dividend, and that's what makes it exciting.
When countries have the demographic dividend, that's the time when they have a lot of economic growth, a lot of creativity, a lot of innovation.
Tavis: I read somewhere that there are about - your book, in fact, 714 million registered - eligible voters.
Nilekani: Voters, yes. In fact, it's a good - on April 16th we have our general election where over 700 million people will be eligible to vote, and it's going to go on for a month and then there's going to be a new government, so it's a very exciting time.
Tavis: That's a whole lot of voters - 714 million eligible.
Nilekani: Yes.
Tavis: Give me a sense of what your turnout is like. We talk about this in our country, of course, all the time. What's the turnout like in India?
Nilekani: I think overall it will be between 50 to 60 percent, which is very high.
Tavis: That's a good number, yeah.
Nilekani: And what's interesting is that the poor actually come out in larger numbers, because they see the voter as the main way to change the government and to make governments accountable.
Tavis: You go back and forth so you know our country rather well. What can voters who are poor in this country learn from that example? Because it's not always that way in this country.
Nilekani: Yes. In fact, it's the other way.
Tavis: It's the other way around, exactly.
Nilekani: I think they can learn that they have a vote, they have a choice. They can make governance accountable, and people should take care of their concerns, otherwise they can get voted out. I think that's the message.
The other big thing, Tavis, is that all these votes are cast on electronic voting machines.
Tavis: All of them - the whole thing.
Nilekani: All of them - 1.1 million machines. So it's a very modern election.
Tavis: That's embarrassing. (Laughter) And I'll leave it at that - my commentary about our voting system. That said - I digress on that - talk to me about English in your country.
Nilekani: Well, English has been in India for close to 200 years. It began because when the British ruled India they wanted Indians to work in administration so they taught them English, but English became the language which Indians use to unite and to seek independence. And it still remains because India is a country with so many languages that English became the language of compromise.
So when two Indians meet from different parts of the country, often the only language in common is English. And now because of globalization, English has now become a language of aspiration.
Tavis: Speaking of aspiration, you are obviously a very successful entrepreneur in your country, and we all know that around the world. But talk to me about entrepreneurship inside of your country.
Nilekani: I think entrepreneurship in India has really had a sea change because after independence the Indian society was very suspicious of entrepreneurs and didn't give them a large role.
But today we see entrepreneurs as a very important engine of growth, and India is very blessed because there's a very large number of entrepreneurs, big and small, and that's one of the reasons for its vitality and energy today.
Tavis: How is democracy faring inside of your country?
Nilekani: I think democracy is deeply embedded, because as I said, even the poor feel that they have to vote. And people are using the vote to demand better governance, better accountability, better public services.
So I think it's become a way for people to express their angst with the system, and it's become very deep-rooted, which is what makes it fascinating because a billion people, many of whom are poor, using the electoral system to change their government is a very powerful idea.
Tavis: Let me go inside the book now, "Imagining India," and start by asking - this is your first book?
Nilekani: Yes.
Tavis: For all of your success in the world of business, this is your first book. As I mentioned, the foreword by your friend, Tom Friedman - I'll talk about that in just a second.
Why did you write this? What did you want to get across with "Imagining India?"
Nilekani: Well, I felt that India had many contradictions and complexities, and often, it's difficult for people to relate to that. Why does it have so many billionaires, so many poor people, why does it have such beautiful campuses and such large slums? Why is it that they have this high-tech industry and such a large number of young people with no education?
And it's very difficult to understand these complexities, so I felt the need to really put it all down. And the other reason, I feel India is on the verge of great promise, provided we do the right things. In some sense this is a framework of ideas for India's future.
Tavis: Let me take them in the order that you offer them - that dichotomy that you spoke of a moment ago, of rich and poor and educated and literate and nice and not-so-nice places to live. That dichotomy exists in every country. What makes India unique with regard to those issues?
Nilekani: Because some of them are extreme. One is to have the largest number of billionaires outside the U.S. on the "Forbes" list; on the other hand to have a few hundred million people who are in poverty. That's an extreme situation.
So I think it's there in every country but in India in some cases it's very extreme. Also, there are parts of India which live in the 17th century, and there are parts which live in the 21st century. So (unintelligible) time zone, basically, it's like in different eras at the same time.
Tavis: So your first issue, in short, was the disparities; the second issue, the promise. I want to put something in the middle before I go to the promise, if I might. In between these two things, the disparity and the promise, or the peril and the promise, put another way, what are the greatest challenges that India, the country, faces?
Nilekani: Well, I think it's really addressing its fundamental challenges of educating everybody, making sure there's decent infrastructure - roads, power, water - making sure that there are jobs for this huge, burgeoning, young population - just addressing simple issues of making the country better.
Tavis: With so much money in the country, though, why is that a challenge?
Nilekani: Well, a growing country needs a lot of capital. India does have a high savings rate, but when a country is growing it needs more money to invest and to build infrastructure and so forth.
So while the bulk of India's money comes really from within, it also has some amount of money coming from outside, which is (unintelligible) foreign investment either through the stock markets or through bonds.
Tavis: What are the myths, the misperceptions, that you too often hear - those things that irk you about what people think, about what they have heard about - misheard, to be more accurate - about your country?
Nilekani: They're not really misconceptions, and they're all probably true, except that they're only parts of the truth. Some people see the extreme poverty and the challenges of that. Some people think that everybody's doing IT work and answering the phone or something like that, which is not really true. (Laughter)
And some people believe that it's just a huge population - it's all true. And my whole idea was to say, look, there's no one reality. There are multiple realities and you need to really figure out the whole thing in a holistic manner to really get a sense of what's happening on the ground.
Tavis: For entrepreneurs, for those in business, for multinationals, is it just the population that so turns them on? Why does everybody in business want to get inside of India?
Nilekani: Because it's a trillion-dollar economy, and it's a trillion-dollar economy that is growing, even in these difficult times, at over 6 percent. Unlike many Asian countries that are very export-focused, it's a domestic economy. Two-thirds of India's spending is domestic consumer spending.
So all these things means it creates large markets - for example, India buys eight million mobile phones a month. It's probably the world's largest mobile market.
Tavis: So everybody in India has a cell phone?
Nilekani: Not everybody, but they're getting there. (Laughter) Give them three, four more years and they'll get there.
Tavis: You commented about the fact that everybody thinks that everybody in India is working in IT. What does the population of India do?
Nilekani: I think the bulk of the population is actually in the rural sector, in the farms and in the villages, and 60 percent of India still lives in its villages and more than half of them work on the farm. So actually, it's still predominantly an agricultural country.
The total number of people in the information technology and BPO business is less than two million out of a billion. It's not that big. (Laughs)
Tavis: Yeah, that's amazing. Let me close our conversation where I promised I would get to, which is talking about the promise. So the other part of your book is talking about the promise that rests inside of this country. The promise is what?
Nilekani: Well, basically when you have a young country which is having this demographic dividend, unless you invest in your people and have them prepared to deal with life, have the skills, have the jobs, then a demographic dividend can become a demographic disaster and the same young people with high aspirations can become disgruntled and resentful and potentially violent.
And that's really the challenge - either we go the road of fulfilling our destiny or we have more problems.
Tavis: Tell me about - for those who don't know your work; many of us do and have read about you for years - tell me about your work, how you made your money.
Nilekani: Well, I co-founded a company - it's called Infosys Technologies Limited. It's one of the world's largest and most respected software companies. And I joined this company at the ground floor 29 years back and I'm still there, so that helped.
Tavis: Your childhood in India was like what? Tell me about your background, growing up in India.
Nilekani: I grew up in a very middle class family. My father was a professional. But I had the advantage that I went to one of the top schools, called the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and that gave me a big break because I got to meet a lot of very good people, and that also helped me to get a job, which got me a chance to be on the ground floor at the founding of this company.
Tavis: Speaking of good people you met along the way, Tom Friedman, as I mentioned earlier, does the foreword to the book, a friend of this program. Tell me about your friendship - how do you know Tom Friedman?
Nilekani: Well, I know Tom for many years and I used to meet him at Davos and he used to come to India. And once I met him in 2004, when I gave him this whole idea that technology was leveling the playing field, and that led to him getting the inspiration to write "The World is Flat." And we have been very good friends, and he's been a great supporter of mine.
Tavis: Not that you need money - you've been blessed and you've done very well in your own life - but Friedman should have given you some of those royalties. You know that book sold a lot of copies.
Nilekani: I know, but I think he was so gracious (laughter) in acknowledging my contribution, I'm grateful to him.
Tavis: No, I'm just teasing and I'm glad to have you on the program.
Nilekani: All right. Thanks, Tavis - thank you.
Tavis: His name (laughs), Nandan Nilekani. His new book is called "Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation." If anybody inside the country can tell you about the country, it is him. We're honored to have you on the program.
Nilekani: Thank you.
Back to April 9, 2009