The two Indias are defined by people
My role takes me all around Asia and I consider it a blessing that I get to visit and learn from so many diverse, fantastic places. There is one place, however, that continually leaves me stunned when I visit. I quite often feel like a fish out of water in this particular country, because my job at its simplest, is to understand people, but when I visit India, I realize I need to play catch up, fast.
I rationalize this myself as being OK as there is not one India to try and understand, but at least two very different countries within the one. So, it should be twice as hard right?
The two Indias
Firstly, a disclaimer — I’m an outsider and always will be so this is just my perspective and observations rather than any statement of fact. I’ve no doubt I’m mixing a whole bunch of different segments here but bear with me for now and feel free to correct me later. :)
India 1 is made up of 150 million people who seem to be a lot like me… no insult intended! They grew up without the internet, without smartphones and without access to a lot of the questions that they might like answers to. Their initial experience of the internet was via a desktop computer, probably at work where someone else was paying for the bandwidth, and they all too often felt that if they wanted to ‘do good’ in life, the only real option was to leave their home town to study. This would be followed by a stint abroad to make their fortune, then they’d consider coming back after they had succeeded. Maybe it was a legacy of the British Raj or maybe it’s as simple as having your formative years spent in a country that was still finding its way. Not surprisingly, this group hasn’t shown me a lot of confidence in India as a country making an impact on the future. That kind of pride seemed limited to beating us Aussies regularly in the cricket.
India 2 to me at least, feels like a whole other country. It is made up of 350 million younger people, who grew up with a different mentality and access to technology. They see access to smartphones, WI-FI and other technology as their right. They don’t use the internet to merely check the latest cricket scores like India 1, they use their smartphone to watch the entire match.
Perhaps most importantly their attitude towards home feels vastly different to me. There is no more sense of urgency to head overseas as India is a place of opportunity for them, and they believe their country is as capable as any other and has greater opportunities than any other (this also appears to play out at a lower level whereby people don’t feel a need to move to the big cities to build their business either). India 2 wants to build their business and make their fortune at home. They have so much confidence in their country that they see no reason why this isn’t possible.
The demand and expectation for access to communication by India 2, means that India internet usage is exploding. Case in point, the number of smartphone users in India is forecast to be almost 830 million by 2022. Up from about 400 million in 2017. To a bloke from a country of 25 million people that’s a staggering figure.
What this means (yes there is a point I’m eventually getting to here)
I believe India, more than any other nation, is going to change the world during my generation’s lifetime. I don’t profess to know exactly how yet, I suspect in a thousand different ways, but with such a large population of free-minded, confident, enthusiastic, well educated and talented people now turning their minds onto forging a career at home rather than abroad we should all be watching closely to see what happens over the next couple of decades. There is a reason Google is working to roll out free high-speed Wi-Fi around the country — we’d love to play a role in fast tracking India to do whatever wonderful things it is going to do.
I look forward to packing my bag again for India. I am always keen to return and find out what’s new since the last time I was there.
For a person with an overactive sense of curiosity like me, that’s my kind of place.
P.S. Just to be clear — this does not mean we aren’t still enemies whenever a cricket match is being played between us.
About the Author
Stuart Pike is Director of Consumer and Market Insights for Google, Asia-Pacific. He leads the team who try to understand what is going on in the market and uncover the ‘why’ of consumer behavior. You can start a conversation with him here, or on LinkedIn and Twitter.
