*By Kumar Chellappan

Way back in the 1960s, a Coimbatore based entrepreneur designed a car which could be sold at Rs 1,000/ a piece, the leading industrialists and polit in JN inicians laughed it off and termed it as a mad idea.

Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu (G D Naidu for short) was a school dropout and how can a semi illiterate person could design a motor car? Starting from the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to industrialist Birla could not believe Naidu’s idea.

Those were the days of license-permit-raj and only three companies had the permission to manufacture motor cars. The Birla-owned Hindustan Motors who were the manufacturers of Ambassador cars, the Walchand Nagar Group’s Premier Padmini and the Chettiayrs of Tamil Nadu who manufactured Standard Herald cars held the monopoly of Indian car market. Outsiders were not allowed in any of the segments owned by people who financed the Congress and its proprietors. Socialism was the catchword the rulers of the day used to silence those who questioned this mismatch.

It is said that a European automobile giant bought the design from Naidu and made a great fortune selling the car he designed. Naidu was the pioneer who manufactured electric razors, cameras, radios, tape recorders and record players.

Those traveling to Coimbatore should never miss a chance to visit GD Naidu’s museum to get a feeling of the innovative products designed by this man without the aid of computers or any technicians.

The Government of India did not allow Naidu to manufacture even one of the hundreds of innovations he made. Please remember that there were no organizations in India those days to promote innovators and entrepreneurs.

The stories of those who made it big were saga of hard work, perseverance and patience. The India of the 1947 to 2014 has undergone a major transformation thanks to the indefatigable efforts by a single individual. He taught the Indians that we are noway behind other countries including superpowers in entrepreneurship, wisdom and intelligence.

While the political party that ruled India for almost six decades after the end of colonialism wanted the country to stay poor forever because of their fear that given a chance somebody who does not belong to the clan would unseat them from the corridors of power.

That is the past. Cut to the present. To be an entrepreneur, one need not have crores of rupees as capital. If one has the idea of innovation, there is no need to look elsewhere. The ease of doing business has been never better in present day India. The nation is in need of innovative ideas that could resolve the problems faced by the billions, especially in core infrastructure, public distribution, health care accessible to all without additional cost and educational facilities. Then there are issues associated with agricultural operations.

Three scholars are coming out with a pathbreaking book which is compatible with present day problems. A book that turns frugal thinking into a powerful, scalable innovation that thrives within limits without cutting corners.

LeanSpark authored by Jaideep Prabhu, Mukesh Sud and Priyank Narayan asks “Across India’s offices, boardrooms, farmlands and maker spaces, entrepreneurs are building rockets and medical devices on shoestring budgets and devising financial and mobility systems that are lean and accessible. If India can build world-class innovation with less, what’s stopping the rest of the world?”.

Well, LeanSpark has the solution and there is every possibility of this spark lighting up the minds of those who are caught in the age-old dilemma “To be or Not To Be”.

Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti