Mera Bharat Mahaan, truly, undeniably

Kumar Mangalam Birla

Today, we often confuse Brand India with Product India. However, Brand India goes far beyond Product India, signifying deeper aspects such as values, ideals and images. For example, at the moment, Brand India connotes mostly India's IT prowess.

But India's achievements extend well beyond IT. We have to leverage upon these achievements in a structured way to make India one of the top five global brands and the number one destination for IT, manufacturing, services and tourism. So far, Brand India does not command the respect it deserves. This is because we have just not worked at promoting it. I'm also convinced we have to begin by talking internally. The communication has to first reach across one billion Indians before it takes flight outside. Imagine the power of the brand if it had one billion passionate brand ambassadors?

What's needed is to inject the element of pride. The best way to communicate Brand India is to start with the Brand Indian and more specifically, the Intellectual Capital that the Indian has come to stand for. In effect, the Brand Indian becomes the conduit for Brand India. Ultimately, every country derives its values from its people and culture, and we have a great story to tell here.

Let us build on the success stories so far, in three phases - first in IT, second in areas such as manufacturing and tourism. From there on, we could extend to other sectors or attributes. To make the campaign a real success it has to transcend into a movement and the thrust of the movement should be 'The Global Indian - Intellectual Capital of the World.'

Let's examine how credible this proposition is:

• 1/3rd of NASA scientists are Indians
• There are over 5000 Indo-American professors in American colleges
• More than 30,000 Indian doctors in America
• GE has set up its second largest R&D centre in India with 1,000 PhDs
• 50 p.c. Fortune 500 companies outsource work to India
• Among the only three nations to build supercomputers
• Among the only six to launch satellites
• Over 35 p.c. Silicon Valley start-ups are by Indians
• The largest English-speaking technical manpower

Let's look at manufacturing and trade:

• NSE and BSE rank No. 3 and 5 respectively, in the number of trades worldwide
• The largest cotton yarn exporter, largest manufacturer of motorcycles and two-wheelers
• Lowest-cost producer of steel, aluminium, cement, CDs
• Pharma is the next IT in the making. We are 4th largest

India is an idea whose time has come. It has all the ingredients of a global brand waiting to be communicated, first to the internal audience and then to the world. The key is that we have to start and this is the time for it. We cannot wait for the perfect moment, there will never be one.