Don’t Whip Self Over DeepSeek | Letter to the Editor

This has reference to the op-ed titled “Don’t Whip Self Over DeepSeek” by Dhiraj Nayyar in today’s Economic Times.

I agree with the author that there’s ample scope for India to grow to $10 trillion GDP by doing more of what it’s doing and adding things that China is no longer doing as competitively as before. Accordingly, I agree that the only issue worth agitating about is absence of double-digit growth of Indian economy. I had made a similar point in my own Letter to the Editor entitled “Let’s Remix Now Research Later” dated 23 August 2024.

While the author does not mention this, when China was India’s size around 20 years ago, it engaged not in fundamental R&D but outright theft of Silicon Valley intellectual property. Today Huawei is bigger than Cisco but we should remember that it got its start by copying the source code, including bug codes, of Cisco router in the late 1990s.

While I echo the author’s last point about export-orientation of Chinese economy, we must not forget that India banned TikTok. At least three well-funded Indian startups emerged to fill the vacuum caused by the exit of the Chinese short-video app. But, despite the protectionism offered to them, not one of them was able to stop the rise of Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. While it’s not aspirational to say so, it seems that fundamental inventions are not India’s strengths. That said, there’s no need to be defensive about India’s supremacy in IT Services. It’s a best practice of Business 101 to focus on strengths.

Thanks and Regards.