International capital has lengthy served as a spine for nationwide improvement — fueling infrastructure, advancing know-how, and plugging funding gaps that home financial savings alone can not fill. From railways to renewable vitality, it underwrites the ambitions that reshape economies. But, in India, this monetary lifeline typically finds itself caught in a cultural crossfire.
Highlighting this paradox, Akshat Shrivastava, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Hatch, identified that whereas international locations worldwide welcome overseas capital to construct nationwide wealth, Indians uniquely stigmatise it.
In a put up on X (previously Twitter), Shrivastava wrote, “Each nation on earth bought wealthy by bringing overseas wealth.
- UK once they looted India
- Spain and Portugal once they had been ship merchants
- US: when it exported US$ to the world
- Even China: it’s a web exporter and brings overseas wealth.
It is just Indians, who think about overseas capital as impure. We’d like mass schooling.”
His put up sparked a flurry of responses, with customers echoing considerations over India’s reluctance to embrace world capital.
One consumer identified, “Each wealthy nation pulled in overseas capital first, then preached self-reliance later. Some numbers: UK: Extracted an estimated $45T from India (per Utsa Patnaik). China: Attracted $1T+ in FDI since Nineteen Nineties. US: Web $19T overseas funding in Treasuries, equities, startups. In the meantime in India:. Web FDI influx in FY24? Simply $10 billion. Web FPI fairness flows in FY24? Adverse. We romanticise swadeshi, whereas others weaponize capital flows. International cash builds roads, factories, semiconductors, not simply inventory costs.”
One other added, “Unsure it is about purity, appears extra like a mixture of post-colonial trauma + misplaced self-reliance. We glorified ‘swadeshi’ so onerous that ‘overseas capital’ turned synonymous with promoting out. However the irony is that the majority of our ‘homegrown unicorns’ are already backed by world VC cash. We don’t want simply mass schooling, we want mindset rewiring.”
A 3rd voice warned of the sensible dangers: “Individuals are getting carried away with SIP influx charts on YouTube. Simply because DIIs have majority stake than FIIs doesn’t imply we will afford to ‘kick out’ FIIs. That’s delusional. India’s market cap is $4 trillion. FIIs maintain $700-800 billion in equities plus a giant chunk in bonds. Once they pulled out simply $10 billion between October and January, the rupee slid. Now think about if that exit was bigger. You don’t get a correction — you get a collapse. We nonetheless import greater than we export. To settle imports, we pay in {dollars}, not rupees. If overseas capital — by way of FII or FDI — doesn’t are available in, you’re left promoting rupees to purchase {dollars}, and which means one factor: foreign money depreciation. Chasing them away with taxes or laws is like blocking your individual oxygen provide. International capital isn’t elective — it’s the financial norm.”
