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Getting Competitive: A Practitioner's Guide for India
Way back in 1947, as India became independent, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru set out a vision to shape the countrys economy and the development of a just and equitable society. Manufacturing was key to this vision, since it is crucial to generating employment and higher growth. More than seventy years later, manufacturing is far from competitive and contributes only 15 per cent of the GDP. As a result, removing the wide socio-economic disparities remains a distant dream. In Getting Competitive, R.C. Bhargava draws upon his unique experience of more than sixty years as a policymaker and industry leader to give practical suggestions. These include replacing socialistic industry-related policies with those that would promote competitive manufacturing, and substituting Western management culture with that of the East to create trust with citizens and partnership relations with industrialists, workers and the government. The bureaucracy must be enabled to facilitate and promote competitiveness. Above all, we need to create national acceptance that manufacturing competitiveness is our first priority. For policymakers and general readers alike, this book brings promise to what has become a disappointing scenario.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2020
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October 12, 2025R. C. Bhargava’s "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India" explores one of the most pressing questions of modern Indian economics: why a nation blessed with resources, talent, and ambition has struggled for decades to build a thriving manufacturing sector, and how it can still unlock prosperity through globally competitive industry. From the early optimism of independence to today’s urgent calls for job creation and equitable growth, Bhargava traces the nation’s uneven industrial journey with the clarity of someone who has lived it from the inside. Drawing on his long career in both public administration and private industry, he examines the institutional weaknesses, cultural barriers, and policy missteps that have kept India from realizing its potential - and points toward a practical roadmap that balances growth with fairness.
At independence, India’s leaders understood that manufacturing was essential for nation-building. Agriculture alone could not support the population or provide enough employment to raise living standards. Industrialization was supposed to modernize society, absorb rural labor, and generate wealth on a scale large enough to lift millions out of poverty. Yet despite the correctness of that vision, progress has been halting. While East and Southeast Asian countries moved quickly to industrialize, India remained trapped in a cycle of under-investment, protectionism, and mistrust between the state, business, and workers. Bhargava explains that the problem was not a lack of intent but a failure of execution and consistency.
In his account, manufacturing matters because it links every other part of the economy. A new factory does not stand alone - it creates demand for steel, cement, transport, logistics, and countless services. The example of the auto industry shows this multiplier effect clearly: when car sales rise, employment spreads across dealerships, repair shops, financing, and even tourism. Critics often warn that automation will erase factory jobs, but Bhargava counters that higher productivity expands markets and generates new forms of work. India already has the ingredients for a manufacturing boom: natural resources, a young workforce, and a vast consumer base. What it lacks is the competitive spirit and institutional coordination that turned Japan, Korea, and China into industrial powerhouses.
To understand that gap, Bhargava takes readers back to India’s early economic model. Guided by socialist ideals and influenced by Soviet planning, the post-independence government placed faith in state ownership and centralized control. Licenses determined what could be produced and in what quantity, public enterprises were given monopoly status, and profit was often viewed with suspicion. This system bred inefficiency and dependence: government-run industries survived on subsidies rather than performance, while private companies were strangled by red tape and arbitrary restrictions. Shortages, corruption, and low productivity became systemic. By the 1980s, the model was clearly broken, but political inertia delayed reform until the 1991 crisis forced liberalization. Even then, progress was uneven - information technology thrived in part because it was left alone, while manufacturing continued to suffer under outdated taxes and poor infrastructure.
The core principle Bhargava advances is that 'competition is the true engine of progress'. When businesses are protected from rivals, they lose the incentive to innovate and improve. The absence of competition made India’s public sector complacent and wasteful, producing goods of poor quality and at high cost. Liberalization revealed just how unprepared these enterprises were once global standards entered the market. The story of Maruti Suzuki stands as a counterexample. Conceived in the early 1980s as a partnership between the Indian government and Japan’s Suzuki, it operated with professional autonomy, introduced modern manufacturing systems, and made quality and affordability non-negotiable. Its success transformed consumer expectations, created thousands of jobs, and established an ecosystem of suppliers that eventually reached global benchmarks. Bhargava argues that Maruti’s experience demonstrates how competition, once unleashed, can revolutionize an entire industry and set a model for national development.
The book devotes significant attention to the decline of India’s public sector. Created with the noble aim of combining growth with social justice, most state enterprises ended up draining public resources. Managers lacked authority, decisions were shaped by bureaucratic and political interests, and workers were insulated from accountability. Overstaffing, absenteeism, and poor productivity became chronic. A few exceptional cases, such as Maruti Udyog or certain Gujarat enterprises that were granted real autonomy, proved that performance could improve under the right conditions - but they remained rare exceptions. Bhargava maintains that continuing to prop up inefficient public units wastes resources that could be invested in infrastructure, education, or technology - areas that would strengthen overall competitiveness.
Another crucial element in the competitiveness puzzle, Bhargava emphasizes, is people. Manufacturing ultimately depends on the mindset and motivation of workers as much as on machines or capital. Yet Indian management has often treated labor primarily as a risk to be managed, not a partner in productivity. Many industrial workers, coming from agrarian backgrounds, find it hard to adapt to rigid schedules and performance targets. Without communication or trust, unions and management end up in constant conflict. The Japanese example again offers guidance: after World War II, Japan’s companies created an ethic of shared responsibility and equality. Executives lived simply, minimized pay disparities, and encouraged workers to contribute ideas. This cultural unity produced exceptional quality and innovation. Maruti adopted similar practices - common uniforms, equal canteens, and incentives tied to attendance and output - which fostered loyalty and collaboration. For India to replicate such success, Bhargava argues, it must cultivate worker trust and align everyone’s interests around competitiveness.
The shift from state to private responsibility is another recurring theme. Bhargava insists that India’s future now rests on the private sector’s ability to combine efficiency with integrity. Government must provide reliable infrastructure, consistent policy, and quick approvals, but businesses must uphold ethical conduct and reinvest profits productively rather than dissipating them through extravagance or corruption. Past habits - black money, political kickbacks, and self-indulgent consumption - undermined public confidence and drained capital that should have gone into technology and research. Rebuilding that trust is essential if 'India Inc.' is to emerge as a global force.
Supply chains, too, receive detailed attention. For decades, India’s network of component suppliers remained weak because they were protected from market pressures and starved of investment. The Maruti model once again demonstrates a better path: treating suppliers as partners, providing technical and managerial assistance, ensuring fair contracts and timely payments, and demanding the highest quality standards. This collaborative approach created a vendor ecosystem capable of meeting international requirements and turned India into a major auto-component exporter. Bhargava believes that replicating this model across sectors - by redefining outdated small-industry policies and encouraging scaling up - could multiply competitiveness throughout the manufacturing base.
In closing, "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India" argues that the nation’s long-delayed transformation hinges on restoring confidence in manufacturing as the true engine of inclusive growth. The decades of excessive control, dependence on inefficient public enterprises, and fractured supply systems have kept India below its potential. Yet Bhargava remains optimistic: with fair competition, professional management, ethical business practices, empowered workers, and trusted supply partnerships, India can finally achieve the industrial takeoff that has eluded it for so long. The challenge is immense, but so is the opportunity. As Bhargava concludes, the future prosperity and equity of India will ultimately depend on how decisively the country acts on the principles set out in "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India".
At independence, India’s leaders understood that manufacturing was essential for nation-building. Agriculture alone could not support the population or provide enough employment to raise living standards. Industrialization was supposed to modernize society, absorb rural labor, and generate wealth on a scale large enough to lift millions out of poverty. Yet despite the correctness of that vision, progress has been halting. While East and Southeast Asian countries moved quickly to industrialize, India remained trapped in a cycle of under-investment, protectionism, and mistrust between the state, business, and workers. Bhargava explains that the problem was not a lack of intent but a failure of execution and consistency.
In his account, manufacturing matters because it links every other part of the economy. A new factory does not stand alone - it creates demand for steel, cement, transport, logistics, and countless services. The example of the auto industry shows this multiplier effect clearly: when car sales rise, employment spreads across dealerships, repair shops, financing, and even tourism. Critics often warn that automation will erase factory jobs, but Bhargava counters that higher productivity expands markets and generates new forms of work. India already has the ingredients for a manufacturing boom: natural resources, a young workforce, and a vast consumer base. What it lacks is the competitive spirit and institutional coordination that turned Japan, Korea, and China into industrial powerhouses.
To understand that gap, Bhargava takes readers back to India’s early economic model. Guided by socialist ideals and influenced by Soviet planning, the post-independence government placed faith in state ownership and centralized control. Licenses determined what could be produced and in what quantity, public enterprises were given monopoly status, and profit was often viewed with suspicion. This system bred inefficiency and dependence: government-run industries survived on subsidies rather than performance, while private companies were strangled by red tape and arbitrary restrictions. Shortages, corruption, and low productivity became systemic. By the 1980s, the model was clearly broken, but political inertia delayed reform until the 1991 crisis forced liberalization. Even then, progress was uneven - information technology thrived in part because it was left alone, while manufacturing continued to suffer under outdated taxes and poor infrastructure.
The core principle Bhargava advances is that 'competition is the true engine of progress'. When businesses are protected from rivals, they lose the incentive to innovate and improve. The absence of competition made India’s public sector complacent and wasteful, producing goods of poor quality and at high cost. Liberalization revealed just how unprepared these enterprises were once global standards entered the market. The story of Maruti Suzuki stands as a counterexample. Conceived in the early 1980s as a partnership between the Indian government and Japan’s Suzuki, it operated with professional autonomy, introduced modern manufacturing systems, and made quality and affordability non-negotiable. Its success transformed consumer expectations, created thousands of jobs, and established an ecosystem of suppliers that eventually reached global benchmarks. Bhargava argues that Maruti’s experience demonstrates how competition, once unleashed, can revolutionize an entire industry and set a model for national development.
The book devotes significant attention to the decline of India’s public sector. Created with the noble aim of combining growth with social justice, most state enterprises ended up draining public resources. Managers lacked authority, decisions were shaped by bureaucratic and political interests, and workers were insulated from accountability. Overstaffing, absenteeism, and poor productivity became chronic. A few exceptional cases, such as Maruti Udyog or certain Gujarat enterprises that were granted real autonomy, proved that performance could improve under the right conditions - but they remained rare exceptions. Bhargava maintains that continuing to prop up inefficient public units wastes resources that could be invested in infrastructure, education, or technology - areas that would strengthen overall competitiveness.
Another crucial element in the competitiveness puzzle, Bhargava emphasizes, is people. Manufacturing ultimately depends on the mindset and motivation of workers as much as on machines or capital. Yet Indian management has often treated labor primarily as a risk to be managed, not a partner in productivity. Many industrial workers, coming from agrarian backgrounds, find it hard to adapt to rigid schedules and performance targets. Without communication or trust, unions and management end up in constant conflict. The Japanese example again offers guidance: after World War II, Japan’s companies created an ethic of shared responsibility and equality. Executives lived simply, minimized pay disparities, and encouraged workers to contribute ideas. This cultural unity produced exceptional quality and innovation. Maruti adopted similar practices - common uniforms, equal canteens, and incentives tied to attendance and output - which fostered loyalty and collaboration. For India to replicate such success, Bhargava argues, it must cultivate worker trust and align everyone’s interests around competitiveness.
The shift from state to private responsibility is another recurring theme. Bhargava insists that India’s future now rests on the private sector’s ability to combine efficiency with integrity. Government must provide reliable infrastructure, consistent policy, and quick approvals, but businesses must uphold ethical conduct and reinvest profits productively rather than dissipating them through extravagance or corruption. Past habits - black money, political kickbacks, and self-indulgent consumption - undermined public confidence and drained capital that should have gone into technology and research. Rebuilding that trust is essential if 'India Inc.' is to emerge as a global force.
Supply chains, too, receive detailed attention. For decades, India’s network of component suppliers remained weak because they were protected from market pressures and starved of investment. The Maruti model once again demonstrates a better path: treating suppliers as partners, providing technical and managerial assistance, ensuring fair contracts and timely payments, and demanding the highest quality standards. This collaborative approach created a vendor ecosystem capable of meeting international requirements and turned India into a major auto-component exporter. Bhargava believes that replicating this model across sectors - by redefining outdated small-industry policies and encouraging scaling up - could multiply competitiveness throughout the manufacturing base.
In closing, "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India" argues that the nation’s long-delayed transformation hinges on restoring confidence in manufacturing as the true engine of inclusive growth. The decades of excessive control, dependence on inefficient public enterprises, and fractured supply systems have kept India below its potential. Yet Bhargava remains optimistic: with fair competition, professional management, ethical business practices, empowered workers, and trusted supply partnerships, India can finally achieve the industrial takeoff that has eluded it for so long. The challenge is immense, but so is the opportunity. As Bhargava concludes, the future prosperity and equity of India will ultimately depend on how decisively the country acts on the principles set out in "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India".
December 12, 2022
I couldn't find enough takeaways from this book. Repeatative chapters, and no concrete solution is being provided. No guidelines for policymaking, just "should be done" and "could be done" observations. Read the first two pages of any chapter and you can skip the whole chapter,The rest of the it is just repeatation of one or two points over and over. The author just keeps on repeating the problems being faced (1951 Industrial Act, Nehru's socialist approach, Civil services borrowed from Colonial British(He himself was one but couldn't do much to improve the system, as he keeps on bashing it which shows there's not much could do.)I think almost everyone is aware of the problems and nothing new is being cited by the author) but when it comes to giving solutions, they are as naive as that of an essay written in school. "Train the workers and they will be competitive", "train the IAS officers and they will be efficient." "Encourage competition, encourage quality.Be competitive, Government should encourage competition, kill the less competitive companies" Is it that easy? The "How?" part is never addressed practically. Full of contradictions. In one chapter he keeps on blaming beurocrats that they played safe and followed age old systems to protect themselves and their jobs and then in the same breathe, in the later part of the chapter, he says that when he was a beurocrat himself he followed precedents and played safe. If he couldn't do it because he was worried about "consequences", why would anyone else? And what is the solution to all this he proposes- "There should be trust between beurocrats and politicians!" How? There's not a single line about how.
And the number of times Nehru and his socialist approach is being blamed is mind-boggling. Huge assumptions, idealistic assumptions ("The elected representatives of a constituency knows about the needs of his people." Is it?)
Disappointing book.
He keeps on praising Maruti and conveniently ignores that Maruti was backed by Government for its initial years, Maruti flourished for its quality but also partly because of low or almost nil competition in the automotive sector. If a Government controlled Maruti would be thrown in today's open market. Maruti's business model and manufacturing approach, which is assembly line and vendor based and caters to a huge consumer base, is being taken as a template for other industries that are unique in their operation and field of work and have entirely different customers. I am sorry, but it was a disappointing read.
And the number of times Nehru and his socialist approach is being blamed is mind-boggling. Huge assumptions, idealistic assumptions ("The elected representatives of a constituency knows about the needs of his people." Is it?)
Disappointing book.
He keeps on praising Maruti and conveniently ignores that Maruti was backed by Government for its initial years, Maruti flourished for its quality but also partly because of low or almost nil competition in the automotive sector. If a Government controlled Maruti would be thrown in today's open market. Maruti's business model and manufacturing approach, which is assembly line and vendor based and caters to a huge consumer base, is being taken as a template for other industries that are unique in their operation and field of work and have entirely different customers. I am sorry, but it was a disappointing read.
December 12, 2020
An insightful read on the importance of developing Manufacturing industry. Post Indian independence, Indian economy has been on a socialist path to rapidly industrialize to help it's citizens raise their standard of living. But the policies were not conducive for development of a competitive industrialized economy. Suzuki by working along with Govt's Maruti and developing other supply chain manufacturers had implemented a quality revolution and discipline in the country's automobile Industry which had helped it become the 4th largest Global Auto manufacturer currently.
July 26, 2020
The book should be named as the Maruti Suzuki success story! Nevertheless, the author merges his experience as an IAS officer with ideas why India can be more competitive. He takes the bull by the horns by mandating integrity and Japanese living style, but otherwise explains the factors.
January 26, 2021
A real practitioners guide for one who wants to live in a developed, civilised and well cultured nation. Authors vast experience, that is tested and proved by his contribution, makes the book more authentic. And yes, it's a timely one too.
April 14, 2022
Even though it says practitioner's guide,
It's more to do with the high impact that government policy making has on manufacturing competitiveness.
There isnt much of a concept that I could take away from the book.
It's more to do with the high impact that government policy making has on manufacturing competitiveness.
There isnt much of a concept that I could take away from the book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews