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By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

Bengal’s Ludwig Erhard

For decades, Swapan Dasgupta made a career of diagnosing India’s political ailments. As a columnist, editor, author and public intellectual, the erudite and scintillating Dasgupta dissected challenged orthodoxies and defended the intellectual traditions of the Indian Right. However, following his new appointment as the new Finance Minister of a West Bengal in economic doldrums, he perhaps faces the most demanding assignment of his career. His supporters however are confident that if there is...

Bengal’s Ludwig Erhard

For decades, Swapan Dasgupta made a career of diagnosing India’s political ailments. As a columnist, editor, author and public intellectual, the erudite and scintillating Dasgupta dissected challenged orthodoxies and defended the intellectual traditions of the Indian Right. However, following his new appointment as the new Finance Minister of a West Bengal in economic doldrums, he perhaps faces the most demanding assignment of his career. His supporters however are confident that if there is anyone most suited to sort out Bengal’s messy economy, it is Dasgupta. His appointment following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ascent to power in Bengal after overthrowing Mamata Banerjee’s TMC regime is among the more intriguing political transitions in recent Indian political memory. India has seen journalists cross into politics before. M.J. Akbar moved from the newsroom to the Ministry of External Affairs. Arun Shourie, one of India’s most formidable investigative journalists, became a reform-minded minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government. Others, from Manish Sisodia to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi and Chandan Mitra, have made similar journeys. Yet Dasgupta’s case is distinctive. Unlike many journalists-turned-politicians, he was never merely a ‘reporter.’ Whether in debate or through his prolific and trenchant writings, he has always been an intellectual combatant, a scholar of political ideas with a sweeping knowledge of world history by which he leavens those ideas. Dasgupta has always been one of the most articulate exponents of modern Indian conservatism. Educated at La Martiniere College in Kolkata, St Stephen’s College in Delhi and later the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he earned a doctorate, Dasgupta cultivated a reputation for formidable scholarship. His books, including Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right and The Ayodhya Reference, revealed an uncommon ability to place contemporary political disputes within a broader historical and ideological framework. For his supporters, he was among the few intellectuals capable of articulating conservative ideas in a language usually dominated by the Left. To critics, he was a sophisticated polemicist. Yet, even his opponents seldom questioned the breadth of his reading or the sharpness of his arguments. However, the challenge facing Dasgupta now is no longer intellectual but administrative. The Bengal he inherits bears little resemblance to the state that once led India in industry, commerce and scientific innovation. As he himself quipped in trademark fashion with a sharp historical analogy, the state’s economy resembled postwar Germany. The figures are sobering. West Bengal’s state debt has ballooned to around Rs. 8 lakh crore during the TMC regime. Thousands of companies have relocated or curtailed operations over the years amid a hostile investment climate. The new BJP government has inherited not merely a fiscal challenge but a crisis of confidence. “We are left with a near-bankrupt treasury,” Dasgupta said. Equally troubling, in his view, is the erosion of trust among investors and entrepreneurs. Bengal’s relationship with business has been uneasy to say the least. First the long night of the Left, followed by the TMC’s anti-business, appeasement brand of politics has ensured that the scars of industrial disputes and land controversies remain fresh. In this dire situation, reviving private investment will require convincing businesses that Bengal has changed. In this respect, Dasgupta’s strengths may prove unexpectedly useful. Throughout his career he displayed an ability to engage with ideas, institutions and stakeholders across ideological divides. His early moves hint at a broader vision. Rather than confining pre-budget consultations to Kolkata, Dasgupta shifted the Finance Department’s attention to Siliguri in a moved suffused with deliberate symbolism. North Bengal has long complained of neglect by governments centred on the state’s southern districts. By engaging tea producers, agricultural interests, tourism operators and local business groups, the newly-minted finance minister appears eager to demonstrate that economic revival will not just be a Kolkata-centric project. That said, debt servicing consumes a substantial portion of state revenues. Welfare commitments are politically difficult to unwind and infrastructure deficits remain significant. While public intellectuals excel at identifying problems, governing demands compromises and the acceptance of imperfect solutions. Still, Bengal’s new finance minister possesses as fine an appreciation of history than any Indian politician around. He knows that states decline not just because economic mistakes but because they lose faith in their future. Restoring that confidence may be the central task of his tenure. For years Swapan Dasgupta chronicled India’s political story from the sidelines. Now he finds himself at the centre of one of its most consequential state-level experiments. Whatever the outcome of his tenure, few would deny that Bengal’s finances have acquired perhaps their most learned custodian in decades.

Forgotten Despite Capability

In business, perception often begins working long before capability is ever discovered. Before a founder speaks, presents an idea, or demonstrates expertise, the market has already started forming assumptions based on background, surname, visibility, influence, and familiarity.


While few openly acknowledge it, this silent bias shapes far more business opportunities than most entrepreneurs realise.


Recently, while interacting with a group of entrepreneurs, this reality became impossible to ignore. There were individuals who instantly commanded respect simply because they belonged to influential business families or carried well-known surnames.


People naturally assumed they possessed leadership, intelligence, and expertise even before hearing them speak. Their credibility was inherited before it was proven.


At the same time, there were others in the room with sharper thinking, stronger insights, greater practical understanding, and genuine business intelligence who remained largely unnoticed.


Not because they lacked capability, but because they lacked visibility attached to their identity.


This is not limited to business alone.


Perception Shortcuts

Society has always operated through perception shortcuts. A doctor’s child is often expected to become a doctor.


A business family’s heir is assumed to understand leadership automatically. Familiarity creates trust even when competence has not yet been tested.


Meanwhile, individuals with extraordinary talent but no influential background spend years trying to earn the credibility others receive instantly. The same pattern quietly affects thousands of founders and entrepreneurs today.


Many business owners believe their struggle to grow comes from market competition, operational limitations, weak marketing, or lack of networking. While these factors matter, another issue often remains hidden beneath the surface.


Personal Branding

The market simply does not remember them strongly enough. And in today’s environment, being overlooked is becoming more expensive than being underestimated. Many highly capable founders continue losing opportunities to people who may possess less expertise but far stronger visibility and positioning.


Investors respond faster to familiarity. Collaborations move towards recognisable names. Clients trust what feels established. Opportunities naturally flow towards people the market already perceives as credible. This is precisely where personal branding becomes a business necessity rather than a vanity exercise. A personal brand is not about posting photographs online or becoming socially visible for attention. It is the reputation, authority, emotional association, and market perception attached to a founder’s identity. It determines whether people remember your name when opportunities arise or forget you the moment the conversation changes.


The uncomfortable reality is that capability alone no longer guarantees recognition. In crowded industries today, many exceptional entrepreneurs remain invisible simply because they never intentionally shaped how the market perceives them.


They focused entirely on building the business while ignoring the identity behind it. Over time, this creates a dangerous situation where the founder becomes highly competent, yet commercially forgettable.


And markets rarely reward people they cannot clearly remember.


Sustainable Growth

The founders who continue growing sustainably understand something critical early in their journey. They do not wait for society, legacy, or influential networks to validate them first.


They intentionally build visibility, authority, communication, positioning, and trust around their own identity. Their personal brand begins creating credibility before meetings even begin.


This changes everything.


Because once perception strengthens, opportunities start approaching differently. Conversations shift. Referrals increase. Trust forms faster.


The founder no longer needs to constantly prove capability because the market already associates their name with authority. For founders operating at or beyond the ₹5 crore level, this has become increasingly important.


At that stage, businesses are not competing only through products or services anymore. They are competing through trust, familiarity, positioning, and perceived leadership. In many industries today, founders are not losing to better businesses. They are losing to businesses the market understands and remembers faster.


That distinction is changing the future of growth itself.


For entrepreneurs and business owners who feel they possess far greater capability than the recognition they currently receive, this may not be a confidence problem at all. It may be a perception problem.


I work with a select group of founders and business owners to help them strengthen their personal brand, refine how the market perceives them, and build authority that creates long-term business growth.


Founders who wish to understand where their current positioning may be limiting future opportunities may book a complimentary 30-minute Founder Brand Audit here: https://calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit Because in the end, talent may open possibilities, but perception often decides who gets remembered when the biggest opportunities enter the room.


(The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

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