Uday Kotak’s call for investing at home lays bare Indian companies’ short-termism

Is selling bridges and highways to foreigners patriotic? In a world with tribal rules, as Kotak described, Indian ownership of infrastructure is crucial, strategic even, should the country find itself fighting a war. In 1991, former prime minister Narasimha Rao famously redefined self-reliance as “the ability to pay for our imports through our exports”. That oversimplified thesis came apart during the Kargil war when the US denied India localized GPS data, severely handicapping military operations.