Fear and cheer: The paradox of the Indian business scene

The point is that businessmen look to prosper; what they seek to minimise is uncertainty, which denotes risk. Beyond that they are politically agnostic, writes T N Ninan

The paradox of the Indian business scene today is that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral victories have been cheered resoundingly on the stock market, while many businessmen are fearful of the party’s government in New Delhi. It was four years ago when Rahul Bajaj (now no more) told Amit Shah that industrialists were afraid to criticise the government because they feared that “it would not be appreciated”. He also said that none of his industrialist friends would dare to admit as much. And he compared it with the days of the Manmohan Singh government when anyone could criticise freely.

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