Investing or gambling in India

 Many states have invested in India and many have pulled out, crawled out with bruises all over them. Many western corporations too have gone in and out and made a lot of losses before calling it a day, knowing that the unfathomable rules and Indian ways of doing business are beyond them to comprehend and to make money from their investments. Indian laws are very watery and very flexible and very like the American's so called rules based order. There are laws and there are lawlessness depending on which side you are in.

But India is still very attractive in the long term. It still has a lot of room to grow, a lot of potential, a lot of people, a lot to build and improve. India has a lot of everything to those looking for opportunities to invest. Many see India as the next China and are willing to jump in as the first mover to reap big profit should India becomes the next China. India has many similarities with China and expecting India to be like China is a reasonable hope. Of course there are differences, especially in the culture and politics of India. And there is this great democracy that India boasts about, the greatest asset of India and also the biggest trap for foreign investors.

Modi has set 2030 for India to be a developed country. This is good news for all investors and believers. To achieve this goal, India must move very fast, must change very fast. The India of yester years would not do. China is lucky in a way, with a central govt that could make quick decisions and move things quickly, central planning and top down policies, something that a great democracy like India would be difficult to do. The Chinese people would accept top down decisions with lesser resistance. The Chinese culture of respecting authority, the central govt, are a plus which India would never be able to do.

For the optimists, there is always hope and a brighter future to look forward to. Investing in India is a long term process, and can be a very long term process, maybe a never ending process. There are many sink holes and quagmires in India that investors would have to navigate very carefully. Many of these are unpredictable but obvious and investors are wary of.

So far not many investors, private or state, have been successful investing in India. Have not heard of a foreign investor making it good in India. No success story to tell. Only Indian companies are successful with foreign capital, ie easy money. For individual or state investors, when the going is tough, keep going, keep throwing in more money and hoping for the best. To some, when too much have been sunk in India, it is a road of no return. It is like gambling in a sense. Pulling out is not an option as the losses are colossal and too frightening to tell. So just keep throwing more money into the bottomless pit and hope for the best, hoping that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.  If not, just stay invested and keep pretending that all is well and one day, not sure if that day will come, one day they will be able to recoup their massive losses.

Investing in India needs a lot of fat hope and a lot of money to lose. And it is really a long term investment, maybe for decades and generations to come, before one can see profit, if it ever comes. As long as one stays invested, as long as one has the money to keep investing, no one would know the losses.

India is a place where angels would not dare to tread. Only the exceptionally brilliants, or the hopefuls, or the gamblers, would dare to risk their money in India. Hopefully the money they risked is not their own money, but OPM. When OPM is concerned, just keep gambling and hoping, all will be fine in the long run, in the long, long run. If not, just run.

There is always the possibility that India would be another China in the long run. Modi's target is 2030, not very long to wait. If Indians can run all the top American companies, then Indians can surely turn India into like American companies. The US is a big democracy just like India. Only difference is that American democracy came after the country got rich from looting and stealing other people's land and resources and massacring the natives of the land. India is a democracy before it comes rich, and had its resources and wealth stolen by the likes of the Americans, ie the same AngloSaxon Brits. And also had its people massacred by the British.