Prof. Prahalad's (C.K.) view that entrepreneurship--not government handouts--is the key to development in India is indeed valid, keeping in mind that even after 60 years of independence and numerous experiments by the country's policymakers, a large part of India remains very poor.
Undoubtedly the encouragement to create a larger pool of entrepreneurs around India will lead to several benefits, the immediate one being employment generation. However, the need of the hour is not the creation of a larger pool of entrepreneurs but the bridging of a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots, which will only happen if India's existing employers and entrepreneurs changed their "feudalistic" attitude toward sharing wealth and profits with their employees.
Until the existing pool shows a change in its mind-set and most Indians inculcate a respect for labor, like people in developed nations, no amount of entrepreneurship will impact what I think is India's need of the hour: bridging its inequality gap.
(My comment posted on the Indiaknowledge@Wharton website on an article mentioning Prof. C.K. Prahlad's views on entrepreneurship in India.)
