Korea exported culture, India should too: Nikhil Kamath on India’s biggest advantage

Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath has a simple, time-tested idea to take Indian brands global – export the country, the culture, not just the products. He gives the example of Korea, whose culture, food, and products are much sought-after currently.

“Korea exported culture. Then the world bought Korean…India has Bollywood, music, food, fashion, yoga and Ayurveda, a cultural moat very few countries can replicate. Maybe we need to stop thinking only about exporting products and start deliberately exporting India. Consumer brands will follow,” he said on a social media post, along with a series of graphics.

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Demand was never a problem, he argued. Japan accounts for 3.5 per cent of the global GDP, while India accounts for 3.3 per cent, but Japan commands 5.6 per cent of the share of the global brand value, while India commands only 1.7 per cent.

Indian products have been making it to the rest of the world for years. India sold goods like pepper and pearls costing Rome half a million coins a year. Then there was Indian textile that became so popular that Britain banned it. In fact, India was so deeply entrenched in the trades of some products that the items took Indian names, e.g. Cashmere from Kashmir, Calico from Calicut, khaki, pyjama, yoga etc. While the words came from India, India never owned the brand.

India, even now, has this one unique advantage – its population of 1.4 billion people.

Like the US and China, Indian brands can, in fact, grow at home first and then move abroad. Countries like Sweden, Switzerland and even South Korea, with smaller populations had an uphill battle on that front.

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Moreover, it is not just yoga that India has to export, it has specialty tea, premium fabrics, skincare, spices, ayurveda, sustainability, luxury, wellness!

Kamath argued that India only needs to relook at its old practices.