India and Bharat

You might be thinking, this man has gone out of his mind and is writing 'India' and 'Bharat' as if they are different countries. But after reading this post you will not think the same way.

The country which is today known by the name of India used to be known from the name of Bharat for several hundreds of years. 

The name Bharat has its origin from ancient literature and the country got this name after the ruler with the name of 'Bharata Chakravarti', who is known for conquering major land of the country at his time.

India on the other hand is of recent origin, 17th century, coined in 'British Raj' era of the country and since then Bharat transformed to India.

Today after 67 years of independence, the difference between British turned India and Bharat is prevailing. There are two countries breathing in the single body with the face of India, which having their own needs, their own aspirations, their own problems and their own way of living. India has been fortunate to get attention of every company, by acting as a high potential market for them, but on the other hand Bharat has always been a source of raw materials, labours and resources and never was treated actually as a market by companies. 

When some companies treated Bharat as a customer, they always underestimated it as illiterate and uneducated customer and try to exploit it, rather than providing it any good product or service. They considered Bharat as a market of non-aspirational customers, who are just living in their world of farms and cattle.

But in past decade, companies realized their mistake of this irrational decision and are ready to do anything and everything to rectify their blunder.

Let’s go back and understand how companies realized their mistake..!!

Bharat has always been exploited by companies to meet the demand of India. Till about few decades back, industries were being set up in cities of India, which resulted in pollution and leaving India not a good place to live anymore. To make it better, so-called laws were passed by Indian authorities to not set up industries in areas of India and that was the time when misery of Bharat started. Parts of land of Bharat, that ware used for agriculture were now being used for production of chemicals, pesticides, rubber and many more products. It is said that every coin has two faces and the same hold true for shifting of industries from India to Bharat. More and more industries set up in Bharat, on one side led to development of infrastructure, facilities and modes of transports increasing job opportunities, increasing income and increasing purchasing power, but on the other side, led to high level of pollution, contamination of their natural resources.

On one face, there was the shift of inhabitant condition from India to Bharat and people of Bharat were now victims of that shift, but on other face, peoples’ aspirations increased and so their ability to purchase goods and services with increase in their disposable income and discretionary income, which acted as an eye opener for companies and forced them to change their growth strategy.

Since India’s growth is saturated, it is easily affected by the economic slowdown and purchasing power is not increasing proportionately to inflation, thus scope of companies in India is now limiting. 

But Bharat on the other side, now providing a flourishing market, whose aspirations are increasing and is willing to spend to fulfil them. May be the usage of products be different from that of India, but the want is there. A hair dye in Bharat may be used to polish skin of buffaloes to make their skin shining. A Punjabi house or dhaba, having a washing machine washes their clothes at the bank of a river and use that washing machine to prepare the famous drink of ‘Lassi’. So the purpose of usage may differ in both the areas, but the aspirations do not.

Although companies have realized that Bharat is the new playground, but they have not understood the method to play at this playground. They think that this playfield has completely different rules and regulations, but actually the way to apply those rules are different and not the rules. Here I am talking about rules of selling product or services in rural India.

Marketers of most companies provide ‘cheap’ products, not only low cost, but which lacks basic features and benefits to Bharat when it expects decent and ‘aspirational’ product or service. Companies expect Bharat to throw money out their pockets without understanding their needs and situation. 

They do not understand the need of inclusive marketing, where they need to make people of rural India earn and enable them to spend to fulfil their aspirations.

They do not realize that these people have similar aspirations as of people of India and they also want to fulfil their aspirations, but always do not have enough resources to do that. Thus companies have to enable them to earn and collect resources to purchase their desired products and services.

Story of Bharat and India doesn’t end here. It will be incomplete without mentioning the pioneers of Bharat and India. Yes..!! There are companies which have understood the way to play and win at both the fields and the first which did that is none other than, “Hindustan Unilever”. 

It is the country’s largest FMCG Company which is having major chunk of its profits from Bharat. More than 40% of company’s products are consumed in rural India. HUL has always thought one step ahead of any other company in reaching out to rural India. It started ‘Project Shakti’, famously known by concept of ‘Shakti-Amma’. This is the company which understands the changing trends of the rural India and following which, it started ‘Kankhajura-Teshan’, which is unique type of marketing in its own and covered those areas which do not have televisions but have mobile phones. It covered millions of people in the marketing o

f its hygiene soap lifebuoy at ‘kumbh ka mela’. This company has always moved from 4P to 4A while moving from India to Bharat and it has achieved unparalleled success.

Another company of prime importance in rural marketing is ITC, which initiated e-chaupal, which is a unique system, where farmers are allowed to sell directly to ITC at better profits than what they get from middlemen. There are few more very good examples of companies working in both India and Bharat and running successfully. 

Another such example is of P&G, a dutch multinational company, which was facing shrinkage in indian market, thus decided to got to rural India and launched Project shiksha. under which, education was given to illiterate children.

India and Bharat, are like two twins having same blood, similar face, same needs, but different wants and different ways to fulfil their wants. Still one thing is common.. and that is ‘aspirations’, kyunki ‘shawnk badi cheez hai’.