What “Shark Tank” says about Indian capitalism

SPEAK TO THETVTAM bankers and industrialists at the top of India’s economic pyramid and you hear a common refrain. All Indians, they contend, are at heart socialists—themselves included. The popularity of the Indian version of “Shark Tank”, a celebration of capitalism (similar to “Dragons’ Den” in Britain) in which ordinary people seek funding for their business ideas from a gaggle of successful entrepreneurs, suggests that this conventional view may be out of date. The show’s 36-episode run, wrote the , shifted the topic of dinner conversations throughout the vast country from cricket to business plans. Terms like “gross profit” and “” (total addressable market) have entered common parlance among its 1.4bn people.Shows with star judges awarding talent (and panning its absence) have long had a place on Indian television. But they have historically involved song and dance, not spreadsheets. Sony Entertainment received 85,000 applications for “Shark Tank”. These were whittled down to 198 pitches presented to juries of five judges, themselves chosen to reflect India’s new business elite (rather than being scions of industrial conglomerates they had founded firms peddling everything from cosmetics and drugs to a matchmaking app and electronic payments).