Yash Tambawala

Writes on tech, business, India. IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus. Tweets are my own and deleted periodically. Tech professional.

[Yash Tambawala @t_yash]

Incentives decide everything. Even patriotic subgroups prioritize themselves if incentives point that way.
This is why India struggles with: land capture, bureaucratic rents, regional veto players, linguistic politics, judicial uncertainty, builder lobbies, labor rigidities, environmental vetoes. Each subgroup acts rationally for itself, irrationally for the nation.

Mancur Olson predicted this decades ago.

[Yash Tambawala @t_yash]

Identity is the first layer of national development.
Countries need a shared identity strong enough to coordinate sacrifice. China used state force.
Japan & SK used ethno-national unity. The West built slow, centuries-long institutions.

India is still stitching together its national identity, but it’s happening: stronger state capacity, narrative consolidation, unified digital infrastructure, rising acceptance of a national market.

Identity is becoming a coordination device.

[Yash Tambawala @t_yash]

@ABiggerSpalash American cultural surplus is largely priced in. Urban India has absorbed it. Beyond that, diffusion looks limited. What interests me now is the post-American vacuum: Korea’s cultural machine and China’s TikTok/Shein/Labubus are starting to fill it, though the road is still long.