Best of BS Opinion: Hope is not a strategy, capacity is

From geopolitics and women's empowerment to manufacturing, the rupee and technology, lasting progress depends less on hope and more on building capacity

Hello, and welcome to Best of BS Opinion, our wrap of the day's Opinion page.

  Hope is useful in politics, business and diplomacy, but only up to a point. It can buy patience, soften anxiety and create room for negotiation. What it cannot do is substitute for capacity. Capacity is harder: The ability to anticipate shocks, build institutions, expand productive strength, include those left out, and compete when the world turns less forgiving.

 

Our first editorial today, “Hope versus experience”, cautions against excessive optimism over the reported US-Iran agreement. Oil prices plunged and stock markets recovered on expectations that the deal would end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and ease hostilities. But experience suggests caution. The Iranian side has described the agreement as an MoU and the starting point for a final deal within 60 days. The timeline for reopening the strait remains unclear, the US and Iranian versions appear to differ on some terms, and Israel’s continued military presence in Lebanon remains a major sticking point. The editorial warns that hope should not obscure experience: Any easing of oil prices will endure only if the underlying conflict moves towards a credible settlement.

 

The second editorial, “Economic inclusion”, brings the same lesson to women’s economic inclusion. The latest National Family Health Survey shows improvement in some indicators, including women’s ownership of houses or land, internet use and bank accounts. But empowerment remains incomplete. Women’s participation in the workforce is still low, ownership does not always translate into control, and access to credit, inheritance rights, employment and child care remains uneven. The editorial argues that inclusion cannot be declared through headline numbers alone. It needs the capacity to convert assets, accounts and schemes into actual economic power.

 

Nitin Desai’s column, “Liberalisation of manufacturing”, applies the argument to manufacturing. India’s old industrial-policy mindset, shaped by licensing, protection and large firms, cannot deliver the next phase of industrial growth. Manufacturing policy, he argues, must focus on new firms, startups and technological capability. Support for MSMEs should move away from a welfare lens and towards building commercially viable firms. India needs public policy that encourages risk-taking, technological growth, innovation and scale, rather than relying on nostalgia for a manufacturing model that belonged to another era.

 

In her column, “The rupee’s problem runs deeper”, Rajeshwari Sengupta views the Indian currency’s weakness as a symptom of deeper structural gaps. Borrowing from NRIs or encouraging overseas companies to take loans from Indian banks may provide temporary relief, but it cannot solve India’s external problem. The real answers lie in stronger exports, more FDI, deeper integration with global value chains and a stronger manufacturing base. Hope that capital will return on its own is not enough; India must build the conditions that make investors want to stay.

 

Prosenjit Datta’s review of Rebecca A Fannin’s The New Tech Titans of China, titled “China’s challenge to US tech supremacy”, completes the arc at the global level. China’s challenge to US technology supremacy has not emerged from aspiration alone. It has been built through long-term investment, state support, entrepreneurial ambition and depth in areas like AI, EVs, drones and advanced manufacturing. The review does not present China’s rise as inevitable or uncontested, but it makes one point clear: Technological power is built, not wished into existence.

 

Across these pieces, the message is direct. Whether dealing with oil, women’s work, factories, the rupee or technology, hope may open a conversation. Capacity decides the outcome.