India Insight

After fighting through the sea of camera-wielding car enthusiasts clutching their bags filled with corporate gifts to meet with Anand Mahindra, vice-chairman of the Mahindra group, it was difficult to argue with his rosy view of India’s car industry.

“Just look at all these people,” said Mahindra. “If these crowds translate into market appetite, it’s not much of a slowdown,” he added, shaking his head at the view from a glass-walled office high above the teeming masses at the India Auto Expo on Friday.

Mahindra has reason to be cheerful. Sales of cars by his group’s autos arm have remained strong this year. But he wasn’t the only executive shrugging off a slump in India’s car industry with glib comments about the sharp elbows of hundreds of thousands of excited punters that thronged the India Auto Expo this weekend.

The data is much less encouraging. Come April, the same executives could likely be digesting a year that saw sales volumes fall. Just a year previously, they were toasting 30 percent growth. But the Auto Show, held every two years in the capital, didn’t give the impression of an industry filled with ideas to tackle the slide.

SUVs, green technology vehicles and cutting-edge concept cars stole the headlines and drew in the crowds, aside from the free calendars and the chance to catch a glimpse of a Bollywood star or two.

I was stuck in a traffic jam on one of New Delhi’s busiest roads, taking in the sights and smells of vehicles idling in all directions, when my cab driver turned to me and asked — “Are you going to buy the Tata Nano?”

It’s a question thrown at me several times over the past few months and each time the answer has been “No”.

Tata Motors is launching the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, on March 23. Bookings open in the second week of April and the 100,000-rupee car is slated to hit Indian roads before July.

As the deadlock over Singur and the Tata Nano plant rumbles on, much of the debate seems to be missing the point.

This week, Mukesh Ambani said a “fear psychosis is being created to slow down certain projects of national importance” and said industry should be encouraged to make such large investments.

But in the words of the old song by Ella Fitzgerald (and more recently Bananarama) “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it”.