Linked to Britishers: Saurabh Mukherjea explains why India obsessed with elite degrees despite it not guaranteeing success

India must shed its colonial hangover of obsessing over credentials and reconnect with its entrepreneurial roots, says Saurabh Mukherjea of Marcellus Investment Managers. He warns that in today’s rapidly evolving economic landscape, elite degrees no longer guarantee success.

Speaking on a recent Bharatvaarta podcast, Mukherjea said India's fixation on prestigious degrees and elite institutions—once seen as the path to upward mobility—has lost relevance. “Forget the degree per se,” he said. “Focus on abstract thinking skills, creativity, and articulation.” According to him, these are now the true drivers of success.

Mukherjea traces the root of this obsession to India’s colonial legacy. “The British came in, created the civil service and the clerical babu class,” he noted. Post-independence, India’s leaders adopted the same bureaucratic model, designing a system that churned out office workers instead of risk-takers. “We were bred through our school and college years to be fit employees for large companies,” he said. “That world is gone.”


The shift is not optional but structural. “Employment as a phenomenon is only about 200 years old,” he said. “Before that, we were an entrepreneurial society. Everyone will have to become an entrepreneur now—by design or necessity.”

Mukherjea pointed to historian Lakshmi Subramanian’s recent book India Before Empire, which highlights how pre-colonial India thrived as a global trade hub with a strong legal framework and low capital costs. “We had a vibrant, prosperous business community,” he explained. The British, he said, systematically dismantled it by promoting disdain for local entrepreneurs and propping up colonial-backed businesses.

“The British left, but their insidious legacy remained,” Mukherjea said. “They convinced us that the best life is one of white-collar servitude secured through rote learning and degrees. That mindset lasted 75 years—but it’s breaking now.”

As India’s startup ecosystem flourishes and more young people veer away from traditional career paths, Mukherjea sees a revival of India’s entrepreneurial spirit as both overdue and inevitable. His message to the next generation: “Stop struggling to validate your worth through elite certificates. Build things. Think differently. Own your future.”