India must shed its colonial hangover of credential obsession and rediscover its entrepreneurial DNA, says Marcellus Investment Managers’ Saurabh Mukherjea, who warns that elite degrees no longer hold the key to success in a radically shifting economic world.

On a recent podcast with Bharatvaarta, Mukherjea argued that India’s fixation with prestigious degrees and elite education—long considered tickets to upward mobility—has outlived its utility. “Forget the degree per se,” he said. “Focus on abstract thinking skills, creativity, and articulation.” According to him, these are the real tools of survival and success in today’s world.

For Mukherjea, the root of this obsession lies in India’s colonial past. “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 cited historian Lakshmi Subramanian’s recent work, India Before Empire, which details how pre-colonial India was a global trade hub with strong rule of law and a low cost of capital. “We had a vibrant, prosperous business community,” he explained. The British dismantled it—strategically and systematically—by fostering disdain for local entrepreneurs and replacing them with colonial-backed business interests.

“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.”

With India’s startup scene booming and a new generation rejecting traditional career scripts, Mukherjea believes a return to roots is not only overdue, but inevitable. His advice to the next generation? “Stop struggling to validate your worth through elite certificates. Build things. Think differently. Own your future.”