“Ratnamala, when are you joining politics?” For over three decades, I have been asked this question at business gatherings, industry forums, social events, and even by close friends. Sometimes it is asked with curiosity. Sometimes with expectation. And sometimes with the assumption that after years of entrepreneurship, institution building, and public engagement, politics should naturally be the next step.
I usually smile before answering. Because I have often felt that the question is not really about politics. It is about power.
We tend to believe that political office represents the highest form of influence. Yet power is not confined to Parliament or the Assembly. A teacher shapes minds. A judge safeguards justice. A doctor restores life. An entrepreneur creates livelihoods. A social worker transforms communities. A writer influences generations. Each exercises a different kind of power. The real question, therefore, is not whether we seek power, but how we choose to use it.
Looking back, I realise that I have spent much of my adult life practising a different kind of politics—not electoral politics, but the politics of persuasion, negotiation, consensus-building, institution building, and public purpose. As a student leader, I worked to secure employment opportunities for thousands of unemployed diploma engineers and architects in Odisha. Later, as an entrepreneur, I found myself negotiating every day—with governments, financial institutions, employees, customers, communities, and numerous stakeholders whose interests were often different, yet deeply interconnected. It was through these experiences that one thought gradually took shape: Politics is short-term business. Business is long-term politics.
At first, the statement may sound paradoxical. But the more I reflected on it, the more it explained what I had experienced.
Politics is often driven by immediate realities. Public opinion shifts. Electoral cycles create urgency. Leaders must respond quickly, balance competing interests, and deliver visible outcomes within limited timeframes. Success is frequently measured by the next election. Business operates on a different clock. A meaningful enterprise cannot be built within an electoral cycle. It demands patience, resilience, and the willingness to invest today for results that may take years, even decades, to emerge. Trust cannot be legislated. It must be earned consistently.
Yet the similarities between politics and business are greater than we often acknowledge. Both are fundamentally about people. Both require leadership. Both involve balancing competing interests, making difficult decisions, and earning public trust. The difference lies less in purpose than in the horizon over which success is measured.
Politics seeks public confidence through elections. Business must earn public confidence every single day. Politicians are accountable to voters. Entrepreneurs are accountable to employees, customers, investors, lenders, regulators, and society at large. Neither can succeed for long without trust. This is why I believe business, when guided by purpose rather than profit alone, becomes a form of long-term politics. Every decision an entrepreneur makes—whether to invest, innovate, hire, expand, or uphold ethical standards—extends beyond the balance sheet.
Businesses create employment. They build institutions. They shape cities. They influence aspirations. They strengthen the economic and social fabric of a nation. In that sense, entrepreneurs are not merely wealth creators. They are builders of society. They shape the future not through legislation, but through enterprise. Perhaps that is why I have never felt compelled to “join politics” in the conventional sense. Not because politics is less important—it is indispensable to a healthy democracy—but because meaningful public service is not confined to elected office. It belongs to everyone willing to accept responsibility for creating value beyond themselves.
Whether one leads a government, a company, a school, a hospital, or a social institution, the responsibility remains the same: to leave people, institutions, and society stronger than we found them. So whenever someone asks me, “When are you joining politics?”, I simply smile. Because I have never believed that politics belongs only to politicians. Through enterprise, institution building, and the opportunities we create for others, we participate every day in the patient work of nation-building. That is why I continue to believe: Politics is short-term business. Business is long-term politics.
(Views expressed by the columnist are personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the news portal)
