The "Golden Share" was a declaration of independence, but its echoes within the Harsh Group were not of unity, but of a deep, structural shudder. The fortress was secured, but the first cracks appeared not in its walls, but in its foundation—its people.
Old man Doshi resigned from the board with a public letter that was a masterpiece of paternalistic disappointment. "A great Indian enterprise," he wrote, "has chosen the path of insularity over global leadership." He took his steel company's substantial minority stake with him, selling it not to VCG (which would have triggered the Golden Share veto), but to a consortium of domestic pension funds. The message was clear: the smart money was distancing itself from Harsh's "ideological" turn.
More painful was the silent exodus. A week after the vote, Arvind requested a private meeting. The brilliant engineer, Harsh's protégé, the man who had held the first Rishi-28 chip with tears in his eyes, sat slumped in the chair across from him, unable to meet his gaze.
"I've been offered the CTO position at Neutron Dynamics," Arvind said, his voice hollow. "In California."
Neutron was a darling of Silicon Valley, working on next-gen AI. The offer, Harsh knew, would be astronomical, a lifetime away from the austere, mission-driven budgets of the Foresight Institute.
"It's not about the money, Harsh-ji," Arvind continued, as if reading his mind. "It's about… the horizon. Here, every project is vetted against the 'national interest' clause. Every line of code I write is a potential state secret. There's a… a ceiling. A glass ceiling made of flag-waving." He finally looked up, his eyes pleading for understanding. "I want to push the edge of what's possible, not just what's permissible."
The words were a physical blow. Arvind wasn't betraying him; he was leaving a church for a laboratory. Harsh had built a cathedral to Indian sovereignty, and the brightest minds were starting to feel it was a cloister.
He didn't offer a counter-offer. He knew it wasn't about rupees. He gave his blessing, his voice thick with a loss he hadn't anticipated. "Build something magnificent," was all he could say.
Arvind's departure triggered a small but critical brain drain. A handful of other senior engineers from the semiconductor and AI teams followed, lured by the siren song of "pure research" and global recognition. The gossip in the tech hubs was brutal: Patel's empire is becoming a government lab. The real talent is leaving.
The fracture wasn't just professional; it was personal. At a rare dinner party at their home, Priya watched as Harsh stood alone on the balcony, isolated amidst the chatter. A well-meaning friend, a fellow industrialist, clapped him on the back. "Standing firm, Harsh! Showing those foreigners!" he boomed. "But tell me, for a regular businessman like me, this 'Golden Share'… it sets a worrying precedent, no?"
Harsh offered a non-committal smile, but the distance in his eyes was palpable. He was no longer one of them. He was a creature of a different ecosystem—part businessman, part statesman, part shadow. The club of millionaires had closed its door to him; he now answered to a higher, lonelier authority.
The strain seeped into the quiet moments with Priya. "Anya asked why Uncle Arvind doesn't come for Sunday lunch anymore," she said softly one night.
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her he went to build bigger things in a different garden." Priya studied him. "Was that a lie?"
Harsh looked out at the night. "No. It's the truth. I pruned our garden for resilience, for safety. Some branches need wilder soil to grow."
"But what about the tree, Harsh?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "If all the strongest branches seek other soil, what's left?"
He had no answer. The fortress was secure from foreign takeover, but its towers were feeling emptier. The cause was just, but the cost was the very vibrancy, the restless, brilliant ambition that had built it in the first place.
The final, bitter proof came in a Disha report. Analyzing internal communication sentiment and project pipeline data, the AI presented a finding it flagged as "anomalous but statistically significant."
Topic: Declining Morale & Innovation Index.
Correlation:Post-"Golden Share" ratification.
Key Insight:A 22% decrease in proposed "blue-sky" / speculative research projects from engineering teams. Increase in language suggesting "regulatory caution" and "strategic alignment" in project proposals.
Projection:Current trajectory suggests a shift from a "discovery-driven" to a "directive-fulfillment" culture within 18 months.
He had built Disha to see everything. Now, it showed him the slow, quiet bleeding of his own company's soul. He had fought off the hostile takeover, only to face a subtler, more insidious enemy: institutional caution, the slow death of wonder.
The first fracture was not a break. It was a hairline crack in the foundation of his dream. The fortress would stand. But would anyone within it still dare to dream?
(Chapter End)