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‘Speaking up is risky for business owners’: Sharan Hegde amid CJP protest
Finance influencer and 1% Club founder Sharan Hegde has acknowledged that taking sides in a political debate can prove risky for entrepreneurs.
Finance influencer and 1% Club founder Sharan Hegde has acknowledged that taking sides in a political debate can prove risky for entrepreneurs. In a post shared on Instagram yesterday, he addressed the ongoing Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest against the NEET-UG paper leak, noting that many entrepreneurs avoid speaking up in times of conflict due to fear of repercussions.
The CJP has been protesting for days at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar observatory, demanding the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The protest intensified on Monday and continued on Tuesday and Wednesday as well — leading to lathi charge and use of tear gas by the police.
Sharan Hegde on protests
“When the dust settles, I hope we can come out of this stronger as a country,” Hegde said in an Instagram post on July 22.
The finance influencer and entrepreneur who serves as founder and CEO of the 1% Club acknowledged that many entrepreneurs avoid speaking up.
“As entrepreneurs, most of us stay silent at times like this,” he wrote. “Speaking up gets easy eyeballs but is risky for business owners responsible for putting food on the table for hundreds of employees.”
Hegde said he decided to voice his thoughts on the process because he is “an influencer first, entrepreneur second.”
‘Country’s biggest strength is youth’
Hegde argued that India's future depended on its youth and that the country's ambition of becoming "a superpower bigger than the US and China" could only be achieved if young people had faith in the education system.
Referring to the ongoing controversy, he suggested that widespread anger among students was a warning sign, saying that "if the next generation is this unhappy, we have lost the game even before it has started."
Drawing on his own experience of earning scholarships through competitive exams, he said he would have been "just as furious" if those examinations had been compromised.
(Also read: Alakh Pandey joins Jantar Mantar protest, appeals to government for dialogue: ‘Yeh sirf NEET ki baat nahi’)
“I gave JEE Main, JEE Advanced, CAT and GMAT to get where I am today through scholarships. If any of those papers were leaked, I would have been just as furious as the youth of this country today,” the finance influencer said.
He ended his post by saying that “dialogue and communication are the bare minimum”, but did not address the government directly.
How the internet reacted
The post drew mixed reactions on Instagram, where many accused Sharan Hegde of not taking a clear side in the debate.
“Classic fence sitting,” wrote one person in the comments section.
“ChatGPT, tell me how to be neutral without picking sides and look like I am supporting both sides,” another joked.
“If you don’t have guts to speak directly then don't speak up at all… just for the sake of speaking makes things worse,” a user advised.
One person called it the “Classic neutral slop”. Another wrote: “Thank you, Sharan. It takes a lot to come out and speak”.
