Yesterday, I visited the Subhadra Shakti Mela in Bhubaneswar—an event designed to showcase the work of women-led Self-Help Groups (SHGs) from across Odisha. With more than 300 stalls displaying handloom, arts and crafts, food products, and rural innovations, the atmosphere was vibrant and full of energy. The confidence of the participating women was unmistakable. Many of them have stepped out of traditional roles, formed collectives, accessed credit, and entered the marketplace—milestones that deserve recognition.

Yet as I walked through the mela, I found myself reflecting on a quiet tension that often goes unspoken.
Events like this are undeniably successful in empowering women, offering market access, and strengthening livelihoods. But are we right to call this entrepreneurship?

My senior professor later reminded me that entrepreneurship, in practice, is also about mindset—taking initiative, embracing risk, stepping into public economic life. By that definition, these women are indeed entrepreneurs. And perhaps it is unfair, even insensitive, to dismiss their effort simply because they are not building the next big scalable innovation.

But as someone working in innovation and entrepreneurship research, I cannot ignore another truth:
If we call every income-generating activity “entrepreneurship,” when will we ever demand innovation?

Most SHG businesses today operate at a livelihood level—replicating traditional products, relying on known techniques, and serving small, predictable markets. That is not a failure; it is a beginning. Yet the developmental system often treats this beginning as the destination.

If empowerment becomes the endpoint, then growth never becomes the expectation.
And when growth is not expected, innovation remains optional—or worse, invisible.

India celebrates women stepping into the market, and rightly so. But we rarely ask:

• What comes after the first sale?
• Where is the pathway from micro-business to small enterprise?
• How do these women access knowledge, technology, design, or markets needed to scale?
• Who supports innovation in SHGs, beyond survival and replication?

Without these questions, the ecosystem unintentionally freezes women at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Empowerment alone cannot transform micro-enterprises into SMEs. Visibility cannot replace innovation. And participation cannot substitute for upward mobility.

This is not a critique of SHGs or government schemes. It is a reflection on how India’s definition of entrepreneurship has narrowed—so much so that we now celebrate survival as success, and participation as innovation.

To move forward, we need a broader conversation:
Where is the bridge between livelihood and entrepreneurship?
Between empowerment and innovation?
Between participation and growth?

Until we build that bridge, India will continue to produce millions of micro-enterprises—but very few entrepreneurs in the true, innovation-driven sense.

I don’t claim to have the answers. But I believe this is a question India must face with honesty:

If we call this entrepreneurship, when will we ever demand innovation?

This reflection is not about dismissing the achievements of SHG women—it is about imagining what more is possible for them.
And perhaps, for all of us.

By Om Sankar Pratihari