View: 'Exiting' Jim Rogers was hardly ever an India bull

Nazim Khanmoneycontrol.comSocial media woke up to news this morning that commodities guru and legendary hedge fund manager Jim Rogers has 'exited' India, as he said in an interview with financial daily Mint, in which he expressed his disillusionment with the pace of the Narendra Modi government's reforms process, and saying "one can't just invest on hope".The interview, shared about 2,000 times on Facebook as of this writing, has armed the government's critics another stick to beat it with, while others -- most notably long-term India bulls -- have come out ridiculing Rogers' arguments.In the interview with Mint, Rogers said that after investing for a year and a half, he sold his Indian shares partly because the government's reforms process isn't enough to push shares higher from hereon and also because he anticipates a global downturn in stocks in the next year or two.But before one analyses Rogers' arguments in greater depth, one must look through how he evaluates investment prospects and whether India has ever fit into his criteria.Rogers made a name for himself after partnering with the legendary George Soros to create the Quantum Fund, which famously netted 4200 percent in a 10-year, nearly-flat US market during the 1970s.After 'retiring' at age 37, Rogers then set about doing he loved -- travelling -- notching up Guinness records for travelling around the world, once on a motorcycle and then in a car.He would use these trips to further hone an investment philosophy that he was developing, and which was underpinned by two principles: he would go around looking for countries whose stock markets were cheap, to the point of being undiscovered by global investors, and where there was rapid change. And two: a firm believer in free markets, Rogers runs away from economies that are closed or indulge in too much money printing.It was the last point that has always been a bone of contention between Rogers and his turning bullish on India.Over and over again, Rogers has made the case that the country's famed bureaucracy, and the resulting red tapism, inhibit growth and undermine whatever positives India has going for it: it is here that he believes the incumbent government has not been able to shake up things enough.Rogers made the argument in the Mint interview as well, noting, for instance, that a country that imposes curbs on foreign investment into agriculture is effectively rendering it uncompetitive. ("You have the land, the people, weather—God gave you everything. And then, he also gave you Delhi to mess it all up.")The piece has found its share of fair share of criticism with investment analyst Sandip Sabharwal terming it as a "contrarian buy signal indicator" on Twitter while value investor Porinju Veliyath said Rogers had "exited India without really entering" and lambasted his record on the various predictions he has made in the past.Veliyath's first point actually hits the nail on its head. Rogers has always been an India skeptic -- going so far as to predict the country will break up in 30-40 years in the book he wrote after driving through the world, including India. (The second point is rather off the mark. Rogers has to his credit called out long-term tops and bottoms in a number of asset classes, including his favourites: commodities).But the larger point about Rogers' call on India and the longer-term prospects for the economy or its markets is what explains what is essentially the art of investing in an always uncertain world and where you have to look out and predict things far out into the future. It is a terrain where even the best get it wrong (can you call out Warren Buffett for missing out on Apple's rally last decade? Certainly not, for he will measured by what he invested in and not what he didn't) and Rogers, who has so far missed out a long-term India rally, is entitled to go wrong with this one -- if he does.