Checking out of India – psychologically
I recently came across an interesting article by Mark Fidelman provocatively titled, “Where Are India’s Innovative Companies, Products and Solutions?”
I would encourage all of you to have a look…Feldman has written persuasively about what ails innovation in India…but the real “action” is in the comments…one of which caught my eye and provided the inspiration for the title of this post. Bhamy V Shenoy commented on May 15 (emphasis mine):
“…The biggest problem (in India) in my view is the non-functioning governance system because of (the) indifference (of) educated people who having been educated at the expense of the poor of India, have either immigrated geographically like Jason whom Mark gives as an example (of) an innovator or those resident Indians who have immigrated psychologically by being indifferent to India’s realities.
The words touched a nerve with me…
Many of you know that this (governance and politics) is a subject very close to my heart…sometimes I feel I am not doing enough…and possibly avoiding responsibility by expecting someone else to solve India’s problems and challenges…
I know that our political leadership is failing us..I realise that our governance is ineffective and our adminstrative structures need an overhaul…Yet I remain content to merely “analyse” (the problem) and possibly “prescribe” (some solutions) without actually picking up the gauntlet and saying: I WILL DO IT..
In a way, I am a stark example of the “indifference” that Bhamy alludes to (above)…not bothering to change the “system” even though I clearly realise that it is failing…
And yet, the alternative is not obvious…
Is it to join active politics? Is the alternative to start/join an NGO? Is it to start/join a new movement? Is it to become a “political activist”?
Is the alternative to raise these issues on a wider platform (either online or offline) and exhort people to join the “movement for change”…and who shall lead this “movement for change”…How would it work? Will it work?
Is the root of India’s problems really the indifference of the “educated millions” who appear to have “checked out” of India – in some cases physically; in some cases psychologically?
Or is the SOLUTION to India’s problems the involvement of the “educated millions” who appear to have “checked out” of India – both physically as well as psychologically?
If it is, what can be done to “bring these people back”?…If it is not, why do we continue to suffer from (and tolerate) such a third-rate leadership in our governance structures?
The answers are not clear to me…Are they clear to you? I would love to hear your thoughts…
Comments and criticism/counter-points welcome, as always.
Related Posts:
Lets come together to build a *new* and proud India
Just read that one of the Lead India finalists, Sanjiv Kaura has joined BSP:
Good news, I should think…
Dear Sir,
Let us understand that it is not the failed leadership that has cost India its R&D but the blinkeredness of our parents, teachers, and society.
In the nations where R&D succeeds, one will notice a lot of failures falling by the wayside, but these failures are not looked DOWN upon. On the contrary people tend to ignore failures and when the same failure succeeds in another venture he is feted and celeberated.
On the contrary, when one fails here it is universally condemned and even his FAMILY deserts him. Even if he succeeds in another venture, he is doomed as being always referred to as “THE PERSON” who HAD FAILED EARLIER!!
Why go so far, let us look at our student community vis-a-vis the parents, teachers, and Society as a whole. How many suicides do we hear after the results are announced for a mere CBSC, SSLC, or anything for that matter. Students commit suicide for not getting admissions into IIT’s, IIM’s their favourite college etc. I am not looking at the aspect of reservations etc. as then the debate will change face and track!
Why go so far! let us come closer to the fact of children being taught for an entrance exam for Pre-Kg and the first standard! Students do not see the game field for years on end, why? Tutions in the morninig, evening and Night.
All this why. ONE does want to experience failures at any stage and dissapoint the parents, teachers and not be looked down upon by society!
On the other side, let us look at our innovations. The NANO car of the TATA’s. The top car companies of the world said a car costing 1 laqkh is nonsense, today everybody is jumping on to the BANDWAGON.
let us look at the Nirma Patel who took on the might of Lever’s.
Let us look at the starting of a retail vegetable shop on Airconditioned CARTS,of the IIM graduate in Bihar.
Velvette shampoo in sachets!
We have them in plenty, but we tend to look down upon them and such information never reaches the book level but remain news fillers in newspapers! We do not put them as material in our study books. WHY?
We are still enamoured of the white man’s material , ignoring many of our achievements and we enjoy beliitling them.
They tend to trumpet everything, but we tend to put our people down.
The highest Air field. Why not teach it to our engineering graduates as to how the Army Engineers did it.
The FBR of thorium? Why are we not encouraging it and trying to replace it with Uranium fuel.
Let us not blame our politicians for everything. Let us look at ourselves as parents, teachers, members of a society etc. and then we can understand why we fail in R&D!!
Regards,
vck
Dear Shantanu
I agree with VCK. It is not merely politics that is in need of leadership and direction; it is needed at each level. The cultural change that VCK talks about is very important: the need to keep trying despite failures. The need in all fields is to keep trying despite repeated failures. But blaming our parents won’t help. That was history. We are responsible as adults for our own actions and for the future. Just do it.
The private sector in India is relatively vibrant and innovative despite many constraints. It is the government sector that puts a brake on entrepreneurship and innovation by meddling in business needlessly. Political change is overdue. Improved governance can bring about significant improvements in all walks of life.
Here’s my favourite quotation: “So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor, who having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.” – Vivekananda
My second favourite: “The man who wins is the man who thinks he can.”
My third favourite: “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump
The message: keep working at it.
What you are doing is just right: spread awareness; bring people together; show them how it can be done. Then combine and do it.
Regards
Sanjeev
Excerpts from “Seceding From India’s Democracy” By SADANAND DHUME
…Monday’s events point to an aspect of India’s headlong rush toward development that rarely receives scrutiny: the mismatch between the country’s economic aspirations and its political culture. On the surface, India is a democracy like any other—with an elected government, a professional bureaucracy and a legal system inherited from the British. But, unlike in most democracies, much of India’s political class represents values at odds with the most productive element of society: the educated middle class. Where the middle class seeks order, the political class thrives on chaos. Where the middle class values hard work and thrift, the political class is synonymous with theatrics and public theft. Where the middle class dream is built on an education, a career in politics usually takes flight on a famous last name.
…To put it bluntly, you may have a cell phone in your pocket and a television in your bedroom and still think of stoning a bus as a legitimate form of political protest.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, only about 5% of Indians, or about 55 million people, have a disposable annual income of between 200,000 rupees and 1,000,000 rupees. While wealth offers only a crude shorthand for values, these are the citizens least likely to condone Monday’s events, and most likely to know that destroying public property or harassing commuters to score a political point is alien to both the advanced democracies of the West and the newer ones of East Asia. This cohort, middle class by a global yardstick and not merely an Indian one, is also most likely to question the peculiar honor code of Indian politics, where a party stands to lose face, and with it influence, if it can’t marshal the street muscle to bring ordinary life to a halt.
…Nonetheless, those locked out of the political process also have themselves to blame for their predicament. With their resources, capacity for organization and access to the media, they (the middle class) ought to punch above their weight rather than below it. Instead, in the richer neighborhoods in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, and in the gated apartment complexes springing up in satellite towns such as Gurgaon, people have chosen to secede from Indian democracy rather than to fix it. Captive generators provide power. Private guards provide security. The kids study in private schools and visit private doctors. For the most part, politics belongs to a distant world, glimpsed on television news, gossiped about at parties and, at best, participated in only when national elections come around every five years.
In the long run, however, this apathy is untenable. For educated Indians to get the politicians they deserve they must not only vote in larger numbers, but also seek a way to enter active politics. The quixotic attempt last year by Meera Sanyal, a senior banker with the Dutch multinational ABN Amro, to run for a seat in parliament from South Bombay, ought to serve as a symbol of inspiration rather than of derision. (Ms. Sanyal lost her deposit, winning only about 11,000 votes out of 640,000). Before he tarnished his image by getting involved in a dodgy cricket scam, Shashi Tharoor, a former top official at the United Nations and a member of parliament from the southern state of Kerala, showed that Indian voters are willing to give an outsider a chance.
Time is also on the outsider’s side. With India’s economy growing upwards of 8% a year, the numbers of those with a regular job, a home loan and a sense of professional purpose will continue to swell. According to McKinsey, by 2025 India’s middle class will expand roughly tenfold to 583 million people or 41% of the population. At that time, presumably, politicians will no longer find purchase in clambering aboard a railway engine or bringing traffic to a halt in the national capital.