Why is India still a ‘Third World’

Allan Bloom once said, “Education is a movement from darkness to light”; is it so?

36% of the scientists in NASA are Indians, 34% of the Microsoft employees are Indian, we have 4^th largest army in the world, India has the second largest pool of Scientist and Engineers in the World, we export software to more than 90 countries, 66% of our total population is youth below 35 years of age and in spite of all these and many more we are still considered as the THIRD WORLD.

If I get into the ‘why’ debate, it can be manifold but for me the major reason for us still being a so called developing nation (which in itself is a paradox), is lack of indigenous ideas. In my course of life, I have come across people from almost all spheres and strata of the society. As per my observations and as proved by the above mentioned facts, Indians by no means lack talent and abilities. We have the capability of executing any given plan, materialising any strategy but what we lack in is - formulating them. Name a software or a gadget and we shall develop it faster and better than people of any other country in the world, show us an industry and we will master it, give us a sport and we play it better than you. What we are not able to do is - generate ‘new’ software, create a new gadget, come up with a new industry. Basically we are lacking innovation. Why 34% of the employees in Microsoft are Indian but not one of them could create a similar sector? Why in spite of 36% of the employees in NASA being Indian, we are not the first one to reach Mars or Moon? There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve – the fear of failure.

This is all mainly because we are becoming good followers, great performers but we need a guide, we need someone to tell us what to do. For me this degradation in the Indian mentality can solely be blamed on our education system. From the very start we are taught to learn and spill it in the exam. Our education system hardly ever gives us scope to be innovative. I remember during my school days nobody would dare to come up with a creative idea for the fear of failure or losing out on marks. None of us would try something new, give it a shot, at least make an attempt to think out of the book. Everyone would merely study what was there in black and white and vomit the same in the answer scripts. Creativity has been crushed by this system. This I say because it is not that we do not have the capacity to be indigenous or innovative, but this very ability has been destroyed. In a recent judgement, the Supreme Court of India stated - It is unfortunate that today education, in our humble opinion, appear to have failed to achieve its objective It will have to be stated that we are yet to reach the preliminary level of achievement of standardised literate behavior.

Now when I sit and think, I realise my initial days in the University of Glasgow, where we were divided into groups and were asked to develop a completely new product, design the business ideas and generate plans to materialise them. If my memory doesn’t ditch me, all my Indian friends in the class actively participated in the course work, helped the group in developing the plan but none of us could take the credit of coming up with the idea of the new product. But after a year’s education, when at the end it this same set of students were given yet another course work of similar sort, this time we all could come up with our own innovativeness. Hence a good education system did help us nurture our abilities which were somehow unmoved for so many years.

The competition has become so fierce that we are scared of generating ideas, we fear of losing out in the race. So tough has life become that we don’t dare to experiment. We are happy to lead the life by the formula. The zest to learn something new, to try and perform something different is almost lost. We are simply waiting for others to create things and then we follow or adapt the process. The fear of failure has got on us like a deadly virus. I wish we can change the pattern of education, I wish my countrymen can overcome this fear of failure and have the courage to be innovative. That I guess is the only way we can break out of this ‘third world’ tag.

why do we work?

Last weekend I came back home from office pretty late and was all tensed with work load. We were to go out for a family dinner. I was in no mood to go out and wanted to stay back. This was not the first time I was in such pensive mood due to work. It had become a custom in the recent past. Well nonetheless we went out for dinner, came back home and when I was about to go to sleep, papa called me to his room as he wanted to talk. 

I went to him and he taught me the most wonderful philosophy of life. He started firmly by asking "why do you think you work?" pretty ordinary question I guess. I replied saying "we work to earn money, to get successful or may be because it's fun to work." 

Papa: Not exactly. We work to lead a better life; we work so that we can earn enough to enjoy the pleasures and luxuries of the world. We work so as to have a fun filled peaceful life. Nobody has forced us into work. You are doing it by choice. If work is putting you under such pressure that you are not able to enjoy life, you feel tensed every time then the basic ideology of working is defeated. It indeed is important for you to apply your brains at work, get involved, give your best shot but at the same time do take advantage of the worldly pleasures. Go out and party. Enjoy the life. The tension and hardships related to work should be left back at the office. Once you are home, don’t carry your strain with yourself. We work to live we don’t live to work. To work is not the ideal of life. The basic objective is to lead a nice life. Now to lead a nice, comfortable and happy life, work is necessary that is why we work. If work is not allowing to lead that kind of a life then stop working because you aren’t reaching your goal.

This wonderful piece of advice from him apparently has changed my life. A complete turnover I must say. Such a beautiful thought which was so nicely and calmly described by him.

should we change with the change in situation ?

One who changes with time is not a man. Again, one who does not change with time is not a man.

To start with the first one, a person whose attitude and perspective changes with changing situation is certainly not a man of honour.  For instance, if with sudden change in one’s life he or she becomes arrogant, selfish and starts behaving differently; then, the person would not be held with high esteem. Such change can be anything, an upliftment, a failure, a loss or success. If a man succumbs to a particular situation and allows the circumstances to rule his/her nature and mode of living, the character would certainly not be admirable. Hence, this section of the debate says - come what may, the basic soul, the innate qualities of a man should not change.

The second side of the debate says, if we don’t change with the changing circumstances we cannot be considered as a man. We’d rather be programmed robots or any such non-thinking, non-living object with practically no brains to adapt. Now, this contradicts the first thought, where changing is rather unscrupulous. But if we don’t change, we aren't growing and if we aren't growing we are not living.

Speaking for the motion, it might be at times necessary to change or adapt oneself according to the scenario but then, in the process we just happen to lose something in ourselves which was good and noteworthy. Whereas on the other side they say, “we might lose something good, but we may gain something even better”.

Having considered all the thoughts bumping into my brain cells, I can conclude in the Shakespearean way as he once said “people don’t change; only their costumes do”.  What I mean to say is with changing time and circumstances, the basic characteristics should be retained while the peripheral qualities might be adapted and modified to suite the demand of the situation.

Might be a bit out of the context but this reminds me of my school Principal, Mrs. Kak, who would always tell us that there is a kid in us and come what may , growing age or changing life, we should always let the toddler in us alive. For according to her, only kids can live and enjoy life and the day the child dies we shall not be living but just be ageing.