My recent
visit to Singapore has forced upon me the task to often ponder about the
differences my country has and the reasons behind them. The bounds vary from
the tenable drainage cum rain water harvesting system to the soaring skylines.
I feel highly elated about the management paradigm here, glossed with the
feeling of self-responsibility on every citizen but equally unpleasant are the
thoughts of ephemeral motivations of developing India alike that arise in us
from time-to-time.
I've had this discussion,
recently, with some Indians over here, but was let down to confront their
no-possible-way-thinking outlook. The organized living sense is highly delusive
while living out of India, but then why do people doubt to bring it back to
home as well? In fact, in contemporary times I met Indians (including you) who
know about the problem and the overall structural growth of it, from bottom to
top level, but are reluctant to recognize that they are the real saviors.
"How and when did this happen?" should hold less concern, but more
concerning is the transition phase of the Indian mindset for savoring
Let's setup a stage: You are the protagonist in this play. You get out of India to learn something (your MS or undergrad, say). Now that you've been brought up in an open-mindset environment, you are well verse to discuss and have your own views on topics that are both- glory/blemishes on Indian evolution. You criticize the overall functioning of the government and the bureaucrats involved in the play. On a certain level, you are highly educated to highlight the flaws in the adopted model of development and even have your own better version to manipulate it for benign purposes. In a parallel universe the Indian bureaucrat (IAS/IES officer, if that comes to your mind) didn't get the privilege of growing up in a more developed fashion. The lad struggled throughout the childhood, somehow cleared the exam, is certified to have all the academic insights to handle the expansion of the society around him, but the academia fails to fill the void of moral virtues, or open-mindedness thinking, and so one often falls prey to the bribery-coated revenue mechanism, which eventually propagates a new wave of corruption to blend with the other existing ones. The closed-box upbringing of the lad reinforces the taboo nature which is quite hard to break at a later stage. But that's surely not with you. In the end, the-going-to-be NRIs end up blaming India equivocally for all the mistakes they can highlight without reckoning themselves as one of the accomplice.
Now surely, why would one
consider of coming back to India and getting involved in the services not ever
known to oneself as the one already spent large span of his/her life (mostly)
pursuing 'scientific research'? Good point. Now all the problems hindering
India's progress can be linked to the Indian Education System as the root
cause. The Indian industrial system is primarily involved in the service oriented
growth and hardly caters the research oriented need of the nation. This,
further, led to the deprivation of the quality of education provided in most of
the Indian institutes. The cyclic nature of events, which is profit driven
solely, motivated the institutes to grow at an immeasurable rate but discarding
the qualitative nature of it. The only aim of these institutes turned into
providing better employees for the service oriented market in a fast pace
manner, which finally ended up in the collateral damage. This backfired in the
society too affecting the thinking of the parents, who now only dream of their
child getting a high-paid job irrespective of the 'work' one will be getting
into. The research-oriented mindset, if found to be evolving in a child, is
perished on first sight.
The crucial role that you can
play here is to come up with the most enthralling idea (optimism is good), in
the field that you have already put your research mindset for such a long time,
and get on with a start-up industry in India itself. Now why this has to be
done only by you? The reason is- the already existing bigwigs like Microsoft,
Google or Facebook won't consider to invest in research oriented incubators in
an Indian institute, be it IIT itself because for the same amount of investment
they would get better result from MIT, Stanford and numerous others in the
proximity of their home grounds. So, here comes your role of instigating the
initiative of inspiring the Indian academia to turn its perspective towards
education. The cyclic nature of the scenario:
has two doors to break in. If you think yourself capable enough, with the skills required for making an impact on the thinking of the society, go into the service to affect them. On the other hand, if this seems too irrational to you given the huge amount of time you invested while studying or during your research, break the industrial deadlock by a 'big-idea' backfiring the communal thought of not-asking kids to be research oriented.
has two doors to break in. If you think yourself capable enough, with the skills required for making an impact on the thinking of the society, go into the service to affect them. On the other hand, if this seems too irrational to you given the huge amount of time you invested while studying or during your research, break the industrial deadlock by a 'big-idea' backfiring the communal thought of not-asking kids to be research oriented.
And ever
in the way of bringing this change if the thought, "What affect I can
bring in all alone?” arises then revive with this quote:
"Always bear in mind that your own
resolution is more important than any other" by Abraham Lincoln
