Are Indians Dumb?

'The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and mainstream it -- that can only be done in the US. It can't be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation is to help these innovative US companies bring their products to the market quicker, cheaper and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a complementarity we need to enhance.'

-- Nandan Nilekani, CEO, Infosys, quoted in The New York Times, March 7, 2004.

Translated into plain English, this means 'Indians lack creativity and cannot come up with the ideas to create and sell a product. Indians can only do the backend slog work that helps US companies create and sell their products.'

How about this?

ISRO -- the Indian Space Research Organisation -- is the result of Dr Vikram Sarabhai's vision. Its first rocket, like the one in the picture, was launched 40 years ago. Over the past 40 years, a multi-disciplinary group of electronics, mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineers has designed and built 32 satellites and three generations of launch vehicles culminating in the GSLV.

This was done with almost totally indigenous R&D, battling US sanctions. Each time that a technology or component was unavailable, ISRO went ahead and developed it on its own. ISRO's satellites help India in telecom, television broadcasting, weather forecasting, disaster warning, telemedicine, education and fishery. Technologies in areas as diverse as optics and artificial limb manufacture have been developed and transferred to Indian industry.

Jamsetji Tata wanted to make textiles in Nagpur in the 1800s with the cotton grown there. Nagpur had no textile industry then, and in Manchester Jamsetji was told that Nagpur's weather was not suitable as it was too dry. He said, 'Alright, I will bring the Manchester weather to Nagpur.' He imported humidifiers and started India's first textile mill in 1874.

When Jamshetji started the Tata Iron and Steel Company and wanted to export steel rails to Britain, a Britisher called Sir Frederick Upcourt said, 'Do you mean to say that Tatas propose to make steel rails to British specifications? I will undertake to eat every pound of rail that they make, if they do that.' The Tatas did manage to make steel rails and export them to Britain. Upcourt must have developed a massive case of indigestion). In World War II British tanks were called Tatanagars because the steel was made in Tatanagar.

To paraphrase Nilekani, Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata got an idea, put together a team, raised the capital, created a product, and mainstreamed it. They did it sitting in India, 40 years and 125 years ago respectively, when India's technical capabilities were far less than they are now.

So we now have two Indias.

One has a severe inferiority complex and is unwilling to do anything creative because it thinks it is incapable of it. It thinks being called the back office of the world is the ultimate compliment, missing the implied insult in the word back. It thinks its ultimate destiny is to do all the slog work of the world.

The other is confident about its capability, dreams big dreams, then goes ahead and translates the dreams into reality. There are innumerable success stories like ISRO and Tata Steel in India today, in manufacturing, electronic hardware, pharmaceuticals, software, fashion design, or any area that you can think of. The problem is that these are not highlighted. Creative individuals and organisations who are developing products or technologies with a lasting impact are unsung heroes.

To be a hero in India today you just have to make a lot of immediate money. Creativity is irrelevant, and maybe dreamers like Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata would be considered fools.

When you dream a big dream, maybe a small part of it gets translated into reality. If you do not dream at all, what do you finally get in reality?An entrepreneur must have self-confidence bordering on arrogance. Why is it that this confidence is missing in the heads of India's biggest software companies?

Back to the Raj?

Every Indian child's history textbook says something to this effect: 'During the British Raj we exported cheap raw material to Britain, then imported the finished products at a much higher price. We were paying for the value addition done in Britain, and the Raj prevented us from doing the value addition here. We were being exploited by the British.' The IT industry is considered to be India's biggest success story, but in reality 99% of it involves the export of cheap (human) raw material and the import of expensive finished products.

We are happy if Microsoft starts a development centre in India and employs a couple of thousand people. We develop the software modules that go into Microsoft Windows XP at a low price, and then pay through our noses to import the finished Windows XP.

There is no British Raj to exploit us today, so what prevents us from doing the big value addition here now instead of exporting cheap man days? Why are we exploiting ourselves? The standard argument is that the software industry is evolving, and will 'move up the value chain.' There is, however, no evidence of any motion up the value chain. Some of the biggest IT companies are on the contrary regressing into BPOs. Everyone is happy making a lot of money today, and there is no thought of tomorrow.

Another argument goes: 'Oh, but see how much foreign exchange the IT industry is earning for the country.' Agreed, we are making a lot of money selling our time, but we would be making many times this amount selling our creativity through technologies, designs or finished products.

Current government policies, value systems and the education system are creating a whole generation of people who believe they are second class professionals unfit to do anything creative. During the Raj the British convinced us we were fit to only produce raw material and not finished goods. They'd be proud of us now -- we've learnt the lesson very well and are now convincing successive generations too.

In today's India Jamsetji would probably have said to Frederick Upcourt, 'Maybe you have a point and I'm taking a big risk trying to make steel in this Third World country. I think I'll just sell you the iron ore from my Noamundi mines. Besides, I can start selling you the ore from next month itself, while it will take me 5 years to build the steel plant and start making money.'

So are we really dumb?

A century ago, Jamsetji Tata took some foreign visitors to the Majestic Hotel in Mumbai but was denied entrance because he was an Indian. Jamsetji simply resolved to build a hotel that was even finer, and which would not discriminate against people on the basis of colour or race. Today when we lose software outsourcing contracts and get thrown out of the US, we go back and beg to be allowed back in instead of fighting back by being more creative than them.

We need drastic changes in the education system and in government policies to reward creativity and value addition. Changes that produce creative people, visionaries, dreamers, people with guts, like Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata.

We are definitely not dumb. We just have to stop thinking that we are.

Dr. APJ Kalam's speech at Hyd

The President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's Speech in Hyderabad.


Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success
stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary.
It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work; the railways are a joke,
The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity... In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it
that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else. 'YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop,
'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son.
Take your two bucks and get lost.' YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said. 'And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? 'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing J.
F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....

'ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA
AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA
WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending some Jokes or nonsense junk mails.