India With Gaps
After reading the book 'Breaking India' by Rajiv Malhotra, I am thinking about recent history since 1990. In the past 15 years, we have seen India getting into the world map in terms of IT. On one side, we feel proud that India has evolved as a global major and is termed as prospective super power next to US and China. On the other side, we don't realize the possible mistake that was done in the 1980s by the so called entrepreneurs within India.
Whenever we start something new, we are always circumspect. This is specifically in case of business and investments. When Indian IT companies kicked off 2-3 decades ago, their main goal was to do things that they people felt right. They would have hardly thought of revolutionizing Indian life 15 years down. They started business for their own success. What has this done to the greater India? It has created a gap among the people by splitting the population into IT and non-IT crowd. Also, this has created a gap of 15 years in terms of scientific research and development. The coming of IT to India was not bad. But, the way India became slaves of IT is something which we have to realize and could have been done better. With less than 1% working IT sector, it doesn't actually put India's prospects bright.
Could have India thought differently? Yes. We should have taken the technology and ideas from the west and implemented for Indian companies and public sectors, say, banks and industries. This would have enabled local companies to match competition from the west. See for examples, China, Japan, South Korea and Germany. They all have their own economic ecosystem without needing help from external countries. China has slowly stood for itself and is becoming self sustained. If the then (in 1980s and 1990s) visionaries of India had thought this way, we would have made more advancements in science and technology along with having a self sustaining ecosystem for ourselves. Personally, I would have studied something more relevant and worked for company/sector that is more Indian. Similar to this, if millions of Indians in the past decade had thought, we could have contributed a lot to the self development of India. Think like, such people would have been in ISRO, DRDO, HAL, etc.
What are the ill-effects hidden with IT boom in India? It slowed down India's investment in research and science. Students coming out of college chose IT and as Sanskrit saying goes, 'vidhya eva dhanam', people started running behind IT. As more and more top cream of students moved to IT, this deprived intellectual brains in sectors like teaching, science, and innovation. Adding to this is the concept of 'brain drain'. India is lagging in moving ahead by 15 years now. It could take double this time to bounce back in becoming a country that it was in terms of science, maths, culture and tradition.
Another ill-effect of IT boom in India is the mass immigration of population to metros and leading to stagnation of mindsets. For the natives of a given city, they lose their connection with the city seeing drastic changes in the past 2 decades. For people coming in, they always have one foot off the city to which they migrate and always think that they will return to their hometown one day. With these mindsets, cities will miss the citizens who work and contribute for the betterment of the city where they reside.
What should be done? Main focus of current India should be education, thus nourishing lost fields like teaching, core science and research. Apart from this, basic things like water electricity and employment has to be tackled in rural areas. Cities of India have become a place of chaos and doesn't have any goals to achieve. All we can do is add to chaos and make it the city explode. Instead, by helping the tier-II and tier-III cities, there is scope of seeing a better India.
Whenever we start something new, we are always circumspect. This is specifically in case of business and investments. When Indian IT companies kicked off 2-3 decades ago, their main goal was to do things that they people felt right. They would have hardly thought of revolutionizing Indian life 15 years down. They started business for their own success. What has this done to the greater India? It has created a gap among the people by splitting the population into IT and non-IT crowd. Also, this has created a gap of 15 years in terms of scientific research and development. The coming of IT to India was not bad. But, the way India became slaves of IT is something which we have to realize and could have been done better. With less than 1% working IT sector, it doesn't actually put India's prospects bright.
Could have India thought differently? Yes. We should have taken the technology and ideas from the west and implemented for Indian companies and public sectors, say, banks and industries. This would have enabled local companies to match competition from the west. See for examples, China, Japan, South Korea and Germany. They all have their own economic ecosystem without needing help from external countries. China has slowly stood for itself and is becoming self sustained. If the then (in 1980s and 1990s) visionaries of India had thought this way, we would have made more advancements in science and technology along with having a self sustaining ecosystem for ourselves. Personally, I would have studied something more relevant and worked for company/sector that is more Indian. Similar to this, if millions of Indians in the past decade had thought, we could have contributed a lot to the self development of India. Think like, such people would have been in ISRO, DRDO, HAL, etc.
What are the ill-effects hidden with IT boom in India? It slowed down India's investment in research and science. Students coming out of college chose IT and as Sanskrit saying goes, 'vidhya eva dhanam', people started running behind IT. As more and more top cream of students moved to IT, this deprived intellectual brains in sectors like teaching, science, and innovation. Adding to this is the concept of 'brain drain'. India is lagging in moving ahead by 15 years now. It could take double this time to bounce back in becoming a country that it was in terms of science, maths, culture and tradition.
Another ill-effect of IT boom in India is the mass immigration of population to metros and leading to stagnation of mindsets. For the natives of a given city, they lose their connection with the city seeing drastic changes in the past 2 decades. For people coming in, they always have one foot off the city to which they migrate and always think that they will return to their hometown one day. With these mindsets, cities will miss the citizens who work and contribute for the betterment of the city where they reside.
What should be done? Main focus of current India should be education, thus nourishing lost fields like teaching, core science and research. Apart from this, basic things like water electricity and employment has to be tackled in rural areas. Cities of India have become a place of chaos and doesn't have any goals to achieve. All we can do is add to chaos and make it the city explode. Instead, by helping the tier-II and tier-III cities, there is scope of seeing a better India.
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