Indian Intelligentsia

Yesterday, I read two opinion articles in the Times of India about why India is unable to get a proper acknowledgement of its standing on the world stage.  As per these articles, India is not far behind the US and China, and seems to be ahead of EU and Japan on the world stage.  Talk about self-confidence.  And one of those articles was written by Chetan Bhagat, the other by some Indian who lives in Washington, DC.
As I read those articles, I was reminded of a book I had read long back before I had immigrated to the US.  This book had a remark that Indian intelligentsia love to talk about the problems faced by an average person while drinking Scotch whiskey in five star hotels.
Chetan Bhagat did mention a lot of things that are holding India back.  He obviously is not the average person.  He will not have to stand in line in the bank or to pay bills and be dictated by the babu to produce his Aadhaar card for whatever purpose.  These privileged guys lead a good life and probably get paid tons of money to write their view of how India can progress.  And this will go on forever.
India cannot reclaim its place on the global stage till the average man brings some discipline in his life.  Oh, and did I say anything about corruption?  They claim about education but I see kids trying to cram the books into their head without understanding what is contained in those books.  The teachers teach what is important from an examination point of view and not what should be learned.  They get surprised when I tell them that I give exams to my students that are open book and open notes.
The employees seem to want to work long hours.  The work week is six days and some people go on the seventh as well.  They go to work at 10am and return home after 8pm.  However, they do not seem to have the productivity to match the rest of the world.  And that is because they do not actually work for that many hours but pretend to work.
This place runs on sycophancy.  The smaller fish keeps on telling the bigger fish how great the big fish is.  And it runs at all levels -- from a lowly peon to the general manager of a company.
India will never progress till they transform the DNA of Indians.  Yes, I am way too negative on this but that is the truth as per me.

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