Naya Bharat towards 5 trillion economy
ENHANCING CORE SKILLS OF INDIA through education
Virender kapoor
Present state of affairs
We as a collective force of 1.4 Billion people have made an impact on the world in the last several decades because of the sheer size of our population- 65 % of the population being below 35 years of age- Voila! We are proud about the fact that developed nations view us as a big market for their products and therefore better be on our right side. Are we happy with this statement alone that we are proud to be the biggest consumers and people look at us as a ‘market’? I think not. Have we been able to leverage our size to become a producer of mass wealth and goods which can give the world run for their Money? Again I think not. God has been kind to us in several ways. We don’t have harsh winters, snow and no sunshine like many nations of the world. We don’t have earthquakes like Japan. We have one cohesive land mass and don’t exist as a nation spread over 4004 islands. We have young population, sufficient raw materials, very diverse cultures and a collage of a landscape from deserts, fertile plains to mountains to forests, enough water bodies and a reasonable temperate climate. We have a very huge coastline. What more can we expect from the God almighty?
On top of it we have brains! We have produced the best doctors, best scientists, architects, writers and best engineers in the world. Yet we have not been able to fully and optimally capitalize our core strengths to become the mightiest nation. Then what has gone wrong with the India Success story. Why have we not been able to bloom to our full potential? Let’s make some quick comparisons- you always try to look at the one who is better than you.
You need to compare apples to apples. But let us compare apples to small berries. Israel got recognition as a nation in 1948 and we in the year 1947.
India is about 150 times bigger than Israel in terms of land mass. Actually it is like comparing a berry to a watermelon!
Israel is approximately 21,937 sq km, while India is approximately 3,287,263 sq km, making India 14,885% larger than Israel. Meanwhile, the population of Israel is 9 million people (1.3 billion more people live in India). They are also unfortunate to have totally arid land. Israel is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and characterized by desert and semi-desert climatic conditions. Among these constrains, water scarcity is the primary limiting factor. Yet they are miles and miles ahead of us in every which way we examine. Technology, irrigation, state of the art military hardware, arms, ammunition, high tech, innovation and you name it they have it.
Similarly Germany got destroyed completely twice over in both the World Wars. Today within 70 years they are the strongest economy in the entire EU. How?
What is the missing Link?
The missing link which needs to be addressed is ‘Core Skills’ which they have but we don’t. These appear to be intangible but are the actual force multipliers.
We laugh at ourselves by saying things like ‘We are always late for everything- Indian Standard time is that’ ‘We take pride in cheating the system’ ‘ Sau main say ninyanwe beiman mera bharat mahan’ , ‘We take short cuts’, ‘We are the biggest cribbers and always blame someone else’ we have a ‘false sense of pride’. Our Patriotism is limited to singing patriotic songs. We accept substandard output from others as well as ourselves — far away from perfection and say ‘Saab Chalta hai’. We take pride in ridiculing ourselves. For us national pride has no meaning. Daal, Roti, naukri, Makan is our limited view of our nation state.
How did these people get all these core skills? I feel largely they have it in them — gift by the god’ Second, They went through hell for their survival as a nation. Third their leadership was constantly at it. We have tried to live on our past glory by saying we are a 5000 year old civilization. But as far as Geo politics, Geo economy and Geo Technology are concerned there has been a hockey stick phenomenon in the last one hundred years which is known as contemporary history. Therefore we need to look at present and not only deep down in the past. Yes we should never short change or underestimate our heritage which must move as a parallel track but for performance enhancement in real time and in real competitive world of today we need to do certain additional work. My efforts will be limited to this aspect specifically- of course co existing with our rich heritage- drawing upon it where required. So let us focus on immediate history and the immediate future.
Why Indians Perform well abroad?
This is often debated as to why an Indian who lacks these basic core skills performing badly in Indian environment performs so well abroad. The key word is ‘environment’ not the fancy word ‘ecosystem’ which is more to do with infrastructure, funding, policy etc. I have been a Head of one of the best B schools in the country for almost 20 years and several of my students are doing very well across the industries in senior positions throughout the western world. My learning has been — ‘If you have hundred good horses running a race and add 20 weak horses to that group, the synergy of hundred good horses will augment the performance of these 20 weak ones’. But if you reverse it and take hundred bad horses and add 20 good ones to the group, the good ones will also become bad, non performers’. Works like Newton’s Laws of Gravitation. In India the ratio is skewed and we have more bad ones than good and the whole nation is getting dragged down.
Can we Change this? Yes we can. Do we need to Change? Yes; if you want to become a 5 trillion dollar economy and a super power even in Asia, there is no other option.
What needs to be done?
You can neither change the history nor can you turn the clock back. Therefore you have to fast forward if you want to win the race. Our education system over the years had lots of good things too- all was not wrong- especially physics, chemistry, math, geography and say economics, finance and accounting- and all that are perceived to be new is not right either. How else you have Indian doctors in the world recognized as top of the stack- the best in fact. Several Indians are Professors/deans in top Western universities, CEO’s of many big MNCs are Indians, and more than half of engineers in NASA and Silicon Valley are Indians. We must have done something right no. We need to upgrade our education curriculum but we need to do more in ‘what is not classically known to be education’. This is another pointer towards the ‘missing link hypotheses’. What is the point of having a great engineer who is not dedicated to his work, not loyal to the organization, doesn’t take pride in what is designed on his table and is not punctual? Look at Germans, they wear their quality and pride on their sleeve! They write ‘German Technology’ with pride. This has not come up merely as a sign board, as a marketing rhetoric. This is the result of decades of hard work, sweat and blood and drilling — yes drilling of these core skills right from the child hood. Taking pride in the national pride is very important. Olympic medals cannot be won by singing songs, yes symbolism is important but rhetoric and battle cries alone can’t take you to the victory stand. We need to bring these core skills as part of our education system. How else will you change your national character and national human fabric?
