Topic started by Chenthamizhan (@ 138.cleveland-13-14rs.oh.dial-access.att.net) on Tue May 13 20:12:56 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Even though Indians are a micro-minority in USA, their accomplishments usually stand out in various fields such as science, business, engineering, medicine, and spiritual leadership.

They are the same Indians if they were in India, and would have been slogging through their lives for a pittance and not making much headway.

If Ramanujan were living in India, he would have have been a lower divisional clerk with idiosyncratic pastime with numbers. He had to go to UK to get his work known. I suppose Chandrasekhar had to go to US to get his nobel prize in Physics.

What is it in India that holds back the great geniuses and accomplished artists?

When I thought about it my few jottings on that are as below:
- Indian diaspora is a self selecting group of people with high initiative and well developed skill set. Obviously they will succeed wherever they are.
-There are very limited opportunities for the highly skilled people in India because of its poverty; this does not wash well since China starting at a lower level than India is leap frogging into modernity with the input from its expatriates.
-The system is rigged to keep the people with high creativity and skill down e.g. nepotism, corruption, ignorance, caste considerations, illiteracy.
-The world view developed by Indian religion is anti-progressive; this does not wash well either since the people who succeed here are the same people with the same religion in India.
-The population is so immense, the geniuses get diluted and swamped by the mediocrity.
-There is no meritocracy in India
-Very poor governance with people like Tansi Rani Jeyalalithaa, Fodder Laloo Prasad Yadav and Miloscevic Modi leading the masses astray.

It will be immensely interesting to get other ideas from every one who had thought about this possibly from different angle.

Peace!

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Chenthamizhan (@ 210.cleveland-01-02rs.oh.dial-access.att.net) on: Fri Jun 6 21:18:22 EDT 2003
  
  Neo/Rohit:
  
  "Nationalism, ofcourse, is a curious phenomenon which at a certain stage in a country's history gives life, growth strength and untiy but, at the same time, it has a tendency to limit one, because one thinks of one's country as something different from the rest of the world. "
  
  This beautifully summarizes Nehru's greatness and his limitations. His broad instincts led him to set up a strong democratic infra-structure and at the same time his internationalist outlook sacrificed India's interest for the sake of furthering the humanity's progress. His taking the Kashmir case to UN was a glaring demonstration of that fact. He was a dreamer for world peace and prosperity while every one else was trying to maximize their self interest. He was an innocent Red Riding Hood merrily traipsing along guided by fellow hot air socialists such as VK Menon in an international jungle arena filled with people like John Foster Dulles, Mao Tse Tung and Khruschev and of course his wake up call came in 1962.
  
  I wish we had Rajaji for foreign minister. The trio of Nehru, Rajaji, and Vallabhai Patel would have worked wonders.
  
  
• From: neo_morpheus (@ ppp-219.65.96.188.chn.vsnl.net.in) on: Sat Jun 21 20:43:33 EDT 2003
  
  Chenthamizhan
  
  >>I wish we had Rajaji for foreign minister. The trio of Nehru, Rajaji, and Vallabhai Patel would have worked wonders.>>
  
  I guess Nehru was acutely aware of the fact that the 'nature' of both the men that you mention - Vallabhai patel and rajagopalachari, was veering towards the neo-hindu Rightwing as manifested in the then jan sangh, which was itself merely a political mask of the RSS.
  
  So I think Nehru must have pondered over the side-effects of having Raja.G in the ministry and deftly handled him, which was inevitable given the sensitive socio-political situation during those nascent days of Indian democracy. Nehru was probably right in doing so.
  
  But you were right that Nehru's 'goody goody' approach towards china was flawed; but even in that issue, the role of V.K.Krishna Menon - then foreign minister, once described as Nehru's 'Alter Ego', was murky, and added to the costly blunders that indian govt. made during those 'heady' days of democracy/non-aligned movement - of the 1950s.
  
  
• From: stg (@ 12.151.162.23) on: Sun Jun 22 06:09:41 EDT 2003
  
  I really wish rajaji had been our finance minister. He was the first one to warn about the license-permit-quota raj and precisely because of that india finds itself in a mess. Will you people believe that at one stage our finance minister an evil gnome who drank his own urine called morarji desai imposed 92.5% income tax and with wealth tax, estate duty and a host of criminal taxes which resulted in certain cases to pay more than 100% of ones income. Morarji boasted that no man in history have taxed his people more than him.
  
  The strangulating socialist model, the suffacating taxes, the stifling laws which nehru ushered in killed the very spirit of every businessman, trader, entrepruner, scientist and all creative and innovative men. But people wont put up with such evil and injustice so they migrated. Those who didn't used their creative ability to indulge in every subterfuge, every trick to outwit the system, to corrupt the system as you cant survive if you dont. Honesty means more punishment. Now we are at our wits ends what to do with this nehruvian legacy, made more evil by indira.
  
  The solution is simple, laissez faire. THe govt should get out of the way of our creative and innovative men. Govt should get out of production and most of the services, scrap all the useless, evil and non objective law and keep quiet. Let the govt sweep the cobwebs of archiac, inhuman, evil and repressive laws, stifling regulations and strangulating controls and the people of india will raise to the occasion and herald an era or prosperity and plenty. The corrupt and the sychophants who thrive by legislative favors and govt handout will be swept aside and the fittest, ablest and the talented will take india really into the 21 century.
  Otherwise the cream of the intelligent people will continue to go out of the country.
  
  
• From: Chenthamizhan (@ 28.cleveland-09rh16rt-oh.dial-access.att.net) on: Mon Jun 23 22:10:31 EDT 2003
  
  Stg:
  
  I agree that the introduction of permits destroyed the initiatives and the grwoth in economy. However that you have to give Nehru his due for building up the industrial infrastructure, and atomic energy commission, and the electronic infrastructure under Homi Bhabha. Without this build up and reliance on indigenous technology development, India wouid have been kicked around during the formative stages by the big powers.But your point on the stupidity of destroying the private initiative is well made. Just look at the example of Air India under Tata's and now under the national government!
  
  Neo:
  Gandhi was as much or more of a Hindu than Rajaji and Vallabhai Patel. Only Nehru was purely humanistic minded socialist. The genuine concern Gandhi and Nehru had for the poor in India distinguishes them from the current crop of crass opportunistic Godse worshippers.
  
  
• From: Star (@ adsl-68-77-27-153.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net) on: Tue May 18 15:12:11
  
  Indians are the smartest, at least the Hindu ones.
  
  
• From: Star (@ adsl-68-77-27-153.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net) on: Tue May 18 15:12:36 EDT 2004
  
  Only Jews can compare.
  
  

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