An ex-boss who shared a crazy car ride through the cramped streets of Hyderabad, India with me, told me that Indians had catapulted from a state of working with low technology to one of being conversant with the latest forms of technology that were available. And that that was something that surprised the developed world.
I don't think that she was either daft or purposely trying to be mean. She was just making the assumtions natural to the superiority complex that afflicts most of the global North. A position that completely ignores the fact that ancient India possessed extremely high levels of scientific and technical expertise that escaped the cave dwellers who resided in the West of those times. A position that only looks at India post-British colonialism, an India, robbed among much else, of its wealth and dignity.
Anyway, this India is seen by many in the West as having made that giant leap into the world of hi-technology naturally inhabited by the developed world. Especially since those very countries have taken much longer to develop those technologies, passing through what they view as the natural evolutionary cycle of technology. While countries like India and maybe the others in the BRIC circle have pretty much jumped from zero know-how of technology to wanting to be at par with those who developed those technologies.
But that may just be the nature of the beast that is India. Maybe we do things really fast. Whether it is a giant leap forward or backward. While the world sees the progress we have made, very few acknowledge that there is a dark side where we have spiralled downhill in very little time.
From independence from England in 1947 through the late 1960s, politicians and civic leaders were incorruptible civil servants who worked for development. When funds and resources meant to build infrastructure did just that instead of being used to build mansions for the officials in-charge of those projects. But that changed, too. Fast forward into the late 1970s and one saw bribes become a way of life. Corruption seeped into the roots of Indian society within a span of about 10 years. Quick, right?
But not so for the west. Without being aware of exact dates, I know that development in the U.S. was largely implemented in the 1950s, when roads where built connecting the entire country and thus changing the face of this vast land. Things have changed since then but much slower than in India. Cracks have begun to show up in the highways in the U.S. and repairs take much longer than they used to. But the pace of change is much slower.
So, developed world, do not grudge us the giant leap into high technology. Because it can only try to stem the blood we lose from the downward spiral. Maybe, for a change, just let us be.
Caraka, Sushruta, Panini : Ayurveda, Yoga, the zero and the decimal, the list is impressive but we have the patents of none. From Kautilya's Arthashastra to Montek's economic treatise India has indeed come a long way (down). The few Nobel laureates from the country have been of Indian 'origin' only but loyal citizens of the developed world. The desi who discovered that plants have life was not discovered by the Nobel committee. Today the brilliant Indian brains of high technology benefit the developed North and themselves, of course. Yet the country has made a giant leap. It must be puzzling to the insulated West.
ReplyDeleteMaitreyee.