issue #19
In his book "India Unbound", Gurcharan Das rants about an "emerging", financially strong India; yet ironically all the financial figures in his book are in dollars (converted from the rupee). While a hundred reasons can be argued for it, this shows that we are still a slave to the dollar.
It is really a shame for us all that development and progress has become synonymous with blindly aping the west. Having "missed" the industrial revolution, we desperately jumped onto the IT/BPO bandwagon in a hurry, without a thought to the future.
We have stopped all enquiry into the fundamental sciences and engineering and are happy to be cyber-coolies at the mercy of rich outsourcing nations. What when India starts losing out to other Asian(South-East) countries on this front and finds that she has also lost out on her industrial/academic competencies?
In tune with this mad gold-rush, our core competencies of spirituality, philosophy, art and cultural heritage have all gone for a toss. Regional literature, drama forms, concerts have all been replaced by late night clubbing and Hollywood SFX.
All that remains of newspapers today are Page 3 and Job postings- the rest is trashed. With every third person an IT professional and every sixth one an MBA (not to mention every single person's dream of becoming one of these), the time is near when we will be teaching our children Perl or C# as their primary language in school!
While there's nothing wrong with "living for the moment", it leaves us a whole lot vulnerable to the future and while everyone cannot be expected to ponder on this, I really hope we have at least a few thinkers to save the day when the time of reckoning finally arrives.
It is really a shame for us all that development and progress has become synonymous with blindly aping the west. Having "missed" the industrial revolution, we desperately jumped onto the IT/BPO bandwagon in a hurry, without a thought to the future.
We have stopped all enquiry into the fundamental sciences and engineering and are happy to be cyber-coolies at the mercy of rich outsourcing nations. What when India starts losing out to other Asian(South-East) countries on this front and finds that she has also lost out on her industrial/academic competencies?
In tune with this mad gold-rush, our core competencies of spirituality, philosophy, art and cultural heritage have all gone for a toss. Regional literature, drama forms, concerts have all been replaced by late night clubbing and Hollywood SFX.
All that remains of newspapers today are Page 3 and Job postings- the rest is trashed. With every third person an IT professional and every sixth one an MBA (not to mention every single person's dream of becoming one of these), the time is near when we will be teaching our children Perl or C# as their primary language in school!
While there's nothing wrong with "living for the moment", it leaves us a whole lot vulnerable to the future and while everyone cannot be expected to ponder on this, I really hope we have at least a few thinkers to save the day when the time of reckoning finally arrives.
-sumandatta
(editor)
(editor)
