Writes V.S. Naipaul in his India: A Wounded Civilization
Indians have made some contributions to science in this century; but-with a few notable exceptions-their work has been done abroad. And this is more than a matter of equipment and facilities. It is a cause of concern to the Indian scientific community-which feels it self vulnerable in India-that many of those men and women who are so daring and original abroad, when they are lured back to India, collapse into ordinariness and yet remain content, become people who seem unaware of their former self, and seem to have been brilliant by accident. They have been claimed by the lesser civilization, the lesser idea of dharma and self-fulfillment. In a civilization reduced to its forms, they no longer have to strive intellectually to gain spiritual merit in their own eyes; that same merit is not be had by religious right behavior, correctness.
India grieved for the scientist Har Gobind Khuarana who, as an American citizen, won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for the United States a few years ago. India invited him and feted him; but what was most important about him was ignored. ‘’We would do anything for Khorana,”one of India’s best journalists said, ‘’except do him the honor of discussing his work.” The work, the labor, the assessment of that labor: it was expected that somehow that would occur elsewhere, outside India.
It is part of the intellectual parasitism that Indians accept (and, as a conquered people, have long accepted) while continuing to see their civilization as a whole and possessed of the only truth that matters: offering refugee to the ‘’afflicted,” as Gandhi saw it in 1914, and ‘’deliverance from this earthly life.” It is as though it is in the very distress and worldly incapacity of India-that its special virtue has now been found.
You know who he might have been talking about, right?
Update: Ha! How the hell is this a feather in the cap of Indian academia? When I last checked, Dartmouth was very much in USA! Are Indians not satisfied with stealing Western achievers that they now want to usurp their institutions too?
Filed under: Culture/Society
R
Interesting post. thank you. would love to hear Madame Ruchira’s POV…
This gentleman, VS Naipual, at times, leaves me confounded.Intelligent, yet outdated! he appears to be stuck with that 1966-80 mindset, the darkest period of Indian economy.Of course, I understand his agony, wish Sri Shastri, the great statesman, lived longer.Who wanted to “liberalise” the system from controls and rigidness , way back in 1965.
@Businesses worldwide,including India, one of the BRIC economies are in transition
@ “R&D, Product Innovation” is a relatively older a concept when it is pitted aganst “Knowledge Management and Wealth creation”..this pt went out of focus over here
@I presume, Mr Naipaul is aware of “Tushar Dave”, “Raj Vattikuti”, “Bharat Desai”,”Ashok Trivedi”, “Nandu Thondawadi”, and “Sunil Wadhwani”
@Dr. Reddy’s operations in Philippines, Expands presence in the ASEAN region, enters the Dermatology topical anti-fungal market with the launch of ‘Ebernet™’ – (Eberconazole) ….
@Ranbaxy, one of the top Generic Drug Companies…a move to contain health-care costs?
@Sundaram Fasteners, with a singleminded focus on their competence (auto components) exploited Detrroit’s automakers desire of outsourcing their components rather than producing them in-house
…many brilliant illustrations around!
may indicate “lets’ not talk and discuss much”, but “let’s roll up our Sleeves”, through a strategy laden with “low cost but excellent R&D”, “low manufacturing costs”, “high intellectualism”, “Reverse Engineering” , ‘win in the local markets”, rather than hankering after acceptance from wild west, or emotionally being dependent on western culture or lifestyle”
*R-Grab hold of “India Unbound” by Mr Gurcharan Das (from Harvard Business School), former CEO of P&G.
I parroted a few of his points
you may agree with me. “Intellectual entrepreneurship” , a far more respected and result-oriented mindset than “being a mere Indian academician who amongst most ught after business brains in the West”. Thought leaders have to create wealth for the society , nt for the organisations they work for. sorry, I respect them, but not their idealogy.
those new business hubs – environment, infrastructure, demographics, emerging markets, digital technologies and financial liquidity, as discovered by GE, are No-Brainers ..we read them during our MBAs.
Dear Jyo:
Thank you kindly for deferring to me. But sorry. Perhaps I did have a compelling opinion on this issue some twenty or twenty five years ago. But I am a bit out of touch now with how things “really” are on the ground in India regarding academia, intellectual curiosity /creativity / entrepreneurship etc.
As for Naipaul, he may have been right when he wrote the Wounded Civilization. (Remember that Khurana won the Nobel when I was in college!) But now I would take him with a pinch of salt when it comes to his recent pronouncements on things Indian or otherwise. The guy has become an insufferable killjoy – a far cry even from his legendary curmudgeonly days.
Thank you Ruchira.
Dr. Har Gobind Khuarana Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology (1968)..n at that time, I must be entertaining the initial sighs and gasps of a death-bed,
which would have continued for 4-5 yrs (a hint at my previous Janma, if I ahd any)
Mr Naipaul, unobtrusively eloquent Trinidad-born English writer stayed for me as significant as his work “The House of Biswas”.
A quick look at comments on this book at Amazon, indicates euphoric levels of criticism – someone said “he has a jaundiced view of India”, someone compared him with “a coconut, who is brown outside and white inside – an indian who pretends to be an european and is ashamed of his own native culture. naipaul was a coconut par excellence…”
all these seem to have confirmed what I felt about this book. A western educated individual writes about an economy, despite its excessively rotund physique (*population), more than half its children still in the throes of poverty, sheer negligence and Illiteracy, and its unparalleled heritage of being destructed by “merciless and depressing culture of legions – Politicians”, displaying a progressive attitude towards its future.
I prefer to read what the Economist has to say about India, and a few other Intl publications.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/india/
The latest Youth survey done by BW (Business World) & Hansa, says, ….
“The generation that grew up during independence had a different fire in them.it wanted to build India from the scratch into a model country.The 1970s had a cynical, depressed generation tat fled the country in droves since they saw no future here…..the ones who remained idolised an angry Amitabh Bachchan…”
n we all know things did change. for good.
n most friends interact with (who are working outside India), including my sis, COCOUTS. who have western mannerisms, interestingly flaunt their brown skin,salute the National flag, celebrate Indian festivals,stayed conservative (I will marry the girl or the boy, who is chosen by my parents).
The same survey says, Indians (largely YOUTH) are CAPPUCCINOS..white on the surface, but brown below.who seem to have adopted a western way of life,by deep down are fundamentally Indian, contemporising Indian ethos.