Smart Indians, dumb Americans; Smart America, Dumb India

There is a widespread belief in India, cutting across language, class and caste, that man – to – man India is better than the US.

Everybody knows a “mediocre” person who would have been jobless and gone hungry had he stayed in India, but is now living in a 4-bedroom, 3-garage suburban house in the US and is driving a Toyota. Everybody, even those who have never visited the US, knows about the Americans at the check-out counters who can’t subtract 5 dollars from 20 dollars without the help of a calculator. We, of course, do differential calculus mentally.

Our conceit and arrogance misses a very important point. The American system has been designed in such a way that every single person is a part of the economic engine. It is well known that the power of a network increases� in proportion to the square of the nodes in the network. No wonder then that the American economy is so much more powerful.

The Indian economy, on the other hand, is driven by a few chosen people who have come through an endless process of filtering. There is no place for the academically challenged. The network has lesser number of nodes. It also has an unintended consequence. We don’t know how to collaborate.

Each successful Indian professional has been trained to come “first”. We award ranks from early stages of school. We compete bitterly in school and then compete ferociously to get into college and continue to compete savagely in college. Inevitably, we compete at work instead of collaborating. We believe that we could have done any job better. And the power of the economic network suffers.

Indians may be smart; America is smarter.