Is India Becoming Scam Tech Capital of the World?
In the current lockdown situation due to COVID-19, I happened to watch a lot of YouTube Videos. This, in turn introduced me to Scambaiting — a term used to describe people wasting scammers time. The sheer number of videos on this subject and almost all of the scammers having Indian Accent in the calls got me worried about the future of Outsourcing to India. It will have a long term impact on Indian outsourcing Industry.
It appears as if we Indians are one of the top “scammers” of the world after Nigeria — from Tech Support Scams to IRS and Refund Scams and Fake Predatory Journals. In the eyes of the world, are we not the “origin of the evil?”
Trajectory
In current state of affairs — politics, communalism & superiority complex is running rampant. As an entrepreneur, I have had interacted with people from large number of places within India and abroad. What I see is, on one hand we have this urge to prove ourselves best or beat the best. On other hand, we are one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Try searching for “Indian scammers” on YouTube and you’ll. know what I am talking about.
The Scammer Mentality
In India, we have people in power, who claim about the existence of “ancient internet, aeroplane and surgery”. This is just a reflection of a greater scammer mentality — to take benefits without working hard for it. Did you know that majority of the fake journals and predatory publishers originate from India?
Topping on the Ice
And the topping on the ice is Communalism — or Islamophobia — Christian-phobia. Communalism has grown its root so deep that people start talking about religion for no reason at all. From news anchors like Sudhir and Arnab Goswami — Our biases are so strong that even science is not untouched from the effects.
Somebody recently pointed me to a Facebook Profile of a woman living in Dubai, working apparently in “Justice Department”. Her Facebook profile was riddled with hateful post against Muslims and “their Mecca-Medina”. This shows the dept of the communal problem.
These people seem to be not at all ready to accept the fact that every fourth person you will ever find on earth is going to be a Muslim and every sixth will be a Hindu and likewise. Religion is a personal choice and not a medium to inflate your ego or scam others, quite the contrary.
Scam capital?
The same people with inflated egos and false sense of superiority claiming the existence of ancient internet look like top scammers of the world. I have tried to understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of these kind of people, I have tried to think from their perspective and I fail to understand their point of view.
If and only if these people could accept a simple fact about religion and nationalism — that they are tools of betterment and tools are to be handled with care. If they could work on fixing the the world’s problem: joblessness, hunger etc.
In India, more people die from hunger on a regular basis than COVID-19 has ever killed. Can we work on that? Or would we continue to be the “scammers of the world” and continue scamming ourselves and our future generations with false glory?
