The great Indian export market

India exports a lot of things. As an economy we primarily do a lot of non value exports to multiple countries, no matter how much our new age companies say otherwise. From iron ore, agricultural produce etc. to IT services, knowledge services etc. we manage to earn some money on side using the entire spectrum of the trade- a must do in this modern economy. Just to clarify, the previous line is laced with sarcasm before I am labelled in the school of thought that I am writing against.

So is trade bad? No. But when it is done using arbitrage and other short term myopic competitive advantages and hope that at some point in time we will move the so called value chain is silly. Economics does not work like that unless somebody fixes how the economy should work. There has to be value in what we provide and we should from Day 1 ensure that we are constantly rethinking about moving away from the hallowed 1:60 odd ratio(the dollar value). However I am not writing about the Indian exports because it is in my opinion not as big an issue as I am writing about. But you generally get the drift.

I am proposing something bigger, far more controversial. The govt. should stop subsidizing the export houses- IITs, IIMs, NITs etc., because the output is mainly economic and we need more than that. They are not of strategic importance to the nation, at least not as a whole, maybe in parts. The financial lens to view them might prove that they are adding value, but in multiple fronts they are far far away. Maybe people would say research and consulting, but I would say it is side business for these institutions and the flagship is what I am questioning here. Hence I am calling upon policy makers to either increase the fees or shut them down once and for all.

Educators or Fiscal funding agencies

I think the entire root of the problem is we think of these elite education institutes as institutions which shape our leaders in the engineering & management space, but are they that? What we are creating is an assembly line production of the best minds who choose to heed to the herd mentality and sign up for these courses ready to be shipped to places of demand. This demand then gives them enough financial incentives for them to do some remittances again in dollar for us to invest in building the nation. Is that what we want from these bright minds? Since when is the goal of such institutions as part of the government only economic gains? Education should be more than this. If this is what we want there are better ways of coaching these people than put them through struggles of competitive menace of the likes of CAT, JEE etc. which in themselves are quite meaningless in terms of measuring engineering aptitude or management pedigree. We need our best engineers and managers to give their best here and unfortunately we have opened our gates only one way and just have a bank account number which will be their window to them being Indian.

The fallacy of free markets

It is unfair to blame our graduates who have gone through financial and mental turmoil to enroll and graduate from these places. It is only fair that they move in search of green pastures and that is our move backwards to being nomadic now called being a global citizen.

Few reasons why they move include the shift away from developing to developed, better quality of life, better work culture, customer neighborhood, greater etc. In a nutshell the move is in search of the ‘better’.

So do we blame these folks for moving? No. Do we call them unpatriotic? No. Because we never give them a chance to express their patriotism or hone the patriotic feelings. It is limited to cricket and school assemblies. I quote patriotism here because it is seen as a choice made from free will and hence a granular free market feature. Do we even instill the pride of being Indian among our students? The West has been a champion in the recent past in engineering, science, technology and many other modern spaces. We do not have it, accept it, but concentrate on the good things we have and let us consciously fix the gaps. In fact, we are not so bad after all, we do have ISRO and the likes who have done chest thumping things being Indian.

We need to create opportunities and give direction to our people and not follow the consumption driven economies like the US. And stop talk about the US and the West as cult heroes. They have done a lot of things wrong and in the whole scheme of things it is neither good nor bad. Let us focus on our housekeeping and let them clean their mess.

Our graduates have the power to choose and it is absolutely alright. But as a nation we need to think about collective good rather than individual good.

The wrong metrics or goals

See, success is in terms of how one views it. If you choose material prosperity as the only metric then India is not amongst the leading players there. However we have been the thought leader in sustainability in past and we have a lifestyle like that, but we want to ignore that expertise. We need to focus on the definition of success and that of good life and hence the metrics to measure these. Stop painting nations as developed and developing- it is nothing but the class definition at a greater level, which is making the immigration problem so big.

Our education and shaping of our people should be on these lines as well. Right from calling a school an international school to equating the West as definition of individual freedom we have sold ourselves short.

Thought leaders

There is never going to be a chance to catch up with the early leaders of the modern economy. Given the crossroads the world is in w.r.t economy, socially etc. we should focus on shaping the new economy rather than play to the tune of more of the same.

We need thought leaders but we are pushing them away using their ‘in search of better for them and their family’ to pocket the money they send back home.

Until such time we should stop admitting folks to these educational institutions to prevent this labor migration and first give them a reason for them to exist in the nation building act.

P.S: I am a product of being in these educational institutes and have gained significantly. I am also part of the global economy too

P.P.S: I personally have no idea how to contribute to nation building and I am assuming some thoughts are no substitutes to action