Are Indians Genetically Inferior?

I remember my first meeting with Prof. VN Shrikhande at the Bombay Hospital when I had joined as a visiting research fellow in 1992. The first topic we discussed in the Surgeon’s room was “Are Indians genetically inferior?” and “Why no Indian working in India has ever been awarded a Nobel prize ?”. Well, his theories were wonderful & ICMR should give him an oration on this topic? But it is a fact that India is the only country where cows stroll across runways & bullock carts cross National Highways with impunity☺
Once we understand why we have been backward, and why we still are backward, we should be on the way to success. In many areas of space technology, defence systems, nuclear engineering, telecommunications and the like, we are admittedly at the cutting edge of technology. At the same time, it is proper for us to enquire why we built temple halls with a thousand pillars a millennium after others had mastered the design of the arch. Or, consider why we built the great sundial in Jantar Mantar long after telescopes had become commonplace, and why even today we remain the only manufacturers of vintage cars. When Alexander bore down on us with his swift horses, we stood stuck in the mire with elephants. We learnt no lessons from our defeat at his hands. 1700 years later, we lost again to Babar because, in all those intervening centuries, we had remained loyal to elephants and further had nothing better than muskets to counter Babar's cannons. Even in 1962, the Chinese humiliated us because they had modern arms and we had none. Why do we stick to obsolete technology all the
time?

Let me illustrate the issue with a couple of stories. The first concerns a dhabha where, as is to be expected, the food was delightful. A guest after enjoying the meal, washed his hands and asked for a towel to dry them. The towel that was proffered was so filthy that he was driven to protest. The dhabha owner was perplexed. He replied "Saab! Hazaron log use kiye hain; abhi tak koi complaint kiye nai!". The second concerns a seller of gud in a mandi in Rajasthan. Noticing that the whole mound of gud was covered with flies, a young police officer asked the shopkeeper to do something about it. The shopkeeper was unperturbed. He said: "Wo kitna kha sakta hai, saab!" (How much can they eat, sir!) .
These anecdotes tell us a great deal about our culture. One, as in the case of the dirty towel, we are content with the barest minimum utility and have no concern for quality. Two, as in the case of flies, we measure what is irrelevant. We are backward in technology not because we do not have the materials, not because we do not have the talent, not because we do not have the money, not even because we cannot get the technology. We are backward because, as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel has postulated, our culture makes us think poor.

Technology innovation is like a baby. As you know, a baby is defined as an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other! Likewise, technology innovation is a conduit for digesting natural resources - with environmental disturbance at one end and science at the other. Further, in the Indian tradition of caste, imparting knowledge to the undeserved is prohibited. So, textbooks are not written with the fear they may fall into wrong hands. Unfortunately, we were also taught that innovation requires intuition that comes out of a form of Immaculate Conception. That needs a miracle. Unfortunately, in the strict sense, technology permits no miracles. Instead, as Kuhn points out, revolution is actually the culmination of continuous evolution - it is always one last straw that breaks the camel's back. In our culture, in theory, we may question but as we do not experiment, we have no logical way of doing so. That is why we still manufacture cars exactly the way they were designed nearly half a century ago. In this respect, Indian intellectual culture is similar to that of ancient Greeks. They too felt that the best way to develop new ideas is to sit under a tree and think and think and think until realisation comes like a bolt of lightening.

There is the story of Aristotle decreeing that women had less number of teeth than men. Such was Aristotle's reputation in the Western world that, for centuries, people did indeed believe that women had fewer teeth. They could have easily verified whether that was true or false by asking their wives to open their mouth. They did not because in those days they too did not believe in experiments. Eventually, they started experimentation, and progressed. We do not do so as yet. So, we remain stuck. Not many people are aware that the first rockets ever used in war were of Indian origin. Almost exactly two hundred years ago, Tipu Sultan stuck terror among British troops with his rockets. Unfortunately, his rockets were so primitive and so uncontrollable that they devastated Tipu's own troops as often as they hurt the enemy. So, Tipu Sultan abandoned his rockets instead of trying to improve them. (As a matter of curiosity, the only sample of Tipu's missiles is not in India, but in the British War Museum.) The moral of the story is, generating ideas is not the same as converting ideas into usable products. The latter needs patience, time, determination and above all empathy.

Many of us have been fascinated by the extraordinary progress of East Asian countries. As Lawrence Summers has explained, the East Asian success is attributable less to technology innovation and more to higher application of capital. East Asian countries operate with technologies that are available for sale, not with innovations of their own. However, a large country like India cannot become rich by selling TV sets and notebook computers based on somebody else's design. Then, what can we, who missed the bus of post-war expansion, do? The story of drug industry indicates the way out. Drug prices often fall to less than a tenth the moment their patents expire. That is an indication of the power of technology innovation. Monopolies are always profitable. However, in that respect no commercial monopoly can hold a candle to technology monopoly. That is, what India needs most is technology of her own. India can become rich not by exploiting labour, not by borrowing capital but only through technical innovation.

As it has been said, it is better to be approximately right than to be precisely wrong. Let me give one example. It is said that Howard Hughes the self-made billionaire of yester years approached a banker for a loan to build an aeroplane. According to the story, the banker refused to lend him the precisely calculated amount the gawky youngster wanted. He insisted on lending him a lot more because a new venture is always uncertain, and there will always be unexpected demands. Compare that banker's wisdom with the way our bureaucrats and the government lending agencies operate. Our administrators pare down financial support to the barest minimum in the expectation the returns will then become maximum. As we know, more often than not, our bankers and our government lose everything. In contrast, Hughes's banker not only saved all his investment, he made millions for himself and for Hughes too. Once again, precise answers are wrong, approximate ones are right! Our country will march forward in technology only when our managers stop insisting on assured returns, and prepare to gamble to lose all --- or win the jackpot!

Then, there is the even more startling case of the Xerox Corporation offering to sell to IBM the patents of the Xerox copier. In turn, IBM turned to Arthur D.Little, the famed management consultants, for advice. Those management experts calculated that even if the Xerox copier took away 100 percent of the existing market for carbon paper and for dittographs, it will not be financially viable. So, IBM turned down the offer. Against such advice, Xerox persisted. The rest is history. The flaw in the management approach of Arthur D. Little was, there is no way of conducting market research on a product that does not exist, a flaw nobody in India appreciates. As Schumpeter pointed out over eighty years ago, "innovations do not as a rule take place in such a way that first new wants arise spontaneously in consumers ... It is the producer who as a rule initiates economic change, and consumers ... are taught as it were to want new things.
It would be nice if our managers, whether in the government or in industry, ask of themselves every day, and day after day, "Am I using this technology because it is good, or is it because I am used to it?" As Robert Frost has written: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.

In one of the most evocative passages in our Upanishads we are given the advice:
Shraddhaya deyam, ashraddhaya adeyam. Hriya deyam, bhiya deyam, sriya deyam, samvida deyam. (Give with reverence; do not give disrespectfully. Give with humility, give with a sense of awe, give generously,give affectionately.)

We are not good at giving. That is why we ourselves get so little. Authority is exercised both when you say "Yes!" and when you say "No!" I can assure you, it is more joyful to exercise authority by saying "Yes!" than by saying "No"