Are Indians really dumb?

Are Indians really dumb?

So we now have two Indias.

One has a severe inferiority complex and is unwilling to do anything creative because it thinks it is incapable of it. It thinks being called the back office of the world is the ultimate compliment, missing the implied insult in the word back. It thinks its ultimate destiny is to do all the slog work of the world.

The other is confident about its capability, dreams big dreams, then goes ahead and translates the dreams into reality. There are innumerable success stories like ISRO and Tata Steel in India today, in manufacturing, electronic hardware, pharmaceuticals, software, fashion design, or any area that you can think of. The problem is that these are not highlighted. Creative individuals and organisations who are developing products or technologies with a lasting impact are unsung heroes.

Every Indian child's history textbook says something to this effect: 'During the British Raj we exported cheap raw material to Britain, then imported the finished products at a much higher price. We were paying for the value addition done in Britain, and the Raj prevented us from doing the value addition here. We were being exploited by the British.' The IT industry is considered to be India's biggest success story, but in reality 99% of it involves the export of cheap (human) raw material and the import of expensive finished products.

India's education system, like others in Asia, emphasizes rote learning and blind regurgitation of text material/teachers' thoughts. It is designed to snuff out creativity. There is chest-thumping lamentionations by industry leaders that high school/college graduates are unemployable without costly in-house training - but no larger attempt to redesign curriculum for 21st century knowledge work, emphasizing creativity. The school system is stuck churning students out with a 18th/19th century mindset, perfect for mindless widget-asembly or bureaucratic paper-shuffling.

A similar complaint to what John Taylor Gatto makes about American schools -