Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan at CII Young India Summit-2: transcript

youtube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uxzs9xscBCA

The real issue is not “Abroad”, (I am sure swamiji must have told you that in the first session in his Vedanta lecture) but, ultimately we must look into inward. If you want to conquer the world we must first set your house in order.

What is our Unique Selling Proposition? What is the single biggest factor that changes the perceptions and reshaped India’s image in the eyes of the rest of the world?

That is the educated Man-Power, people like Prof. Khanna, they went and conquered, they proved to the world that they are in no way secondary to anybody in the world. Infact, we claim that we have world’s second or third largest technical man-power pool.

But, let’s be truthful and realistic. We have the potential to have the world’s second or third largest technical man-power pool. In reality, we are grossly under-performing. Our higher education is in a mess, let alone literacy. But our higher education is in a state of collapse. A few world class management institutes and IITs do not constitute a world class infrastructure for entire country and its future if you really want to play a global role.

There is no conception of education. I am not in bother of trivia like IIM fee and things like that. I am looking at the university system.

It’s a disgrace.

We take some of the brightest youngsters and convert them into monkeys in a few years time.

And there are a few of non-monetary inputs (you don’t have to think of some hi-tech rocket science), simple non-monetary inputs. As I understand, no Harvard scholar can go back to Harvard and be a teacher immediately after his masters or his doctorate. MIT or Stanford and many others don’t allow this incestuous academic activity. They want cross-fertilization of ideas. But simply to adopt this practice does not require money. It doesn’t really require genius, it requires common sense.

I remember seeing a New Zealand university advertising for its president globally. A small, tiny country of 3 million people asking for a university president across the world.

I remember a professor in biological sciences telling me sometime back in of these Indian universities; that he was in a small little country called Eritrea (many of you might even not remember where that wretched place is). I said “how is it there?” He said “there is no comparison”. I said “is it so bad?” “No it is so wonderful compared to Indian universities”.

Eritrea Damn it?!

The second example of educational …… for instance, the system of electives was started in Harvard some 130 years ago by Charles Elliot. Even today when you go to undergraduate, postgraduate schools in this country, I am sure many of you all have gone, you have this pre-fabricated set of academic curricula: CBZ, Bi-PC and some of the nonsensical combination without a perception of anything that matters, without adding value and making new decision makers and without making new wealth creators in the true sense of the term.

Or take the examinations, all that matters is

• ignore the last years question paper,
  
• mug-up 3 preceding years question papers and their answers

and you are sure to get 75% grade, and you consider yourself masters in so and so subject.

We have to significantly alter the nature of education because that is our unique-selling-proposition and future is going to be shaped by education.

And ofcourse healthcare; the regional inequality; take the state of bihar, its per-capita-income is already under 1/4^th of India’s richest state among major states and that is Maharashtra. And this ratio is going to be 10:1 in next 8-10 years at current rate. We cannot afford that.

Population: happily some states are showing the way through a few strategic initiatives, notably the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in recent times. We can do it, but we have to do it across the country.

But finally, can a modern economy co-exist with medieval polity?

Some 25 years ago, in an American journal was talking about American medicine came out with a wonderful expression “doing better and feeling worse, is this an apt description of American medicine?”

Well that may or may not be, but I think that’s an apt description of what Indian is doing today. We are certainly doing better but we also are feeling worse in many respects. We don’t deserve to, we don’t need to.

We can make a difference only if there is a significant political reform because economic reform is absolutely necessary but not sufficient.

Corruption has come down in some areas like telecommunication, railways and many other sectors. The range of goods has expanded, the choices are greater, and the prices are stable. We are happy.

But, corruption has shifted to more dangerous areas; take the telgi’s stamp paper scam, take Sachindra Dubey’s murder in Gaya, take the leak of question papers by Sanjeev Kumar (I don’t know if you have read in newspapers, that fellow’s annual income was 100 crores; from examination leaks alone. And his dream was to become next MP, and he would surely been next minister, why only an MP?), ofcourse the take the case of arrest warrants issued against the president of India and chief justice of India for 40,000 rupees.

This issue is not about corruption, the issue is about

shifting corruption from economic areas of decision making to sovereign spheres of decision making,

from where the state cannot be rolled back.

That can and must be addressed, but only through significant political and governance reforms. If we really care for economic growth, if we want to be global champions, if we want to be among six global powers that Kissinger predicted, then we have to set our house in order. And one of the most ingredients is going to be the way that our polity is shaped.

We must make sure that our integrity and survival in public office are compatible.

Some 15 years ago in the then soviet union, similar conditions prevailed. There was a very popular story in those days; I believe in Moscow ration shop, some 200 people queued up to get few crumbs of bread. They waited and waited, and waited for hours; A super power, No Bread; A young man lost his temper and ultimately he walked out and stormed out protested “I will go and kill the secretary general”. The others waited; still there was no bread in sight. He came back after 3 hours; they all gathered around him asked him “what happened, have you killed the general secretary?” He said “I went there to kill the general secretary, but there was a much longer queue waiting there” They simply waited; they didn’t do what was necessary in time. They hoped somebody somewhere would take care of their problems. The day of reckoning came in 1991 the nation (you know what happened) became fifteen fragments. Soviet Union is a pale imitation of its past. Russia is now floundering, it will come back surely, but there is lots of needless suffering.

We will make a substantial impact on the world in next 50 years. This century could well be India’s along with china’s but only if we now act decisively with clarity and conviction.