The art and science of development

The Times of India carries a piece which devotes half the space to what is called ‘Times View’ and the remaining half to ‘Counter View’. Today’s piece caught my attention as it was based on a subject that is close to my heart. The topic was Indians not doing too well compared to the Chinese in certain math competitions – Should we worry about it? I agreed with the Times view, though badly articulated that proficiency in mathematics is not a guarantee for success as a nation. It was the counter view that heckled me. It carried a short sighted conclusion that since we lack roads and bridges (read infrastructure and amenities) we need to churn out more people who are good at numbers (read scientists and engineers). This worshipping of mental number crunching abilities and its like have been the bane of our education system. As schoolchildren we were made to gape in awe at the skills of Shakuntala Devi, nicknamed the ‘human computer’. That was a time when computers were rare in India and we fantasized about what they could achieve. In the mid 1990s, the situation changed, computers were household items and we realized that their best use was video games and pornography, not mathematics. So we lost our gape in awe of Shakuntala Devi. We didn’t need a human computer when we had the real thing. I don’t mean disrespect for Shakuntala Devi (she extracted the 23^rd root of a 201 digit number mentally), but I can see little utility in such skills beyond making a kid’s mouth open to deliver medicine. Such child prodigies are poster boys of raw brain power and only good for telling the world that we have it in us too.

The opinion writer in Times of India was only reflecting the popular sentiment that rules in India. Engineering, medicine and commerce are useful education, scientific pursuits are not ideal but may be tolerated and humanities are for people not interesting in getting a job. As a teenager, I myself subscribed to such views and my only interest in humanities used to be the large no. of girls studying philosophy and literature. Society is partly to blame for the job oriented nature of education. India has mostly been a job deficient economy and education that could guarantee employment was naturally preferred (and forced).

The writer also makes an uninformed judgment that westerners ‘flocking to humanities’ has resulted in engineering jobs being difficult to fill in these countries. This is a superficial analysis of the situation. For starters, while the west has produced most of the innovators of the industrial world, entrepreneurs who have taken a business idea forward, great architects and scientists, it has never been a factory for mass production of engineers. What it has laid emphasis on is letting the child realize where his real skills lie, and giving him the patience and room to nurture it. Secondly, the demographic profile of these countries has much to do with the shortage. Some countries even have negative population growth, coupled with lower cost skills coming from the developing world. Businesses run on economic realities, not nationalistic feelings. If cheaper skills are available from outside the country, they will be taken. Lastly, unlike India, west does not follow a 2+2=4 kind of formula for success in life. It believes in a system of education where skills are considered complementary rather than exclusive. Today a Facebook or an Amazon command market valuations that would be the envy of some of the biggest corporate houses in India. They did not need a hundred Einsteins for it. They used a single technology innovation called the internet. If a country can create a few such innovations it can spawn a multitude of industries around it which may not require run of the mill skill sets in large numbers.

Australia and New Zealand are not countries of engineers and doctors. They thrive on tourism, an industry that doesn’t need number crunching prodigies. India too has vast potential in tourism but a child aspiring for a career in this industry would probably get a lecture on virtues of being a chartered accountant. Moreover, as the example of India shows, having engineers by qualification is different from having engineers by profession. A large no. of engineers in India go on to complete their business studies and take up jobs that have nothing to do with engineering. In contrast you can find a large no. of lawyers and economists heading multinational companies in the west and probably encouraging more innovation than our engineer turned management consultants do. I am a strong believer that the market will decide when it is time to junk certain disciplines. Till that time if someone believes his career lies in researching the intricacies of 17^th century literature, so be it. Moreover what would be a country without its sociologists, its intellectuals, its artists, its writers? Something like a cold war Eastern Europe, efficiently producing guns and tanks and losing some of its best innovators to the US.

As for India, creation of basic infrastructure facilities does not require a battalion of engineers. It requires political will, financing, speedier processes and elimination of corruption. I cannot recall a single project in India which has been held up because unavailability of talent. Even if skills are not available, they can always be imported. What cannot be imported is a scientific temper, or a social mindset that encourages risk taking ability, or a business environment that does not create barriers to entry for small and politically unconnected entrepreneurs. Once we have created this in India, development will follow.