Surviorship bias and meritocracy in India
I am sure our patriots can read out a list of Indian origin CEOs of major corporations across the world. And use that to promote meritocracy and lambast reservations.
I personally am for meritocracy in principle. Obviously the most qualified individual should get the seat in college or job in the company. Especially in a hyper competitive society such as India. But there is a caveat to this. With regard to college admissions the vast majority of colleges require an acceptable grade (this is subjective) in school boards and entrance exams. The vast majority of these exams are a crammer's delight. I personally was bored to death in high school as I absolutely started to hate a subject that I loved- physics. The information overload was unbearable, and most students walked around like zombies. They couldn't get a chance to enjoy the subject but had to cram and solve problems from door stopper sized "guides". I find it incredibly amusing that they were termed guides as they were anything but. If I had the equivalent of this "guide" trekking through the desert or an alpine mountain, I would be dead in a matter of days.
These guides were in reality a tsunami of confusion due to information overload. And once somehow, they got through this, they had other entrance exams to look forward to. And then they would get into a college where much of the time was spent whiling around until the final exam.
What is required for clearing a lot of these exams is not so much smarts but time and money- to buy the guides, tuitions and so on. This type of system undermines the idea of meritocracy. Say what you want about the SATs these are accessible to every high school student in America as is the subject matter- 10th grade level mathematics and reading comprehension at a high school level. The point of SAT obviously is not solve partial differential equations but to assess strictly the analytical ability and capacity to digest a large of amount of information in a limited amount of time- thereby simulating the American academic semester.
A really cringe article in The Quint had the title "Why Indian CEOs are awesome". Let us leave aside the fact that this was written by two adult men, whose profession is writing, in their 30s use the lingo of teenagers without any sense of embarrassment whatsoever. They claimed that life in India is so strenuous and hyper competitive due to the heaving population and the attendant pressures, stresses, pollution, filth and societal and psychological abuse that those who make it are the cream of the crop.
Forgotten in this vile calculus are the 10s of millions of those who DIDNT make it. But succumbed to a life of mediocrity and despair because the stresses of an indifferent, hyper materialistic society which pretends to be spiritual had broken them. These two cretins far from taking India to task for utterly failing its citizens by not providing them with what is required to live up to their potential, actually gloated over the shortcomings as if they are some sort of bootcamp where only the strongest survive. This is the sick vile mentality that one sees with too many heavy breathing patriots, most of whom live abroad or live in gated communities far from the "riff raff".
Let us leave aside the blatant favouritism in schools and colleges whether on basis of caste, religion, gender or other factors. In my schoolteachers favored students of the opposite sex. Sometimes in a very weird creepy way. Yes that applies to female teachers as well. The golden boy in school was similar to the golden child dynamics in dysfunctional families. And where there is a golden child there is a scapegoat and teachers like dysfunctional parent's heap abuse and scorn on them nonstop. Sometimes the scapegoat is an entire class. I myself have witnessed a teacher praise her beloved student in these terms "sometimes a lotus is found only in the marshes and mud", wow thanks for that boost of self-esteem. Appreciated. Having been both a golden child and scapegoat in different eras of my school days, I am all too familiar with the dynamic. I was also the unfortunate object of non-pedagogic attention of one or two female teachers in my teen years. Put aside the Naughty America/Brazzers imagery please, it is nowhere as sexy as you imagine it to be. It led nowhere because it was just icky.
Well, that is the "meritocracy" that everyone talks about. It is odd that the same people who claim India is meritocratic, also as mentioned sneer over those who couldn't overcome the start Darwinian struggle to get ahead in India. Granted, it is nowhere as bad as it was before the 1990s but thanks to feudal lord Modi who wants serfs rather than citizens, it seems Zomato and Uber delivery driver is far as meritocracy gets you these days.
Hi YSV, do you wlecome the proposal by CBSE to opt for open book exams or at least try out the option for now?
ReplyDeleteYSV, I hope you don't mind a little feedback from your long time reader. Would you consider making more blogs on Indian history? Your politics and contemporary culture posts are great, but you have so much insight and unconventional thinking to offer about our history.
ReplyDeletehi Prem Chand. sorry for my dissapearance. There was a death in the family and also got locked out of my account somehow. Only recently bothered to get it fixed.
Deleteoften on matters of the blog i am reactive than active. if there is any particular query or queries rather. I will select which i know about the most and expand on that.
@YSV
DeleteDo you think "Indian hate" as it's now being called is a real thing? Is it just an American problem?
This was one of my many aborted blog posts lol.
DeleteI will expound more on this when I complete it this week. As it is rather complicated with many factors
However for now i will say this
Bigots are bigots I am not making any excuses for them. But let us put some things in perspective. Indians are very visible online. Which is understandable given their population, the ubiquity of smart phones and availability of affordable ISP.
but we were not ready for prime time. bobs and vagene type characters aside, there are many Indians who are shrill, hostile, defensive and combative and engaged in casual racism about whites being barbaric , imperialist etc even before this anti Indian sentiment gained traction. A lot of this stuff is just push back
some of it is certainly pushed by bad actors- Pakistani and Chinese intelligence as well as independent actors. Many Pakistanis often maquerade as whites and Israelis and use that front to abuse Indians but they are usually rather stupid and get caught when they go out of their way to defend or praise Pakistan!
the rape of tourists in India and overwhelming number of Indians in Canada didnt really warm westerners to India either.
Then there is the odd tendency of Hollywood to promote the most offputting and irritating Indian people out there- Mindy Kaling, Lilly Singh, Hari Kandabolu, Aziz Ansari among others
And October 7th gave this tendency a very vile and malevolent impetus. Indian supporters of Israel of which there is no shortage basically bore the brunt of anti semitism and anti Zionism and this translated into anti Indian/anti Hindu sentiment. The amount of hatred and viciousness I encountered online in various platforms against Indians for standing in support of Israel is indescribale- its a bottomless pit. I understood for the first time what anti semitism really is- it has no rational basis at all.
It is not really an American problem per se, they just tend to be more open about it. The average American has no problem with Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy (though he didnt ingratiate himself with recent comments), Kash Patel etc. What they dont like is people who are condescending and who act superior, Indians often fall in this category
here is a rather funny compilation of scenes from David Mamets Glenn Garry GlenRoss from 1991 with scammy salesmen expressing frustration with Indian clients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdr_GiWXRws&ab_channel=Movic06
also Indian scammers targetting senior citizens and milking them off their life saving really enraged Americans. If the indian government would have taken swift action and shut them down, it wouldnt have contributed to the anti India sentiment already lingering.
DeleteBut it would appear that these scammers seem to have the blessing of the Indian government and most people taking them down are American white hat hackers on youtube.