Indian patriots and the Cargo Cult mentality

 

From :

https://business-digest.eu/are-you-guilty-of-cargo-cult-thinking-without-even-knowing-it/?lang=en

"In the first half of the 20th century, the indigenous population of Melanesia looked on as cargo planes landed on their islands weighed down with incredible payloads. Even though the islanders had no idea how these goods were manufactured in the West, they began imitating these artifacts. They made radios from wood, airplanes from straw, and landing strips out of sand — but without getting the same effects. Hence the metaphor of the “cargo cult.” Yet we should refrain from being condescending toward the Melanesians: when we set up agile processes, when we think that Lean Startup and Scrum are methods that will help us do things faster and more cheaply, we’re hardly any better."

Even developed western nations are not immune to the cargo cult syndrome- that if you superficially apply the processes of a successful organization or country to yourself , you will achieve the same success. A couple of months I was watching a documentary on YouTube about the pound sterling collapse in the early 90s. The first domino to fall was the high interest rate decided by the Bank of England because they believed since Germany(West Germany at the time) was prosperous and successful due to its high interest rates. I howled in laughter at this childish thinking. I was utterly amazed that all these people with fancy degrees with Cambridge, Oxford, LSE could have such a reductionist mindset to the economy. But that is the fallacy of expertise. Just as those with advanced degrees in theoretical physics from say MIT are unable to tie their own shoes without support, similarly one dimensional are unable to process any outside information.

This brings me to our patriots-specifically their mania for statues. A couple of years back I saw some comical emails that Raj Rathee (I watch Abhijit Iyer Mitra too ,so please relax patriots)  read out on his program. The topic at hand was a statue of Shivaji which already had considerable delays and cost over runs. The person in favor of the statue pointed out that since the Statue of Liberty was built , America had become a super power therefore it was a Shivaji statue of similar magnitude would lead to a similar fate for India.

I ask you , how this is thought process any different from that of the Melanesian islanders who thought they were making functional electronic items out of straw and wood assuming . 

The more we delve into contemporary human psychology we realize that most people despite their familiarity and usage of technology are not really "modern" at all.  When water taps would run out in many parts of India about 70 years ago, people would start praying to the taps hoping the water would return.

Meanwhile the current government buys weapons in the assumption that it would become a military superpower....