In my previous post I posted an anonymous article circulating in the NRI email circuit which purports to make a study of the success of Indians abroad and makes some sweeping conclusions.
The conclusions are sweeping, but not very useful.
One of the proclaimed conclusions is that:
"Indians have succeeded in countries ruled by whites, but failed in their own."
But it does not state how this success of Indians is measured and what is the definition of success.
What should an Indian do, earn or accomplish abroad to be called successful or what is the threshold of success is nowhere mentioned in that article.
That article also commits the error of scale and proportionality, in the sense that it is comparing the success of Indians in India who now number roughly 1.25 billions with a few millions (roughly 25 Million) as per this source, of Indians abroad.
This is not a fair comparison for reasons that I shall outline shortly.
Through one cannot say this for sure, it looks like the qualification for success of Indians is celebrity status since more than 80% of the article is about mentioning famous Indians in USA and UK. Apparently the article has named almost all celebrity Indians abroad, which are not more than a handful.
So these handful of celebrities are all that this article could muster out of 25 million NRI's!!!.
Also it is not surprising that the article was only able to quote Indian success stories from USA and UK. What happened to all 'Successful Indians' in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.?
This is not to deny that Indians are successful in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but one just feels a little sorry for the want of poster-boys in these countries that the article could have trumpeted.
Surely there are more celebrity Indians in India than abroad, but that does not make for a good story which that article was trying to spin.
Government and governance are terrible in India and this is well known, but the way that article tries to draw attention to that is fallacious and misplaced.
The central point missed by that article on Indian abroad was that if Indians do not succeed by going and living abroad, what was the whole point of Indians settling overseas?!!!
Also do Indians alone succeed by going and settling abroad? Don't other nationals have a same or better record of success than Indians?
These are the questions that the misguided authors of that article should pause to ponder and reflect, which I return shortly to do a fact-checking and further analysis of that article
The conclusions are sweeping, but not very useful.
One of the proclaimed conclusions is that:
"Indians have succeeded in countries ruled by whites, but failed in their own."
But it does not state how this success of Indians is measured and what is the definition of success.
What should an Indian do, earn or accomplish abroad to be called successful or what is the threshold of success is nowhere mentioned in that article.
That article also commits the error of scale and proportionality, in the sense that it is comparing the success of Indians in India who now number roughly 1.25 billions with a few millions (roughly 25 Million) as per this source, of Indians abroad.
This is not a fair comparison for reasons that I shall outline shortly.
Through one cannot say this for sure, it looks like the qualification for success of Indians is celebrity status since more than 80% of the article is about mentioning famous Indians in USA and UK. Apparently the article has named almost all celebrity Indians abroad, which are not more than a handful.
So these handful of celebrities are all that this article could muster out of 25 million NRI's!!!.
Also it is not surprising that the article was only able to quote Indian success stories from USA and UK. What happened to all 'Successful Indians' in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.?
This is not to deny that Indians are successful in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but one just feels a little sorry for the want of poster-boys in these countries that the article could have trumpeted.
Surely there are more celebrity Indians in India than abroad, but that does not make for a good story which that article was trying to spin.
Government and governance are terrible in India and this is well known, but the way that article tries to draw attention to that is fallacious and misplaced.
The central point missed by that article on Indian abroad was that if Indians do not succeed by going and living abroad, what was the whole point of Indians settling overseas?!!!
Also do Indians alone succeed by going and settling abroad? Don't other nationals have a same or better record of success than Indians?
These are the questions that the misguided authors of that article should pause to ponder and reflect, which I return shortly to do a fact-checking and further analysis of that article
A favorite self-congratulatory myth among NRIs, especially students, is that their migration somehow constitutes a 'brain-drain'. It is at worst a 'train-drain' because what is being lost by India is (purportedly)'trained personnel' who are not always the smartest or more resourceful as talks like this earlier one on the Honeybee Network and this recent one by Mr. Arunachalam Muruganandam abundantly demonstrate.
ReplyDelete'Resident Indian' success stories like Mr. Elattuvalapil Sreedharan's are in many ways more impressive than a typical NRI story, considering the odds against which his accomplishments were pulled off. As is typical of obsessive compulsive forwarders and resharers, our Mera Bharat Mahan types as triumphantly forward stories like E Sreedharan's sometimes a minute after forwarding the NRI myth, with no sense of irony.