India Universe

I still speak enough Tamil to get by, and feel that my roots are indeed in India. I must be only professed "vellackaaren" (=3Dwhite) Tamilian in America. After all, how could anyone, even an English boy, grown up in Tiruvannamalai, in the ashram of Sri Ramana Maharishi, and not acquire a pride in his roots? It is therefore with some misgivings that today I find myself dealing with Indians, many of who do not feel proud of their Indianness. Indian Americans represent the most affluent minority in America, ahead of Jewish Americans and Japanese americans. This is a statistic and not an opinion.

Indians swarm all over the Silicon valley, where they are an integral part of most product development teams: be they teams developing new semiconductor chips, software packages or computers. Indians are recognized throughout America as technically superior. No Indian in America has to explain his educational background, or apologize for his technical training. And yet, as a group, though Indian Americans are quick to acknowledge their caste, religion or family, they lack national pride.

Indians are not proud of their nationality as Indians, something I realized many years ago, Something that puzzled me. Recently, talking before Indian audiences on the lecture circuit, I have frequently talked to Indians of their lack of national pride, with telling results.

Invariably, after making this assertion from the lecture podium, I find myself surrounded by Indians: Engineers, Scientists, doctors, even lawyers, all asserting the correctness of my observations, "You are correct," they will assert. "I am not proud that I am an Indian." Is the reasons India's colonial heritage? Who knows? But whatever the reason,it is a pity. Since the day Indians learn pride, India will rapidly move out of its third world status to become one of the world's industrial powers.

Today I work with an Indian American, trying to help him make his dream come true. And in the process, make my own dream come true, since I have hitched my dream to his. Then, with my dream realized, I will return to India, to preach Indian pride: not pride in being a Hindu, or practicing Islam or being a Parsee, or a Sikh: not pride in being a Tamilian, or a Telugu, or a Punjabi, or a Marwari; not pride in being a Brahmin rather than a lesser caste.

These are all divisive differences that India would be better off without. But I will preach that Indians must learn to be proud of being Indians just as Singapore nationals are proud of their nationality, irrespective of their race or their religion. Then there will be no more shoddy Indian products, since every worker will generate output with the stamp of a proud man on it. With self-evident quality that screams out: "That is the work of an Indian!" And corruption will decline.