We Hindus may believe in an infinity of lifetimes, but we maximize our welfare in this one, just like everyone else.
-- Jagdish Bhagwati: The Brain Drain Panic Returns.
The article is more about the perceived problem of brain drain from Africa, but this quote is from a paragraph on what our academic parents and grand parents endured in India:
In India in the 1950’s and 1960’s – a time when many professionals were emigrating – working conditions were deplorable. Bureaucrats decided whether we could go abroad for conferences. Heads of departments carried inordinate power. So, no surprise, many of us left. We Hindus may believe in an infinity of lifetimes, but we maximize our welfare in this one, just like everyone else.
Jagdish is wrong. This tyrannical attitude continued well into the 70s all the way today. And rather than blame bureaucrats we must blame that other destructive species, the "intellectual". Let's not forget how Amartya Sen cancelled Subramaniam Swamy's appointment at DSE and then levered him out of IIT-Delhi simply because he could not tolerate any alternative to the then prevalent Marxist consensus.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not the presence of intellectuals. The problem concentration of power in their hands.
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting discussion in
ReplyDeletehttp://aidwatchers.com/2010/10/when-the-brain-drain-is-healthy-for-democracy/
I have no idea how "we Hindus", especially the "we", entered a discussion on brain drain, even if most emigrants are Hindus.
ReplyDeleteI thought bureaucrats in Delhi still decided which airline you academics can fly on?! -- or is that no longer the case?
ReplyDeletePeace!