I was reading an article in The New York Times on how nepotism is big in India. There is no question that that is the case, be it in the business world or elsewhere. In a country where little separates management and ownership, frat-boys (read offspring of owners) are often groomed to run corporations when shareholders wouldn’t want them to be associated with deploying and managing their capital. We live in a country that promotes and protects legacy and questioning the “obvious” almost always attracts wrath of those who are beneficiaries of the system that ensconces them. That is also one of the reasons why inefficiencies linger on for long in such economies.
In mid-2011, Jairam Ramesh, India’s Union Environment Minister, made a statement that was perfectly corroborated by facts, but was nonetheless targeted by fanatics who remain closed to constructive criticism – “Faculty at some of India’s better known academic institutions are nowhere competitive at a global level”. Anyone who has attended a half-decent business school outside India can take one look at the credentials of most teachers at top Indian institutions and come to the same conclusion as Jairam, possibly not even being generous enough to compare them globally. Senior professors at most decent global b-schools average more than a few published journal articles vs. under one per prof at India’s supposedly #1 school and the few that have been written are all focused on India-specific experiences. For whatever reason, Jairam’s fair observation riled a lot of people who are made to believe that graduating from some of these institutions is the best thing that can happen to those who are fortunate enough to attend them.
India’s education and administrative system is deeply entrenched in entitlement and entitlement in India either comes from pedigree (family, connections etc.) or is invariably a function of nerdability. Consider this – One is given the mandate to build a local economy within a certain municipal area and he/she is required to build an administrative team. Would anyone with IQ higher than that of an owl look for such people by screening them as follows – Who can solve complex equations quickly, or who best knows India’s pre-independence history, or who can articulately recite words of philosophical scholars ?. Unfortunately, we look out for the nerdiest people and hope (we are actually confident) that they would be able to administer such an area better than someone who is smart, resourceful and has passion to administer it. That’s how we fill key positions within our administrative services and that’s how we select candidates who will be linked with those professors whose ability is lamented by the likes of Jairam. Unquestionably, sermons from such teachers when coupled with nerdability of their students would create India’s best leaders. You dare not doubt that. That these institutions are even perched at the top of India’s academic landscape is only a reflection of how poor their competition is. Also, the nerd we selected for that administrative role will likely retire without creating any legacy of his own. It’s ironical that the system that put him/her there has created its own legacy that India finds hard to wrestle with.
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