Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Caste System makes India an IT Superpower??

I am read an interesting book by Gurucharan Das called 'India Unbound'. He is the former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India. One of his theories for why Indian manufacturing has historically been so shoddy is that India's caste system placed the Brahmins, and their pursuit of knowledge in all its abstractness, on a pedestal, while it undervalued the skilled trades that required dexterity. Interestingly, he argues that's precisely the reason why we are good at Information Technology (IT) ... because we've been weaned on a dietary craving for abstractness for centuries!!!

Overall, the book's worth a read!!!

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