The saddest story of the century – Indians succeed in countries ruled by whites, and fail in their own.

If we were to sum up our performance in the 20th century in one sentence. Indians have succeeded in countries ruled by whites, but failed in their own.

This outcome would have astonished leaders of our independence movement. They declared Indians were kept down by white rule and could flourish only under self-rule. This seemed self-evident The harsh reality today is that Indians are succeeding brilliantly in countries ruled by whites, but failing in India . They are flourishing in the USA and Britain .

But those that stay in India are pulled down by an outrageous system that fails to reward merit or talent. Fails to allow people and businesses to grow, and keeps real power with netas, babus, and assorted manipulators. Once Indians go to white-ruled countries, they soar and conquer summits once occupied only by whites.

Rono Dutta has become head of United Airlines, the biggest airline in the world. Had he stayed in India , he would have no chance in Indian Airlines. Even if the top job there was given to him by some godfather, a myriad netas, babus and trade unionists would have ensured that he could never run it like United Airlines.

Rana Talwar has become head of Standard Chartered Bank Plc, one of the biggest multinational banks in Britain , while still in his 40s. Had he been in India , he would perhaps be a local manager in the State Bank, taking orders from babus to give loans to politically favoured clients.

Rajat Gupta is head of Mckinsey, the biggest management consultancy firm in the world. He now advises the biggest multinationals on how to run their business. Had he remained in India he would probably be taking orders from some sethji with no qualification save that of being born in a rich family.

Lakhsmi Mittal has become the biggest steel baron in the world, with steel plants in the US , Kazakhstan , Germany , Mexico , Trinidad and Indonesia . India ‘s socialist policies reserved the domestic steel industry for the public sector. So Lakhsmi Mittal went to Indonesia to run his family’s first steel plant there. Once freed from the shackles of India , he conquered the world.

Subhash Chandra of Zee TV has become a global media king, one of the few to beat Rupert Murdoch. He could never have risen had he been limited to India , which decreed a TV monopoly for Doordarshan. But technology came to his aid: satellite TV made it possible for him to target India from Hong Kong . Once he escaped Indian rules and soil, he soared.

You may not have heard of 48-year old Gururaj Deshpande. His communications company, Sycamore, is currently valued by the US stock market at over $ 30 billion, making him perhaps one of the richest Indians in the world. Had he remained in India , he would probably be a babu in the Department of Telecommunications.

Arun Netravali has become president of Bell Labs, one of the biggest research and development centres in the world with 30,000 inventions and several Nobel Prizes to its credit. Had he been in India , he would probably be struggling in the middle cadre of Indian Telephone Industries. Silicon Valley alone contains over one lac Indian millionaires.

Indra Nooyi was born in Chennai and did her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. She held product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and textile firm Mettur Beardsell. She was admitted to Yale School of Management in 1978 and earned a Master’s degree in Public and Private Management. Graduating in 1980, Nooyi joined the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and then held strategy positions at Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri.[8] She joined PepsiCo in 1994 and was named president and CFO in 2001 before going on to become the Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of of PepsiCo, one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies.

Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad is an Indian entrepreneur, consultant, and management expert. Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Ross School of Business of the University of Michigan.He is one of the recipients of Pravasi Bharatiya Sammaan awards in 2009 and was conferred the Padma Bhushan, an Indian civilian award, the same year. In 2009 he was named the world’s most influential business thinker on The Thinkers 50 list.

Sabeer Bhatia invented Hotmail and sold it to Microsoft for $ 400 million. Victor Menezes is number two in Citibank. Shailesh Mehta is CEO of Providian, a top US financial services company. Also at or near the top are Rakesh Gangwal of US Air, Jamshd Wadia of Arthur Andersen, and Aman Mehta of Hong Kong & amp; Shanghai Banking Corp.

In Washington DC , the Indian CEO High Tech Council has no less than 200 members, all high tech-chiefs. While Indians have soared, India has stagnated. At independence India was the most advanced of all colonies, with the best prospects.

Today with a GNP per head of $370, it occupies a lowly 177th position among 209 countries of the world. But poverty is by no means the only or main problem. India ranks near the bottom in the UNDP’s Human Development Index, but high up in Transparency International’s Corruption Index.

The neta-babu raj brought in by socialist policies is only one reason for India ‘s failure. The more sordid reason is the rule-based society we inherited from the British Raj is today in tatters. Instead money, muscle and influence matter most.

At independence we were justly proud of our politicians. Today we regard them as scoundrels and criminals. They have created a jungle of laws in the holy name of socialism, and used these to line their pockets and create patronage networks. No influential crook suffers. The Mafia flourish unhindered because they have political links.

The sons of police officers believe they have a licence to rape and kill (ask the Mattoo family). Talent cannot take you far amidst such rank misgovernance. We are reverting to our ancient feudal system where no rules applied to the powerful. The British Raj brought in abstract concepts of justice for all, equality before the law. These were maintained in the early years of independence. But sixty years later, citizens wail that India is a lawless land where no rules are obeyed.

The lack of transparent rules, properly enforced, is a major reason why talented Indians cannot rise in India . A second reason is the neta-babu raj, which remains intact despite supposed liberalisation. But once talented Indians go to rule-based societies in the west, they take off. In those societies all people play by the same rules, all have freedom to innovate without being strangled by regulations.

This, then, is why Indians succeed in countries ruled by whites, and fail in their own.

It is the saddest story of the century.

The blind men and the elephant (perception, truth, perspective, empathy, communications and understanding)

There are various versions of the story of the blind men and the elephant. The blind men and the elephant is a legend that appears in different cultures – notably China, Africa and India – and the tale dates back thousands of years.

Some versions of the story feature three blind men, others five or six, but the message is always the same. Here’s a story of the six blind men and the elephant:

Six blind men were discussing exactly what they believed an elephant to be, since each had heard how strange the creature was, yet none had ever seen one before. So the blind men agreed to find an elephant and discover what the animal was really like.

It didn’t take the blind men long to find an elephant at a nearby market. The first blind man approached the beast and felt the animal’s firm flat side. “It seems to me that the elephant is just like a wall,” he said to his friends.

The second blind man reached out and touched one of the elephant’s tusks. “No, this is round and smooth and sharp – the elephant is like a spear.”

Intrigued, the third blind man stepped up to the elephant and touched its trunk. “Well, I can’t agree with either of you; I feel a squirming writhing thing – surely the elephant is just like a snake.”

The fourth blind man was of course by now quite puzzled. So he reached out, and felt the elephant’s leg. “You are all talking complete nonsense,” he said, “because clearly the elephant is just like a tree.”

Utterly confused, the fifth blind man stepped forward and grabbed one of the elephant’s ears. “You must all be mad – an elephant is exactly like a fan.”

Duly, the sixth man approached, and, holding the beast’s tail, disagreed again. “It’s nothing like any of your descriptions – the elephant is just like a rope.”

And all six blind men continued to argue, based on their own particular experiences, as to what they thought an elephant was like. It was an argument that they were never able to resolve. Each of them was concerned only with their own idea. None of them had the full picture, and none could see any of the other’s point of view. Each man saw the elephant as something quite different, and while in part each blind man was right, none was wholly correct.

There is never just one way to look at something – there are always different perspectives, meanings, and perceptions, depending on who is looking.