Clear the Delusion of Development

N developing countries like India, Pakistan, or those in Africa, new ideas tend to meet with greater resistance than in developed nations.

- C P SURENDRAN

New ideas disrupt the system. Developing nations are by default conventional.

The US continues to be the wealthiest nation in the world because Americans are more open to new ideas than any other nation. They are inured to things changing, and usually, they change for the better. A country open to original ideas creates space for them; a new market opens up. A country closed to ideas creates frustration, false stability, and inevitably, corruption. There would be much respect to the face—and daggers sticking in the back. So those who can, up and leave.

Which explains why over 50 percent of IIT talents find a perch in the US alone. There, they become well-employed and send a pittance home. If we had succeeded in retaining them, we would be a scientific and entrepreneurial nation and get all of it. In 2022, foreign remittances to India stood at $100 billion. Imagine what we might have achieved if this country had provided a decent work and life environment for the talented.

India ranks as one of the largest exporters of human capital worldwide. In 2022, over 560,000 skilled Indians migrated to OECD countries, marking a 30 percent increase from the previous year, according to International Migration Outlook, 2022. The US, UK and Canada were the top destinations. Canada alone has granted permanent residency to over 226,000 Indians in the past decade.