Indians are Distinctive, Not Unique

AS INDIANS, we are distinctive (not unique) from the West. Our Indian orientation is psychosocially quite in contrast to a 'western' orientation.

- Steve Correa

An Indian orientation is not defined or limited to geography, but is most certainly informed by it (desh, kaal, and patra). Our Indian orientation has evolved over several thousands of years, since it is the oldest living civilisation. Over the years, it has offered its wisdom to the world and absorbed and assimilated wisdom from all over the globe and included it in its grand philosophy. India has many sources: the Vedas, the Upanishads, Puranas and Itihas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Arthsastra, Jainism and Buddhism are some. Our traditional Indian knowledge and wisdom can help us address the problems of modern management.

Borrowing concepts indiscriminately from the West is misleading, even precarious. The concepts in Western Psychology 'have their genesis in the social upheavals in Europe in the 19th Century with the metamorphosis from an agrarian to an industrial society, with resultant changes in social structure - such as 'nuclear families, time standardisation, and political ideologies, referred to by (Max) Weber as the 'iron cage' where individuals are trapped in systems designed to enhance well-being of humanity.

This is unlike India's evolution. One of the implications of the reductionist-positivistic approach (that argues for objective, impersonal, quantifiable, and controllable laws) is its wishes to cleanse culture from behaviour, and with the hope to demonstrate pan-cultural generalizability.