Would you like to become someone who
is looked down upon in society? Say an ambulance chaser? Just imagine that you
have a choice to become a doctor or a fashion designer, and the society you
live in accords more respect to a doctor, would you prefer the later route? Besides
livelihood people work hard to earn respect of society around them. Can you say
I bought a Ferrari by selling contraband? People are identified by their
profession and skills so skills are important part of what a person is? Isn’t
it?
Government of India has realized
that no economic development is possible without inculcating critical skills in
people of India. Economic growth based on capital has limitations as compared
to skills the capital as resource is less impact on sustainable growth. CK Prahalad
& Gary Hemel introduced the concept of Core Competencies into Management
literature. Michael Porter, another strategy stalwart, advised many governments
to persuade them to build a Competitive Advantage for their economy and companies. Presence of large number people having
knowledge of English language available at low cost provided competitive advantage to India in the BPO
sector for couple of decades. China took few years to scale up their assembly
& manufacturing on the basis of manual skills present in the Chinese
people. Indian people on the other hand don’t seem to have manual skills needed
for achieving success in manufacturing space.
Ustad Ahmad Lahouri a Persian is the
architect behind India’s
iconic Taj Mahal built during Moghul period. Silks in India come from Karnataka
as people have traditional skills in silk rearing & weaving Punjab has grey
yarn spinning industry as cotton is grown in large quantities here. Religious men from Hinduism & Islam claim
to predict your future on the basis of their knowledge of astrology etc. But skills in India have been associated with
caste classification of society as per the Hindu belief system. And perhaps the
caste system is the culprit for vanishing of skills among the people. Another view
is that since the British ruled India for couple of centuries wanted to prepare
clerical slaves for the Empire, so they manipulated the education system to
produce educated people with just average communication skills rather than
preparing masses for vocations as the British wanted to flood the made in UK
goods into India.
Well past is past! Presently most Indians
prefer to work on white collar jobs rather work with their hands. It’s rare to
find a great carpenter or blacksmith in India. Why? Because when a carpenter’s
child gets a clerical job then he would not be called a carpenter but a clerk.
A clerk or babu is considered a more respectable profession in India as per
caste system. Therefore thousands of engineers graduating from technical universities
can score exceptionally high marks in written exams but hardly anyone can use
hands to fix a machine. Unless the
government addresses the social stigma attached to skilled people not many
would be prepared to learn the skills required by India for nation building.
India can create national level competitions every month in various critical
skills and honor the winners with large sum of money. Higher income can
diminish the hurt involved in learning new skills in caste ridden medieval
society of India.
