25 Symbols of Indias Knowledge Culture

Ganesha

Hinduism, the polytheist, the dominant religion in India has multiple sects
like the Vaishnavas, Shaivas and Shaktas, which, in the strict definition of the
Western world, are almost independent religions. Yet, most of them start all
their religious ceremonies by invoking a common God: Ganesha. Such is the
importance of this elephant-faced god. Ganesha is the God of intellect and
knowledge. The worshipping of Ganesha before any other God is not incidental; it
is a clear recognition that all human needswealth, fame, and fortunecannot
come to a person devoid of intellect. What can be a better symbolism that that
to start with?

The Bhagavad-Gita

Voltaire called religion the opium of the masses. Whether in a positive
sense or in negative, religion has always been associated with emotion. And here
is a religious textand the most important one for a large majority of
Indiansthat unequivocally preaches that the path of knowledge is superior to
those of action and emotion: Intellect is superior to the mind (emotion) (manasastu
para buddhi) and all actions ultimately culminate in knowledge (sarvakarmakhilam
partha gyane parisamapyate). But then, what else can you expect from a dialog
that was initiated to convince an emotionally overwhelmed warrior to take the
course of reasoning to decide what is right and what is wrong?

Zero

We always knew we were good for nothing, says the writing on a popular
T-shirt brand in India, referring to the discovery of zero in India. Jokes
apart, zero is not just a pointer to the capability of the Indian mind to do
abstract thinkinga critical requirement for conceptualization, in turn a key
requirement for a knowledge cultureit is also something without which binary
systemson which the whole digital principle is basedwould not have been
possible.

Yoga

One of Indias earliest exports to the world in general and the US in
particularmuch before the software story happenedYoga today by and large means
controlling of body and breathing to a large majority of followers. The term
itself, however, is derived from the Sanskrit word yoga meaning addition, or
joining: of the two most important concepts of Vedantic beliefthe all pervasive
divine (Brahman) and the spark of divinity in all living beings (atman). This,
according to the Vedanta, is the supreme goal. The paths are variousthat of
action, faith and knowledgewhich are interwoven and each being important,
unlike many other systems of belief, which lay all the emphasis on faith. Gita
is itself a great example of the explicit teaching of yoga concepts.

The Argumentative Indian

This writer once asked a couple of seniors in collegebest of
buddiesarguing it out whether Mohd Rafi was a greater singer or Kishore Kumar,
after listening to the same argument some half a dozen times, the point in such
a debate. One of them answered, I know I will never accept that Kishore was
better than Rafi and he will not accept otherwise. But every time we argue,
through our examples, points and sub-points, we learn so much! That is probably
one of the most common reasons why Indians jump into this favorite pastime at
the drop of a hat.

There is one subtle aspect of the Indians love for getting into debates and
arguments that Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen articulates so well: a
healthy respect for the opponents point of view, something that is close to in
meaning but somewhat more than the English word, tolerance. In the first century
AD, Indian astronomer Aryabhatta maintained that the sun was stationary and the
earth was revolving. While few agreed with him on this point, he was still
respected as the most prominent astronomer of his time. We all know what
happened to Galileo for saying the same thing after almost 1,500 years!

That kind of respect for individuals even while disagreeing with their points
of view is the most striking aspect of Indias culture. That is why arguments
have such a positive vibe in India! Yes, many point out that it delays decision
making, which is true some times. But it also gives India its vibrant
multicultural society.

Guru

Another contribution of India to the world is the concept of gurua teacher
who is a guide, and whose place has been equated with that of Brahma, Vishnu,
and Shivathe holy trinity of the Hindu religion. Even today, in the traditional
system of Indian education, many Indians reserve the same respect for their
teachers that they do for their parents. The system of Gurukul in Indiawhere
the disciples stayed with the teacher for years, sometimes executing seemingly
irrational orders, but very often done with the objective of building commitment
and instilling disciplinewas widespread. Traditional Indian education, music,
dance all have a very revered place for the guru. Though in the modern English
lexicon, the word has come to mean an expert, a gurus place in the Indian
tradition is much more than that: it is supreme.

Buddha

Buddha means the enlightened. Buddhism always laid great emphasis on
learning, giving rise to ancient universities such as Nalanda and Pushpagiri.
But a more fascinating storyand a definite proof of Indias knowledge
cultureis the acceptance (and later assimilation) of Buddhism by Hinduism,
declaring Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu!

The Upanishads

If tolerance and respect for the contradicting viewpoint is a subtle pointer
to Indias knowledge culture, a more direct pointer is the quest for knowledge.
The Upanishadsthe word meaning listening to sitting nearare all questions
and answers in which there are no gospels but real challenging questions that
the disciples seek from their gurus. And the objective is not to attain wealth,
health, salvation, or even God. The ultimate target is the truth through
knowledge; knowledge for knowledges sake.

One popular tale from one of the well-known Upanishads, Katha Upanishad, is
an example of how far the quest of knowledge can go. Yama, the God of Death,
promises Nachiketa, a Brahmin youth, that he would fulfill three wishes of the
latter. Nachiketa asks for knowledge about the mystery of death that was so far
not available to human beings. Yama tries his best to persuade him to ask for
anything else, including the best of material wealth and fame. Nachiketa remains
unmoved and sticks to his questions and Yama, who could not go back on his
promise, finally is forced to give in, bestowing him that knowledge, and through
him to the entire mankind!

Max Muller

When a speaker at an offshoring conference in an Asian city was talking on
India: What can it teach us, few among the delegates knew that the title was a
verbatim lift from a hundred year old book by F Max Muller, a German scholar of
Sanskrit. Max Mullerand many other European scholars in the 18th and 19th
century first brought to the world what traditional Indian treatise have in
store. What they were attracted by was the quest for truth among Indian sages
thousands of years backthe first explicit acknowledgement of Indias knowledge
culture by outsiders that continue even today in the form of Tom Friedmans
World is Flat!

The IITs

When Pandit Nehru envisaged the setting up of the IITs, opinion was divided
about the rationale of the government spending so much on higher education. With
time, as Indias economic progress did not match the expectations, many of the
graduateswho were the best brains in Indiamigrated to developed countries,
giving rise to a popular phrase: brain drain that ruled the Indian psyche for
decades, raising questions about government funding once again. Well, no one
needs to be told today what the IITs have done for India. Today, there is hardly
any truly global corporationespecially in the knowledge industrieswhich does
not have an IITian in a senior managerial position. Apart from selling India,
many IITians have invested in the country. But, most importantly, they have been
able to tell the world what knowledge means to a nation which at the time of
their set-up, was facing basic problems of food, potable water and health!

KPO

While BPO came to India; India discovered KPO. The traditional definition of
BPO carried an adjective non-core to the processes getting outsourced. India
dropped it. BPO was discovered by American companies to cut cost and enhance
efficiency. In India, they learnt that they could add business value by
offshoring. Many companies who had hardly outsourced, offshored to India. Be it
research, legal process, product development or engineering design, companies
discovered that they could offshore and even outsource them to India. What a
better name than Knowledge Process Outsourcing? And what a better proof of
Indias knowledge-centric environment?

Gandhi

To put Mahatma Gandhi in this list would seem out of place to many. But
through his insistence on non-violence as a weapon against the British in the
struggle for Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi proved to the world, in the
most convincing way, that in a battle of reason and might, reason is the winner.
Opinion was divided over whether Gandhis non-violence would have worked against
say the Nazis. We do not know; neither did Gandhi preach it as a universal
principle. By choosing the path of reason, he was just showing his confidence in
the British peoples collective sense of reason. It was a strategy based on the
conviction that by appealing to the rationality of the opponent, you can win
your case. A pure passionate you versus me would not have got the kind of
success that India got: not just the independence but a solid foundation for a
nation that would sustain democracy in the future.

The Middle Path

It means different things to different people. To the critics, it means lack
of courage; to the modern analysts it symbolizes de-risking. From Buddhas time
to Narasimha Raos, the middle path has been a favored course of Indians. The
traditional preference for the middle path in India has been guided by the
desire to avoid the extremes that often means jingoism and the tendency to
prefer vehemence to reason: the reason why Indias politics has been dominated
by centrist parties since independence. Critics point out that the middle path
forces consensus which sometimes lead to mediocrity. That may well be true in a
few cases, but, by and large, the middle path has been able to create a culture
of trust and cooperation.

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam/

Dr Manmohan Singh

Democracy is populism; the rule of the might of numbers. Yet, the fact that
at a time two of Indias top poststhe head of the state and the head of
governmentwere held by two of the most accomplished scholars in their areas
showed that whatever may be the state of politics, Indians still reserve their
highest respect for the learned. In fact, many of Indias presidentsDr Rajendra
Prasad, Dr S Radhakrishnan, Dr Zakir Hussainwere the best-known scholars in
their respective fields. While the path that they took to reach the positions
may be different, the fundamental reason is the same: the politicians who elect
the president understand very well that by putting up the scholars as
candidates, they could appeal to the sentiment of the common Indian, who has the
sincerest respect for men of knowledge.

Raaga Music

Indian classical music is one of the earliest aspects of Indian culture to
gain acceptability and popularity outside India. The striking difference of the
classical music in India as compared to the Western classical music, is the
scope for improvisation by the individual. The rules of the ragas are as
stringent as they could be. Yet, the scope for improvisation is so much that it
often baffles Western critics. This is based on the principle that while
discipline is important; it is only by rich infusion of individual creativity
that an art form can flourish: a true pointer to a knowledge culture.

The gharanas of Hindustani music are based on formalizing this tradition
through what is called Guru-Shishya parampara, which is based on the training
being passed on from the teacher to the disciple over years. This again points
to the importance of the guru.

CK Prahalad (and others)

Guru is a word that was given to the world by India. It is no surprise that
CK Prahalad, an Indian-American professor has been voted as the worlds greatest
management thinker in the Thinkers 50, an annual list of worlds greatest
management thinkers. Prahalad is not alone; he is accompanied by many more
Indiansthinker and author Ram Charan; innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan; and
Prof Rakesh Khurana of Harvard. Many others like Prof Mohanbir Sawhney and
Jagdish Sheth are not in the list but are acknowledged thought leaders in their
areas, not to forget the late Prof Sumantra Ghoshal. The influence that these
thinkers have on the world business is huge.

While management guru may be a 20th century phrase, the concept of
independent philosophers in various areas whose sole aim was to help in the
advancement of knowledge is also a culture that the world draws from India and
Greece. The success of thinkers like Prahalad is a reaffirmation that the love
for knowledge and ability to do abstract thinking as a trait has not changed in
centuries!

The Kama Sutra

(and other treatise)

If the influence of CK Prahalad and Ram Charan on business leaders and
managers today is immense, so was it in ancient India, and in almost all walks
of life. Vatsayanas Kama Sutra is surely the most well known treatise on a
specific subject, but by no means was it the only such example. Bharatas Natya
Shastra (on aesthetics), Kautilyas Arthashastra (on real politick) and the
Smritis of Manu and Yajnavalkya (on social guidelines) are all examples of a
prevailing culture of thinking in ancient and medieval India. While Indians have
taken pride in what these treatise discussed years back, what has been less
highlighted is that the authors of all these were sages who were not
practitioners in these areas but focused on pursuit of knowledge alone, for the
sake of larger mankind. While they were pure jnanayogis, the practitioners were
the karmayogis. This clear distinction between knowledge and actionwhich is
articulated in the Gita as the path of knowledge is for the sages; path of
action is for practitioners (jnanayogens sankhyanam karmayogena yoginam)is the
best example the world has on the focus on advancement of knowledge, something
that the academics like Prahalad and Govindarajan are practicing even today. And
so are many other academics.

Pathological Learning Syndrome

According to the annual DQ-IDC Best Employer Survey in the last few years,
one of the top three factors which makes Indian IT employees change their
jobs/stick to an employer is what technology they would get to work on. Needless
to say, the newer the technology the better is the attractiveness of the job.
The typical Indian IT workers love for learning anything new defies all logic.
In fact, the tendency to learn for learnings sake is so acute that a global
research firm coined a phrase for it: pathological learning syndrome. A cursory
look at certification agency Brainbenchs annual Global Skills Report will
convince one beyond doubt. India, which in the last year got more IT
certifications (such as Microsoft, Cisco certified professionals) than any other
country except the US, accounted for more than seven times the certifications
than the third-placed Russian Federation!

Lack of Systems

A not-so-positive aspect of Indias knowledge culture is the complete
dependence on individual capability and reluctance to devise and follow systems,
giving rise to popular jokes such as one Indian is better than one American, but
ten Indians are worse! Lack of systems creates chaos. Some say, however, that a
lack of systems paves way for more innovation! You decide.

Parliamentary
Democracy

In his book Future of Freedom, Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria
proves the correlation of GDP (through capitalist wealth creation) and
democracy. The only country in the world that defies his formula is India. The
sustainability of Indias democracydespite all the flaws that critics point
outis the best pointer to the average Indians love for freedom. Without a
solid foundation of rational decision-making, it is not possible to think of a
sustainable democracy, that too the only one with truly democratic communists!

The Explorative Indian

The history of a vibrant trade practice in ancient and medieval India is
well recorded. While Kalinga (Orissa) on the East Coast used the sea routes to
sail to Java, Sumatra, Bali in Indonesia and other countries in South East Asia,
Gujarati traders practiced their trade with West Asia and the Arab. The primary
reason was, of course, trade but the explorers used this opportunity to spread
the local culture in these lands, which are vibrant even today in places like
Indonesia and Cambodia. It was probably the first instance of Soft Power, which
modern consumer companies like Coca Cola and PepsiCo were credited with or
accused of using centuries later. What is significant here is that even at a
time when military might, religious conversion or a combination of both were the
only known recourse to spread influence (and even trade, remember East India
company centuries later?), Indians recognized the power of Soft Power!

College Street

Anyone who has been to Kolkatas College Street (and to a lesser extent
other such places as Sunday book market in Delhis Daryaganj) knows how throngs
of booklovers spend entire days in these places looking for rare books. While
there may be great second hand bookshops in many cities in the world, such
democratized old books markets could be seen only in India!

Unity in Diversity

The popular slogan about Indias uniquenessthe pluralism in Indian
societyis a direct result of the Indian psyche to respect others viewpoint. It
does not mean shying away from debating out the opinions, but being able to
coexist peacefully even with all those debates! Though that culture is getting
diluted of late, it is still the prevalent culture. And that is the culture of
rationalism.

Free Press

The Indian media has a developed world professionalism and a third-world
like sense of responsibility, said an American media analyst a few years back.
While the second part may not seem too true today (but then, who believes today
that India is a third world country?), no one can question the freedom that
media enjoys in India. While credit has been given to democracy, Nehrus vision
and many more things, it is difficult to believe a free, vibrant media would
exist and grow without the basic curiosity on part of the common Indian to know
the truth!

Software Prowess

It is in our genes, quipped Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister credited with
putting computer in everyday vocabulary in India. He was talking about the
Indian engineers ability to excel in developing computer software. That was two
decades back. We still do not know if it is in our genes. What we know is that
today global technology landscape is unthinkable without India. While critics
have often termed Indian software houses as coding factories, in the last few
years, Indian companies have proved that when it comes to competing on latest
tech, they are second to none. And just look at the number of R&D labs that
global multinationals have set up in India, and there is no scope for any
debate.

Shyamanuja Das

shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in