Why outsourcing is bad for India

I always seem to be on the 'other side' of looking at so called 'progress'.

Being based in the UK and previously in the US, I recently had the chance to call my UK banker for some clarifications. As expected the call goes to a call centre in India. It is picked up by a chap who can barely manage to blabber a few words of English. But he has been put through a brain sucking training to remove his native Mallu accent and replace it with a stiff British upper lip. The result is hilarious at best, frustrating at worst. Language apart, the knowledge of banking processes was utterly miserable as well. I was put on hold for nearly half an hour twice, just to answer some simple queries. This experience of mine is not new - I've had the same delight each time I call up certain vendors in sections such as banking, insurance, etc.

Who's to blame here? The innocent young kids back home who want to make a fast buck, having dropped out of school even before they learn how to learn? Or, the global economy? Forget the blame, what happens will continue like a juggernaut - all we can do is debate.

Young people with impressionable minds are lured with the promise of hefty (relatively) salaries at an age when they barely can manage their meagre pocket money without squandering it. In the past, having an education was compulsory if you needed to succeed. Now there seem to be short cuts to fame and fortune. Who needs to cram volumes of Math, Science or History that seem practically irrelevant? With call centres recruiting people like cattle, being trained like sheep to all speak the same 'baaaah', it seems natural that anybody even slightly less gifted gets into this groove.

Its not just call centres, take software engineers for instance. Recruited immediately after their graduation, they are put through loads of training to kill their creativity, to make them conform to rigour and deliver the same block of code. It may be argued that where no 'opportunities' existed in the past for such people, there are opportunities galore to make a mark not just inside the country but in the global world. The result is that anyone and everyone may today rise to the very top, despite having nothing at the top of their body! Perhaps, the real world requires more than just intellectual skills - this does prove that success depends on attitude more than anything else.

But this is a deadly, dangerous trend developing in India. Take for instance the incentives that Government gives to attract talent for its defense, military, space and other internal work. For a hugely qualified individual, this amounts to a fraction of what a high school kid can earn working for global companies, in call centres, software code studios, etc. Who then has the motivation to study long and hard to master intricate subjects and put them to good use for the motherland? While all over the world, the focus is on India due to its fast economic growth, emergence of a new, larger middle class, positioning in the IT industry and so on, no where is it even highlighted in the media as to what happens to India's 'own' development!

All the great nations of the world operate in a push mode - pushing their products, services, technology to the less capable nations. It is simply knowledge in various forms flowing from a higher to a lower potential. By getting sucked into the whirlpool of outsourcing, India's potential and skillsets are sinking increasingly into a trench. This is simple for anybody to evaluate. How many cutting edge technology products indigenously (100%) developed in India are today widely sought after in the world market? Wouldn't it make every Indian proud, if for instance we had an equivalent of Toyota, Boeing, Google, Intel, etc born and incubated in India, to make a truly Indian company?! I was alarmed when I read that the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) completion has been delayed by (hold your breath) SEVENTEEN years, from 1993 to 2010. Reasons are well known - technical knowhow inadequacy fuelled by bureaucratic hassles. I doubt India can produce its own aircraft even in 50 years. In some respects, though the GDP improves and so on, India remains atleast 100 yrs or more behind the advanced nations.

Since India is a developing nation the Government can only go a short distance in rewarding talent. This has been the case from decades. But with the advent of multinational companies with outsourced operations in India, this chasm between the Govt and private (global) company's pay packets has grown incredibly huge. This is mainly due to exploitation of the weak Indian Rupee against foreign currencies. I cannot foresee any scenario where droves of hugely talented and intelligent individuals feel motivated to serve the country.

In order to develop, there needs to be a period of incubation where globalization needs to be resisted. It is like this - think of a baby in the womb of its mother. If technology were to evolve to expose the baby even before development in the womb to the outside world, in the name of giving it a head start in learning, what would be the result? Similar is the case with a developing nation. In the formative years, there has been a very short period since independence, only 50 years to develop kickstart the advancement and walk out of the shadows of obedience to foreigners. Every advanced nation in the world today - think US, France, Japan, UK, Germany, China, etc - has had 100s of years or in some cases 1000s of years to make steady progress, albeit with small hurdles.

So my take is that we got the whole thing wrong - it is just a matter of fate and nothing can be done really. An ideal situation would have been one in which India develops its indigenous technology, without opening its economy much for atleast a few 100 years. This not only has the benefit of retaining talent, but also giving a sense of pride in being Indian and using Indian, without aping the west. This would have rebuilt the strong sense of cultural and religious identity that is part of the equation if an individual or a nation needs to succeed - without a foundation how high can one climb really?

Is it any wonder then, that even today after all the success India has achieved, for the most part, the rest of the world looks down upon India when it comes to creativity, scientific breakthroughs, innovation and such path breaking ways of progress? India is merely considered a huge pool of low cost labour with limited skills. With the rise in levels of globalization, this will further be reinforced as it leads to refocus of western labour force on value added breakthrough activities. It will then appear that India is doing even better, its GDP will continue improving, people will migrate all the more from the villages to the big cities and the general standard of living would raise further - this is currently happening too, but will continue at an accelerated pace. More and more foreign companies will infiltrate India not merely for labour markets, but to push their products and services into house holds even in villages. Meanwhile, indigenous products and cutting edge technology development inside the country will reduce even further.

When I reflect on this article, I sense a feeling of pessimism flavouring its tone. But going by the trend today, it appears that the country is on a downward slide and if that is true indeed, then we go further till we reach bottom on the downward cycle, before starting to ascend again and come out on the top! How does one decide whether India is on an upward trend or a downward spiral? Looking at technological progress this conclusion may be hard to arrive at, but when one looks at the foundation - the rich cultural, religious and spiritual heritage of India - then it becomes obvious that the foundation has eroded and will further diminish. Thus it is indeed true that India is riding on a negative slope, cause without the moral fabric of a strong indigenous culture, all other clothes become mere threads to be ripped apart by the slightest gale!