Sunday Posts

What is an Indian education? I stumbled upon the debate pretty much unknowingly, attempting to call out a hoax ( see here ). Before that, I worked for ten years setting up Computer Education centres in hundreds of towns and cities across the Indian subcontinent but never questioned the cultural significance of my work. After that 2008 post though, I couldn't unsee it anymore. It became the focus of my academic work, which I took up only subsequently.  If anyone asks what my big goal in life is, it will still be to return to India and set up, together in a community of fellow travellers, a truly Indian university. I consider all my current work to be a preparation, daily attempts to understand and to perfect my craft, so that, one day, it can all come together. Periodically, therefore, I get interested in projects in India and excitedly promote projects which show promise. However, within India's current privately driven mass higher education and its crass...

As Trump speaks about disengaging from China, the Chinese are doubling down on creating a parallel Information Technology universe free of America-made software. The big tech, usually the champion of free trade and free movement of people, has all of a sudden turned sinophobe. Just when a disease borne by globalisation destroys lives and disfigures economies, we are staring at a fundamental reconfiguration of the world - the great decoupling! It's an ugly word (fittingly for the age of Trump, full of sexual innuendo) but one that really captures what's happening: The integrated global economy that we got used to is breaking apart! This was a process well under way for some time, but COVID19 has accelerated the process. We need to start thinking what comes next and adjust our ideas accordingly. However, amid Donald Trump's rhetoric and China's territorial assertions, it is tempting to start thinking about a new Cold War. But that's not what is happening now: The worl...

China and India stepped back from the brink, at least for the moment. But the flare-up in June - and indeed the ongoing tensions - has strained relationships and nudged India closer to the United States. But, not many people in India would readily buy the argument that India should become a member of the Quad (a grouping of United States, Japan, India and Australia for the control of Indo-Pacific) to face-off China. For them, it really means Indian lives and India's prosperity are put in the line for containing China. Despite all the public outrage at China's misbehaviour and even with all the forthcoming bollywood fare trashing China, that would be a hard sell in India. Indian leaders, despite their almost pagan love for spectacles, are realists. Even though they sell to the public India's impending great power status, they are well aware of the constraints that India's divided polity, widespread poverty and lack of productive manpower impose. For all the transformativ...

The simmering geopolitical tensions between India and China came to blows earlier this week, but then didn't. As the deaths of personnel being mourned in both countries, the leaders were sensible enough to walk back from the brink, recognising the futility of the conflict. However, while a hot war looks unlikely, the countries are likely to settle for another long period of disengagement and conflict. And, it seems the way it should be : Two emerging countries vying for global roles, with thousands of miles of common but unsettled borders and burning jealousy of trade are destined for conflict. Besides, the incompatible political systems, democratic India versus communist China, are supposed to engage - so say the commentators - in twentyfirst century's defining battle. But is this the way it must be? The current conflict seemed to have emerged from India's US pivot, a shift of foreign policy dating back to the 2008 Nuclear Treaty with US, which pulled India into the orbit ...

Given that there is no dearth of bad news, I was not paying attention to the steadily rising din of the China-India conflict in the Himalayas. I surmised - and remain of the same opinion - that the skirmishes wouldn't come to much. China has enough on its plate, with its trade war with America and unrest in Hong Kong, to start yet another conflict. And, while the current regime in India loves a little war, but taking on China is a completely different thing compared to needling a weak Pakistan. My expectations, therefore, were that both sides would play for the gallery a bit and then step back from the brink as they have always done in the past. But blood has been spilled! The news that Indian (and possibly Chinese) soldiers were killed in the skirmish yesterday changes things. Indeed, I would still expect that the cooler heads will prevail and the Army commanders will be able to de-escalate the situation, but a new line has been crossed. It is in everyone's interest that these...

In the middle of the ongoing economic chaos, many in India find solace in the hope that many manufacturing companies would now leave China and shift their factories to India. They enthusiastically share many stories about companies deciding to move out. While the COVID19 pandemic, still in its early stages in India, is stress-testing the Indian economy, India as the next global manufacturing hub is indeed the dream worth dreaming about. This is an old dream, however. This - 'Make in India' - was a campaign slogan in 2014 General Election. In fact, this has been the key economic strategy of the government of India, to elevate India into its next stage of economic development and reach the benefits of economic growth more widely than the service-led economy has achieved so far. It was presumed - then - that China had become too expensive for manufacturers and they would now move to cheaper locations, such as India. And, it was not wishful thinking: Manufacturers were indeed gradu...

When manholes started disappearing around the world in 2004, the world discovered China. Re-discovered, we should say, as, in the Chinese eyes, China was merely reasserting its historical manufacturing primacy after centuries of slumber. But, even in 2004, what it did was still just gruntwork at the bottom end of the world's value chain, jostling for space with Vietnam, Bangladesh and assorted sweatshop countries. Thereafter, came the phase of great copy-and-catch-up, to borrow Tyler Cowan's phrase, and cheap Chinese knock-offs flooded the global markets. The tabloids and governments razed about the poor quality of Chinese-made and pilferage of intellectual property. Yet, this outrage was reassuring, as China seemed far off from gaining any technological edge and forever consigned to fighting it out over the lower cost. 2019 changed all that. The message behind Trump's trade wars established that China, and its companies, may have achieved that technological ad...

War and geopolitics are not my focus, invested as I am in the history of universities and the role of intellectuals in society. But a combination of factors, the recent India-Pakistan skirmish, the Indian government's revisionist and critical stance on Nehru and my own interest in historical interactions between India and China, have led me to look closely on the Sino-Indian war of 1962. This is very much a work in progress, as I have compiled a reading list and started working through it, but one thing is clear to me right at this initial stage: The history of war has huge contemporary significance, particularly for India, and this should indeed be studied better there.  For example, this war weakened Nehru politically at home and in the world stage: There is no denying the truth in Mountbatten's comment that had Nehru died in 1958, he would have possibly gone down in history as one of the greatest statesmen ever. The war also changed, I shall argue, India's position...

Last summer, I was at lunch at a Mumbai restaurant when the host asked me whether I can help in facilitating international partnerships for an educational institution he has been planning to set up. I often get requested this, and I almost always say no, knowing that the private Indian institutions are often too immature in their approach and opportunistic in their intention for meaningful partnerships to work. But this conversation was different: This was a serious social organisation with a purpose, and I wanted to seriously explore it. So, I presented my views, that there is very little to be gained by looking to collaborate with a Western institution - as they rarely understand the ground realities of India and are all too opportunistic and commercially driven - and rather, the approach should be to explore meaningful partnerships with Chinese institutions.  It was a difficult argument to pursue. The arguments about the limitations of the Western model of education - and...

It seems that the Chinese economy is coming to a screeching halt! If the latest growth figures indicate a trend, it seems that all that public debt/investment-fuelled growth on steroids that China enjoyed for over three decades is now due for a payback time, and there is little to show for it. Now, one has to pronounce judgements on this with caution. The collapse of China has been predicted and proved decisively wrong, before. China is not a fragile twentieth-century variety of a nation, as some in Eastern Europe were, but millennia-old civilization with a distinctive culture and polity: It is unlikely to wither away for the lack of growth. Besides, it is fair to assume that the Chinese leadership were long preparing for such a possibility. China had, over the last two decades at least, a curse of the surplus - it was hoarding up US Dollars as it did not know what to do with the huge trade imbalance in its favour - and it has been steadily exporting that surplus in the for...

[This blog, a labour of love, gives meaning to me more ways than I realised. Unlike the blogs I am 'required' to write - to promote products or to project expertise - these unplanned, momentary, messy posts are really conversations with myself. They are also more, pages of a scrapbook of ideas, digital footprints of a search for meaning, chronicles of loneliness and journals of being intellectually exiled. Timely meditations are my latest - there were others before - effort to write about contemporary issues and subjects, imposing some order on chaos and giving me a focus to write about.] I have been following the Sri Lankan politics with some concern over several weeks. Democratic institutions have had some bad time lately. It does indeed seem, after Franklin, that when you wish to give up a little liberty for the sake of a little security, you get neither liberty nor security. Sri Lankans have endured long years of Civil War, which was eventually ended, rather brut...

China is redefining its universities, and, as a result, changing the landscape of International Higher Ed.  Indeed, this is early days, and most Chinese universities are still very traditional. But the game is changing, and it's time to pay heed. There was a time when British Universities loved China. It meant exotic foreign tours for staff and faculty, eager partners lining up elaborate welcome ceremonies, relatively easily winnable contracts and student numbers, which made nice little case studies. And, it didn't matter how good or bad the university was: Anything British would have done the job (one needed ranking, sure, but it did not matter which ranking: As a Chinese academic once told me, as long as you are the second best university on your street, it would do!) This seemingly unquenchable desire for foreign education came handy when the student numbers in the UK shrunk at the wake of immigration regime change under Theresa May's stewardship in...

I wrote a post yesterday on the 'crisis' of the Indian IT industry . My essential point in this was that while the Indian media sees a sudden crisis in the Indian IT sector and summarily blaming it on Trump, the problems were simmering for a long time and blaming it on Trump Administration's current or intended policies would be mistaken. And, besides, while a number of observers - Rajat Gupta, formerly of McKinsey fame (and Galleon infamy), being the latest - blame the leadership of Indian IT companies for lack of vision and inaction, I thought this was unfair, it was hard to change business models for mammoth publicly listed companies: In fact, this is exactly what these companies are trying to do, triggering all the crisis talk. However, all this don't point to a solution, which some reading the post pointed out. To this, I do not think there is any silver bullet. Many, Rajat Gupta included, have spoken about educational change, but that is neither short term n...

Over the last several months, I have made one significant change in my work. I have pivoted to China. It is fashionable to do so, and my own little project has nothing to do with the geopolitical shift of the Obama administration (though it was handy to borrow the term). It is also interesting. Only back in 2012, when I was starting my business and when the potential investors asked me endlessly which countries I should target, I was not sure. At best, there was this hyphenated pair of India-China, as two big Higher Education markets, and I spent the good part of the last four years focusing on India. But, as it would happen, my work shifted, somewhat on its own momentum, to China. Despite spending more time on India, the business got more students in China. And, more generally, when we explored new ways of doing education, we realised the difference between India and China: We got polite nods in China, though the Chinese partners mostly accepted the ideas for their own use...