On Sun, 2008-11-23 at 21:02 +0530, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: > The specific symptom I'd like to call out here is the growing > anti-intelligentsia feeling I encounter all over India. There was a time not > too long ago when Indian politics, civil service and many other public > fields included scholars and thinkers which is markedly absent today. [...] > I think this is the telling effect of the brain drain on India.
really? i think this is a problem of popular democracy combined with an increasing: -unwillingness to accept ones (low) place in the social order, something that was never common in places like, say, brazil (explaining the higher violent crime relative to wealth disparities there compared to india) -perception that education may not be the way to increased wealth or social status -perception that education is inaccessible, in any case this is not just a trend in india, of course. sarah palin comes to mind, or the potato hurling twins who ran poland until the last election. smaller democracies have it easier. -r
