It's Easy to Make a Fool of People in India

Or as a friend of mine stated in plain Hindi,

इंडिया में चुतिया काटना आसान है |

It’s nothing new. Indian businesses have always been known for selling half-baked products with little to no value. People have become so accustomed to low-quality products that they’ve accepted it as the norm.

Where do we start? Let’s begin with Bollywood. The industry produces over a thousand films a year, ranging from low-budget to ultra-high budget. However, they all share one common theme: poor storylines, disastrous scripting, mediocre camera work, over-the-top performances, and decent songs. Exceptions do exist! But so many people are addicted to such low-quality work that it’s hard to elevate their standards. In fact, decades of this has had an irreversible, perpetual effect that’s difficult to fix now.

The same is true for OTT platforms and YouTube. Indian creators have been flooding YouTube with content, and 99% of it is low-quality, made just for the sake of making videos. With the advancement of GPTs, it’s become even easier to pump out content on YouTube. Many videos are simply generated voiceovers reading online articles over slides. It’s painful to watch how incredibly low-quality these videos are. Sadly, people seem to prefer low-quality content. Content that confirms their biases. People like to watch and hear what they want to, and they stay in their own circles. Once the algorithm catches them and categorizes them, it’s hard to break them out of that circle. Their biases strengthen, and this has a multiplicative impact on Indians, as they already have a strong hold on their beliefs.

Something similar is found in the education sector as well. Education is highly valued in India, and people are willing to spend millions to get their children into prestigious institutions. This has led to the creation of hundreds of thousands of coaching institutes for various subjects like physics, mathematics, law, economics, etc. Again, 99.9% of these institutes are of terrible quality with no focus on real education. To ensure quality, one needs to hire experts in a field who have spent thousands of hours perfecting their craft. Instead, most of the institutes serve only as so-called "motivators". And, if not education, motivation does sell in India. You can find thousands of motivators on YouTube and Instagram, people in their 40s selling advice to people in their 20s, people who graduated from college advising students in college, and people in college advising high school students. Everyone is taking advantage of their hindsight to profit from condescension. This works especially well in India because, in addition to motivation, they can sell the fear of missing out. This is possible because we’ve never given our kids the freedom to choose their own paths. They’ve never learned what it’s like to walk a road not taken. They’re dependent on the world to guide them towards success. They don't realize that, while motivation can inspire action, discipline is what ensures that action continues even when enthusiasm wanes.

The entire country is addicted to social media. Everyone is on Instagram scrolling through reels endlessly. Content creators tend to share every detail of their lives on these platforms. This, combined with widespread unemployment, has led to India becoming a significant consumer of social media platforms around the world. If you want to scale a business, India is an ideal place. Digital marketing is easier to scale here. There are millions of people blindly following various influencers. Brand endorsements work exceptionally well. You just need to create a fear of missing out in a few people, and they can significantly scale up your product or service. This is how companies can grow so rapidly from nothing.

Yet another problem in India is the oversold concept of "entrepreneurship". Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but few understand the problem they’re trying to solve. Being an entrepreneur is simply a label that everyone wants to use to boost their public image. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to scale businesses through digital marketing, and that’s what many entrepreneurs do. The most important quality of a leader is the ability to fully understand the problem they want to solve. They must know the value it will bring to people’s lives, be committed to hard work, believe in their idea, and treat their team with kindness and respect. Unfortunately, many Indian entrepreneurs lack these qualities. The only thing they care about is raising more funding until they can create a big deal out of an IPO and eventually sell their shares to the public. And IPOs work in India because there’s enough unemployment that forces people to take up trading and investing full-time. Some people are obsessed with the idea of making quick money. That’s how success is sold in India. People are willing to invest everything in this gamble, even knowing they might lose to the big players. That is the summary of Indian start-up ecosystem. If you are willing to let go of your moral and ethical values, if you are willing to capitalize on your brand image and existing status symbol rather than the product value itself, then India is a great place to do business! The same is not possible in western countries. Western markets are more demanding. Selling an idea there often requires a strong value proposition, as people are less easily swayed by hype or fear of missing out.

I apologize if I came across as insensitive. I realize that moral principles are often easier to uphold when one is in a position of privilege. When those privileges are taken away, it can be challenging to maintain the same moral standards.

Returning to the academic world, I want to highlight the quality of the research sector. India is now one of the largest producers of research journals, but only 5% of them are of acceptable quality. This ratio may be even lower in technical fields where Indian universities have even worse rankings. I’ve attended a few conferences organized in India, and they’re so mediocre compared to their counterparts in other countries. Most people are there to make connections. I’m not saying that’s bad, but it shouldn’t be the only priority. What you present matters. Your idea matters. Most papers are simply rip-offs of other papers. A few original ones are always poster papers with a "work in progress" banner. There’s hardly any real substance in those papers that would be of great academic value. Even the industrial conferences are subpar. People hardly listen to each other or offer constructive criticism or feedback on others’ work. 

India's current state is, unfortunately, a product of cultural factors. One such factor is the overemphasis on instant success. While ambition is admirable, the pursuit of quick gratification often leads to short-lived achievements. We need to foster a culture that values sustained success and the positive impact it can have on others. Another issue is the prevalence of self-centeredness. To create a more compassionate society, we must prioritize empathy and the importance of considering others' perspectives. Empathy is a cornerstone of effective leadership and should be instilled in all individuals. Finally, while sincerity is already a cultural value, it needs to be reinforced and elevated. By maintaining faith in one's beliefs while also demonstrating kindness and respect for others, we can create a more harmonious and successful society.