Realization, Apology and Beyond

This write up is based on my previous article, The Great Indian Paradox. So, in case you haven’t read that one, do it before you read this one!

My previous article invited a lot of criticism from quite a few of my able readers. This forced me to re-think on it, in terms of the concept, argument and conclusion. After an earnest effort I realized some serious shortcomings in it. They were… My conclusion was based upon very specific examples, and in doing so, I contradicted a golden rule, ‘exceptions don’t prove a law’. Many other reasons were brought to my notice as to why Indians travel abroad and live there, which I had not taken into consideration. At one point I decided to scrap that entire article, but realized that a person cannot be right all the time. Mistakes do happen, but once pointed out; the following actions must be taken. Acknowledge the fact that you were wrong, apologize for it and try to fix it.

So I apologize for my previous conclusion which was based upon a half-baked idea.

Here, I would like to sight some good counter examples to my previously sighted examples and conclude just the opposite of what I had concluded earlier.

A vast majority of Indians travel abroad for more opportunities at personal as well as professional front. If our country has less opportunities (compared to the developed countries), this doesn’t make our country ordinary. Also, just living in our own country doesn’t qualify a person to be termed a patriot. Moreover if a person lives abroad and contributes to his country, directly or indirectly, it certainly is an act of patriotism.

The prominent examples of such personalities which I would sight are Jiddu Krishnamurti, Amartya Sen, and of course Aravind Adiga.

For beginners, Jiddu Krishnamurti (JK as he was popularly known), was one of the awe-inspiring writers, public speakers and philosophers of the 19th century. He came from a very poor family and could barely speak English. But, during the British raj, Annie Besant took him into her custody, recognizing his potential and leadership qualities. This gave him a good exposure to various subjects including English. Later on he travelled to Europe and America giving public speeches in English about spirituality, psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and how to enact positive change in society. He continued living in Ojai (pronounced as O-high), California, for the rest of his life and was awarded UN peace medal in 1984. He couldn’t have achieved all this, had he not travelled abroad. Also his was a fair choice to opt for travelling abroad when it had boiled down to a prosperous life, growth and opportunities at one end or live in poverty, ill-health and illiteracy, instead.

It is highly unlikely that you haven’t heard about Amartya Sen. Even in his case, had he not travelled to the UK and subsequently to the US, it would have been almost impossible for him to win a Nobel Prize. (He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998) He undertook travel, purely for his academic work and research purpose. There was more opportunity in these two countries than ours, so he could do what he did. Again would it be fair on us to expect him to have remained confined to our country and not made contributions to the economic advances of the world. I guess not!

The last, but not the least, example I would like to sight is that of Aravind Adiga, who won the 2008 Man Booker’s Prize for his book The White Tiger. Adiga, travelled to Australia along with his family at the age of 16. Later he went to the prestigious Columbia University in the US, where he obtained his degree in literature. Later, he travelled to the Oxford University on a scholarship to pursue his Masters. Now having that kinda educational background, it was only appropriate for him to take up a job opportunity in a firm which matched his standard. So, he worked for the Wall Street Journal and again undertook extensive travel. After he won the Booker Prize, in his interview, he credited his achievements to his job which provided him with extensive travel opportunities along with the people of India.

Now, would it not be appropriate for us to term these intellects as true patriots who have put us on the global map because of their contribution to the society. In deed this is true service to the nation.

All the above mentioned people achieved personal as well as professional growth by traveling abroad. So if a person wants to grow, by no means he/she becomes less patriotic towards his/her nation. A country becomes great only if its people achieve higher standards on both, personal as well as professional front.

These were just few names that I sighted, and I am sure you could find a few hundred more similar names without much efforts. Clearly the counter examples outnumber the earlier sighted examples. So, the conclusion based upon the counter examples must be definitely stronger and more accurate than the previous one drawn.