India and cheap IT
As an Indian, I don't consider IT to be a savior of the country. Just don't. Sure it THE fastest growing sector, and booming along with mobile and internet penetration in the country, but its known as a place for cheap labor, and not otherwise. India probably needed such a boom for its economic revival, but at what cost? The companies hire in thousands, dumping the freshers right out of college in one of their many development sheds, where they code as zombies all day, day after day. And the sad part is, they don't mind it!
This post about Indian IT companies cutting down their costs just enrages me! How low will you stoop to make money? If the companies think they are doing the country a favor by earning foreign exchange and by providing jobs for the educated, No they aren't. The companies themselves want the rupee to weaken against the dollar as it earns them more in foreign exchange. And providing jobs? Oh please, don't get me started. An entire generation of youth are brainwashed by their families, the education system, their friends, and by the companies to think that IT is the only way forward. They don't give a damn about what you studied! They don't give a damn about what you like or are good at! All they want it you as cheap labor. DEAD cheap labor.
How many in this generation really have a passion for computers? What percentage of freshers taken into IT companies are actually from the Computer background? And out of those Comp grads, how many actually have the skills, the programming knowledge required for the industry? I bet the number is less than 5 percent. And that is just depressing. For all the hoopla around it, IT is making Indian youngsters dumber, and duller. They start thinking, nay believing that a 20-25k month job is very good, that working in a so called top IT company makes you look cool, and get drawn into its party hard culture. Never mind that you are being paid 1/6th of what your company is charging the clients. Never mind that the reason they put you in bench is because for every person on the project, they can charge the clients even more. Never mind that you unconsciously are getting brain drained, and get used to the lower standards that are the benchmark in the industry!
I won't put the blame entirely on the IT companies. Sure they don't do anything, or don't want to do anything to stop this brain drain. But the main problem starts with the education system. Its all about scoring marks without an idea of what to do. Its all about a syllabus that is 10 years old, outdated and buried. Its about professors and teachers who know very little of modern developments, and still stick to their old ideas cause their ego is too big to allow them to accept that they are the ones getting outdated. Its about a country, a society that thinks IITs and IIMs are the be all and end all of education. While I don't dispute their relative quality, how many Nobel prize winners have come from IITs? How many life changing inventions, that are available to the public are from those universities? How many of those intelligent students stay back and try to do something at the grass root level? These are all questions that need to be answered and fast.
IT has given India a new lease of life. But we are getting used to being called cheap labor and being mediocre, instead of growing out of it. I would like to see an India firm come out with genuinely state of the art software or system. Look at ISRO and DRDO. The vision of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Abdul Kalam has put them right at the top of the game. India was only the 5th country in the world to launch a satellite, and that too a mere 40 years after Independence. They started from scratch, with a very limited budget, and are still the best out there. The IT industry needs visionaries - not profit makers. We need to raise our standards, be more innovative, work to solve the problems specific to our country. We need to find the real bright students, treat them with respect, and give them challenging tasks. Mundane programming is necessary. It feeds thousands. But its should not be made common to everyone. Freshers need to outgrow the company. Don't get stuck in a rut, cause once you start feeling comfortable you will not get out of it.
And stop calling yourself cheap labor. That is degrading to yourself, your country and personally offends me. We are mere tech clerks now - doing the dirty and boring job of the multi nationals. Grow out of it. Or the next generation will start settling down into the hold you've dug, and India will forever remain a "developing" country.
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