White man's burden

"Research is all fraud", a friend of mine had told me. He is a graduate from IIT, an engineer by training and a trader by profession. "PhD is our national timepass" - CEO of a very successful BPO in India had once spoken these words in a townhall meeting of his company. He too was from IIT and an MBA from a top B-school in the US. When I had told someone that in the pharma company where I work, we design processes to make drugs. He did not believe me. We cannot design chemical processes, we can only 'buy' them. We, the citizens of India, are truly 'third world' in our attitude. And, it is not the common man, but it is the highly educated - even the engineers from the so-called best engineering colleges of the country. We believe we cannot create anything new. As a consequence, all research is fraud, a waste of time for us. This is the reason why I find that the most proactive peers of my undergraduate class are now MBAs and bankers. It is the 'white man's burden' to create technology and drugs and all the good things in life. We are happy to create their replicas and cheap 'jugads', we are happy to manage their finances, we are happy to invest their money in futures and derivatives trading.