subject: Creativty & India [print this page] Creativity & India Creativity & India
In my schooldays, I remember a boy who made innovative applications of various scientific theories. When others went on with demos of those theories, lifted from the textbook, this fellow cut a different block. This showcasing of work, what we'd call "science exhibition" was an annual event in our school that would carry no academic marks. I'd always wonder about this boy who was considered a mediocre by the strength of his marks-sheet. He would make me ponder over the net output of our academic systems that gives no stress on creativity & talent.
In later part of my life, I've always seen this discrimination against creativity & originality, which is rampant in our various establishments & a deep-rooted malaise in our collective conscience as Indians.
One may ask how can I explain the visible indicators of "India shining" in fields ranging from IT to music.
Most of our so-called much-vaunted Indian brains are first recognized & upheld by the west for reasons ranging from humanitarian to hidden marketing agenda. Also, most of their ideas, forgive me to say this, are conformist to or a linear progression on prevalent western ideas. If the west doesn't uphold any Indian original or creative idea, then, I can almost predict with certainty that we will haul the idea over coal & eventually chuck it in fire.
Our patriarchal, caste-ridden, family-oriented societal system is actually a bane of creative thinking. In my opinion, what we tom-tom as great Indian value-system is actually a murderer mindset in disguise. The primary precondition for any creativity to flourish is a fearless & free mind. In India a bright mind, as is its wont, is always at odds with a conformist society. No wonder he faces blinding hatred & hostility directed to him. Daggers come out of cloaks like, family/parental aspiration & honour, caste-pride, or, on the flip side caste-hatred, religious-prestige, or, on the flip-side religious-hatred.
Also, in India, over centuries, we've monetized these social systems in the form of inheritance of wealth through succession, caste & dowry-based marriages. There is no system of paying royalty to creativity because this form of wealth-transfer on a continuous basis to somebody not related through blood-connection or marriage is totally unacceptable to the business-caste. If the seed of creativity is found within the family, this too is not encouraged with investments for flowering, as we don't know how to monetize it. There's no Indian model for monetizing creativity than looking for state or international awards or, at best a distress-sale to a foresighted investor. State also doesn't pay any role besides honouring some creative minds with medals, citation & one-time award money. It's a fact in this country that a creative invention or grounds-breaking work in any field will not offer its creator a lifelong guarantee of income. So eventually he has to leave his dream, as it were, and look for a job instead. Or, take shelter under the financial security of his family. A creative mind in India wouldn't dare to think of a kind of patent money that Mr. Alfred Nobel had earned by inventing dynamite. No wonder, we are a nation of copycats.
Our lawmakers are products & beneficiaries of the same system & arguably the most uncreative lot, so understandably, they don't want to change the system. Indian patent & copyright acts are primarily a contribution of the British & they are over a century old. They call for seminal changes according to the needs of modern times & timely inventions, designs, innovative works in terms of the scope & practices as well as the rewards.
Indian copyright act, now on scrutiny, has generated public interest thanks to now famous Amir Khan-dissent. I am not much hopeful of any path-breaking outcome from this amendment exercise. In life, I've experienced the minddset of particularly Indian business-castes & generally the Indian people, they are so diabolically loaded against the concept of royalty. The favourite argumentative hobby-horse is predictably the cost factor. Unless bound by a stringent international patent-copyright act (the act in its present forms are awfully inadequate in scope & lack teeth for implementation), their psyche won't change.
If a creative mind is assured by the society & law that he/she will be enough rewarded, not in heaven but in his lifetime, by the compatriots & citizens of his/her own country, then only he will be able to work without the fear of betting on life. The fear of failure may, or, may not be there, but the fear of starving after being successful should be erased from their minds. As a nation, I believe it's our collective responsibility.
Before I end this writing, let me share an alarming trend that of late, I've noticed in a section of serious business minds in the west. There is a voice in the west that espouses the idea of abolition of copyrights, particularly in areas of design & design-thinking on the ground of cost-competitiveness. We may look at it as a sunny opportunity for India as it would open up the market of the west for Indian designers. But, if this to happen, we as human race is all set to take a collective plunge into the abyss of self-destruction & do the groundwork of erasing ourselves from the face of this planet by blowing out the very force that has established us as superior species creativity.
