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Murli Melwani: Why do innovators thrive in the U.S.?


G.J. McCarthy/Staff Photographer

Why does a young person like Param Jaggi find success in the U.S. but not in India, where his family is from? Jaggi, a graduate of Plano East Senior High School, is working on an invention that would remove carbon dioxide from car exhaust systems before it made its way into the atmosphere.

The Fourth of July is an occasion that evokes emotion in all of us. For me, it is also a time of reflection. As a first-generation American, I have a dual perspective — American and Indian. In trying to look for common ground between different ways of living, I find myself making comparisons.

One of the questions I ask is: Why is it that many Indians succeed overseas, particularly in the U.S, and not in their home country?

I move the searchlight over Indian Americans in various walks of life. The most visible, of course, are the professionals who have made Indians a model community in the U.S. These are your doctors, engineers and the IT visa-holders who walk the corridors of innovation.

Then there are the more than 100,000 Indian-American students in U.S. colleges and universities. Though many are bright, there are a number of standouts. Ritankar Das in May became the youngest person at the University of California, Berkeley to complete a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology in only three years — at the ripe old age of 18.

If we look in our neck of the woods, we have teenagers such as Aarav Chavda, a graduate of St. Mark’s School of Texas, and Param Jaggi, a Plano East graduate. Chavda’s Earthwalkers Charities donates shoes to Mexico, El Salvador, India and China. Jaggi has created and obtained a patent for an algae-filled device that fits over a car’s tailpipe and turns carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Then there are those who have gone to the top in various fields, including Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo; Sabeer Bhatia, who invented Hotmail and sold it to Microsoft for $400 million; Lakshmi Mittal, who owns steel plants in the U.S., Kazakhstan, Mexico and elsewhere; and Gururaj Deshpande of Sycamore Networks, a communications company valued at more than $30 billion.

The raison d’etre for these success stories is that the U.S. observes and honors the rule of law. Law, not just as a set of judicial rules. Law, as an ethical principle that ensures justice for all. Law, as a mind-set that apportions rewards according to merit.

In India and other developing countries, the mind-set is locked into hierarchical traditions. These traditions have less to do with culture or religion than with practice. One unstated principle is that the powerful can disregard laws. Another is that people in power should promote the welfare of family, relations and friends, irrespective of merit. In brief, laws in such countries exist as statutes on the books, not as rules that should be conscientiously enforced.

People with talent and merit cannot rise to their full potential in India because they lack the right connections. Entrepreneurs cannot flourish because the licenses they need to operate their businesses come with under-the-table capitation fees for the inspectors.

If I were to visualize how some of the high achievers mentioned above would function in India, I see Mittal spending his days fighting the politically instigated trade unions; Jaggi being obliged to put away his thinking cap and memorize texts, an IT programmer working at a call center and, in a faux American accent, telling you how to reset your computer.

So what do the talented and the skilled do? They look for countries and systems that will acknowledge and encourage their talent.

Once these individuals relocate to rule-based societies, they spread their wings like condors, birds that glide and soar the highest and longest.

My birthday wish for the U.S. is this: May our blue skies always be open for the creative, the ambitious, the fearless of the world to soar on wings of achievement — for their own sake and for the sake of their adoptive country.


Murli Melwani is a Plano resident. His blog can be read at indoenglishstories.blogspot.com. His email address is murli@unigain.net.

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