India Isn't Held Back by a Lack of Talent. It's Held Back by Mindset.

India has no shortage of intelligent people.

We produce great engineers, doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, researchers and executives. Indians lead some of the world's largest companies. Indian-origin researchers contribute to cutting-edge science around the world.

So whenever I think about why India still struggles with problems that seem completely avoidable, I keep coming back to an uncomfortable conclusion:

A lot of our problems aren't caused by a lack of intelligence or ability. They're caused by the norms we've collectively accepted.

Not every Indian thinks the same way. India is far too large and diverse for that.

And many of these problems aren't uniquely Indian either.

But there are certain attitudes that I think we tolerate far too easily.

Civic Sense

This is perhaps the most obvious one.

Someone finishes a packet of chips and throws it onto the road.

Someone spits on a wall.

Someone drives on the wrong side because it saves thirty seconds.

Someone blocks an intersection because their light was green.

Someone blasts music late at night without considering the people living nearby.

Someone damages public property because "it's government property."

But government property is our property.

A clean street doesn't remain clean because the government employs enough people to continuously pick up everyone's garbage.

It remains clean when millions of people independently decide:

I won't make this place worse for everyone else.

That's civic sense.

Development isn't just skyscrapers, metros and GDP.

It's how people behave when nobody is watching.

Caste

It's strange that in the 21st century, the community someone happened to be born into can still influence whom they're expected to marry, how they're perceived and sometimes even how they're treated.

You don't choose your caste.

You don't achieve your caste.

It tells me almost nothing about your intelligence, character, kindness, competence or potential.

Yet we continue carrying identities created generations ago into decisions about people living today.

Tradition deserves respect when it gives people meaning.

Tradition deserves questioning when it tells us one human being is inherently above or below another.

Religion

Religion can give people community, philosophy, discipline and comfort.

The problem begins when belief becomes something that cannot be questioned.

When political decisions become religious competitions.

When someone's religion determines whether they're considered "one of us."

When criticizing an idea is interpreted as attacking an entire community.

A civilization confident in itself shouldn't be terrified of questions.

Believe whatever makes sense to you.

But we should be capable of living beside someone who believes something completely different—or nothing at all.

Superstition

Astrology deciding marriages.

Auspicious dates deciding when something can begin.

Numerology influencing business decisions.

Miracle cures.

Pseudoscientific WhatsApp forwards.

Ideas being accepted because they're ancient rather than because they're supported by evidence.

Being proud of Indian history doesn't require pretending every ancient claim was scientifically correct.

India genuinely produced extraordinary mathematics, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, architecture and literature.

That history becomes more impressive when we distinguish real achievements from mythology presented as science.

Ask:

How do we know this is true?

That one question is incredibly powerful.

How We Think About Girls

This is one of the attitudes I dislike most.

A girl talks to multiple guys, so people judge her.

She wears certain clothes, so people judge her.

She dates someone, so people judge her.

She doesn't want to marry yet, so people judge her.

She has male friends, so people speculate.

Meanwhile, completely different standards can be applied to men.

Girls aren't some mysterious different species.

They're people.

They have ambitions, attraction, insecurity, intelligence, stupidity, preferences, careers, hobbies and flaws just like men do.

A healthy society shouldn't require women to constantly calculate how completely ordinary behavior will affect their "reputation."

And men need to stop learning about women primarily through stereotypes passed around by other men.

Talk to people.

Treat them as individuals.

It's really not that complicated.

Our Relationship With Risk

There's a familiar life script:

Study hard.

Get good marks.

Get a respectable degree.

Find a stable job.

Don't leave it.

Buy a house.

Get married.

Have children.

Repeat.

There's nothing wrong with choosing that life.

The problem is when it's treated as the only responsible life.

Start a company?

Too risky.

Change careers?

Too risky.

Take a year to build something?

What will people say?

Choose an unconventional profession?

Where is the job security?

Ironically, India needs people willing to do precisely these things.

Companies, technologies, scientific breakthroughs and new industries don't appear because everyone optimized for maximum stability.

We should teach people to understand risk, not simply avoid it.

Failure Is Treated Like a Character Flaw

This connects directly to risk.

Someone tries a business and it fails.

"See? He should have taken the job."

Someone changes careers and struggles.

"What was wrong with the old career?"

Someone attempts something ambitious and publicly fails.

People laugh.

Then we wonder why everyone plays safe.

If we want more experimentation, we need to stop treating unsuccessful experiments as proof that attempting them was stupid.

Failure can mean your idea was bad.

It can mean your execution was bad.

It can mean your timing was bad.

Or sometimes you simply got unlucky.

Take the information.

Learn.

Try again.

Education Optimized for Answers

Our education system can produce students who are extremely good at examinations while being afraid of questions without predetermined answers.

Memorize this.

Repeat that.

Get the marks.

Forget it after the exam.

The student asking "why?" can become an inconvenience because the syllabus needs to be completed.

But outside school, nobody gives you the chapter from which the problem will appear.

Real problems are messy.

You have to identify the problem itself.

You have to search for information.

You have to test assumptions.

Sometimes there isn't a correct answer.

Education should create people who can think, not merely people who can reproduce information.

Obsession With Credentials

Degree.

College.

Job title.

Company.

Salary.

Marks.

These things contain information, but we often let the label replace actually evaluating the person.

Someone from an elite college must be smart.

Someone without a degree must not be qualified.

Someone working at a famous company must be successful.

Reality is much messier.

I'd rather ask:

What can you actually do?

Show me what you've built.

Show me what you've learned.

Show me how you think.

Status Over Substance

Sometimes we spend an absurd amount of energy looking successful rather than becoming successful.

Expensive weddings funded through debt.

Cars purchased partly because relatives will notice.

Job titles optimized for LinkedIn.

Children compared by salaries.

Families comparing houses.

People buying things they barely care about because those things signal that they're doing well.

Imagine redirecting even some of that energy toward investments, businesses, education, travel, health or experiences we genuinely value.

The question shouldn't constantly be:

What will people think?

It should be:

Do I actually want this?

Diet and Health

India has a strange combination of ancient food traditions and increasingly modern sedentary lifestyles.

A meal can contain huge amounts of carbohydrates and relatively little protein, while physical activity has disappeared from many people's daily lives.

Then fitness itself gets reduced to appearance.

Exercise isn't only for getting abs.

Protein isn't only for bodybuilders.

Strength training isn't only for young men.

Walking isn't something you do only when you're trying to lose weight.

Health should be treated like infrastructure for your body.

Sleep well.

Move.

Build strength.

Eat enough protein and micronutrient-rich foods.

Get sunlight.

Maintain a healthy body composition.

Do these things for decades, not three weeks before a wedding.

Cleanliness Inside, Garbage Outside

There's another contradiction I've always found fascinating.

Many Indian households are incredibly clean.

Shoes outside.

Floors swept.

Everything organized.

Then someone walks outside and throws garbage onto the street.

Why does responsibility stop at the gate?

Your house is part of your neighborhood.

Your neighborhood is part of your city.

Your city is part of your country.

Public space deserves the same respect as private space.

"What Will People Say?"

Maybe four of the most expensive words in Indian society are:

Log kya kahenge?

What will people say?

It influences careers.

Relationships.

Marriage.

Clothing.

Education.

Hobbies.

Where people live.

Whether they leave unhappy situations.

Whether they attempt something unconventional.

The funny thing is that the people whose opinions we're terrified of are usually busy worrying about what we think of them.

Imagine how much human potential gets wasted maintaining appearances for an audience that isn't paying nearly as much attention as we imagine.

Authority Should Be Questionable

Age doesn't automatically make someone correct.

Being someone's parent doesn't make every decision correct.

Being a teacher doesn't make every statement correct.

Being a politician doesn't make someone correct.

Having a PhD doesn't make every opinion correct.

Respect and questioning can coexist.

You can respect your parents and disagree with them.

You can respect a professor and challenge an argument.

You can love your country and criticize something about it.

In fact, criticism can come precisely because you care.

We Need More Trust

A high-trust society is incredibly powerful.

Imagine if you could generally assume:

People will follow the queue.

Drivers will follow the rules.

Businesses won't scam you.

Officials won't demand bribes.

Customers won't disappear without paying.

People won't destroy something simply because nobody is watching.

Every time trust disappears, we replace it with friction.

More paperwork.

More security.

More verification.

More guards.

More contracts.

More bureaucracy.

More wasted time.

Trust is invisible infrastructure.

And every citizen contributes to it.

India Doesn't Need Different Indians

This isn't an argument that Indians are somehow inferior.

Quite the opposite.

Take the same Indian and put them inside a different system with different expectations and you'll often see different behavior.

People adapt.

Culture evolves.

Norms change.

That's why I'm optimistic.

We don't need to abandon Indian culture.

We don't need to imitate another country.

And we certainly don't need to hate India to acknowledge its problems.

We need to become more willing to question the parts of our culture that no longer serve us.

Keep the food.

Keep the languages.

Keep the festivals.

Keep the families.

Keep the art.

Keep the philosophy.

Keep the extraordinary diversity.

Keep the things worth keeping.

But caste discrimination isn't sacred.

Misogyny isn't culture.

Superstition isn't science.

Littering isn't inevitable.

Fear of failure isn't wisdom.

Blind obedience isn't respect.

And "that's how we've always done it" isn't an argument.

India has more than enough talent.

What we need is a culture that gives that talent more room to think, question, experiment, cooperate and build.

Because ultimately, a developed country isn't created only by governments, billionaires or infrastructure projects.

It's created by the everyday behavior of hundreds of millions of ordinary people.

Including me.

Including you.