The Difference Principle

Can ethnic identity and individual freedom coexist?

Joel Kotkin from the February 1993 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

Much the same kind of transformation is taking place, under quite different circumstances, on the Indian subcontinent. Traditionally, Indians abroad have kept their man (heart) in India even as they placed their dhan (wealth) in Britain and their tan (body) in a third country, often in Asia or Africa. But overseas Indians, encouraged by recent liberalizations in their homeland, have begun to look for ways to break down the traditionally inward-looking socialist regime.

As with the overseas Chinese, the Indian diaspora looks to apply in its homeland the habits of self-help and individualism fostered abroad. Particularly suited to this task are those tens of thousands of Indian technologists who have migrated to areas such as Silicon Valley over the past four decades. Several hundred have become millionaires, playing prominent roles in the founding of such firms as Sun Microsystems.

But unleashing this intellectual power is possible only if the country removes its entrenched system of regulation, suggests Kiran Mazumdar, founder of Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company. Mazumdar, who was trained in Australia, doubts whether more Indians abroad will invest as long as they have to deal with such obstacles as 100 percent duties on high tech equipment or seemingly interminable waits for export licenses. "Things always seem to be stuck in Delhi," she complains, adding with obvious disgust, "Maybe I haven’t found the right people to pay off."

Yet over time Mazumdar sees India, particularly with the fall of its old Soviet ally, forced to adopt the attitudes of the global diaspora. The critical players in this process, she believes, will not be the traditional heroes of Indian lore–the religious saint, the military hero, or the charismatic political leader–but business and technical people returning from abroad.

One such returnee is Anupam Saranwala, who came home to India in 1991 after a decade working as an engineer in California. He now manages a new personal computer board factory for Silicon Valley Technologies, a start-up firm founded by Anil and Sucheta Kapuria, a San Jose- based couple. The Kapurias, in turn, are bankrolled by the Harilelas and other leading Indian trading families.

Saranwala envisions enormous opportunities in an India invigorated by an individualist and cosmopolitan spirit. "We can transfer the results-oriented culture of California to the time oriented culture of India," he says as he walks through Bhangel, the dusty Uttar Pradesh village near the new factory. "India has the people and the talent. What they need is the opportunity to perform. We know the Indians in America and elsewhere have done it. We know that model works. Then le India take off, inevitably, in its own direction."

The massive problems facing India, with its huge impoverished population and its legacy of monumental misrule an’ corruption, make it easy to dismiss the likes of Saranwala a hopeless dreamers, pushing against centuries of social and cultural inertia. Yet the history of global tribes reveals the enormous possibilities for change unleashed by the spread of individualist and cosmopolitan ideas even to the most destitute of settings.

A relative handful of people animated by a common heritage can change the course of history through contact with the glob, economy and the subsequent acquisition of new technologies, skills, and attitudes. As the spread of technology, satellite dishes, telephones, and jet aircraft further accelerates the process, telescoping the distance from Silicon Valley to Bhangel in a manner unprecedented in earlier dispersions, the growth of global tribes could help lay the foundations for the development of a workable global cosmopolis.