1. Ce qui bloque l’Inde dans sa marche en
avant

2. Values and norms that shape a behaviour
. …”Make power plants, improve the roads, open up the
economy. It isn’t the lack of such ideas that is stalling
progress.
No, blocking progress is part of the unique psyche
of Indians. There are three traits of our psyche, in
particular, that are not good for us and our country.
Each comes from three distinct sources – our school, our
environment and our home. “
Chetan Baghat Times of India

3. The first trait is servility.
• At school, our education system hammers out our
individual voices and kills our natural creativity, turning
us into servile, coursematerial slaves.
• Indian kids are not encouraged to raise their voices in
class, particularly when they disagree with the teacher.
And of course, no subject teaches us imagination,
creativity or innovation. Course materials are designed
for no-debate kind of teaching.

4. For example, we ask:
how many states are there in India? 28. Correct.
Next question: how is a country divided into states?
What criteria should be used? Since these are never
discussed, children never develop their own
viewpoint or the faculty to think.
The first trait is servility.

5. The second trait is our numbness to
injustice.
• It comes from our environment. We see corruption from our
childhood. Almost all of us have been asked to lie about our age to
the train TC, claiming to be less than 5 years old to get a free ride.
• It creates a value system in the child’s brain that ‘anything goes’, so
long as you can get away with it. A bit of lying here, a bit of cheating
there is seen as acceptable.
• Hence, we all grow up slightly numb to corruption. Not even one
high profile person in India is behind bars for corruption right
now. This could be because, to a certain extent, we don’t really
care.
• What impact on fair leadership attitudes?

6. The third trait is divisiveness
• This often comes from our home, particularly our family and
relatives, where we learn about the differences amongst people. Our
religion, culture and language are revered and celebrated in our
families.
• Other people are different – and often implied to be not as good as
us. We’ve all known an aunt or uncle who, though is a good person,
holds rigid bias against Muslims, Dalits or people from different
communities.
• Even today, most of India votes on one criterion – caste. Dalits vote
for Dalits, Thakurs for Thakurs and Yadavs for Yadavs. In such a
scenario, why would a politician do any real work?
• Same could be applied to selection of teams or key people in
companies

7. The third trait is divisiveness
• This often comes from our home, particularly our family and
relatives, where we learn about the differences amongst people. Our
religion, culture and language are revered and celebrated in our
families.
• Other people are different – and often implied to be not as good as
us. We’ve all known an aunt or uncle who, though is a good person,
holds rigid bias against Muslims, Dalits or people from different
communities.
• Even today, most of India votes on one criterion – caste. Dalits vote
for Dalits, Thakurs for Thakurs and Yadavs for Yadavs. In such a
scenario, why would a politician do any real work?
• Same could be applied to selection of teams or key people in
companies