While we struggle to understand the different mind of India, it was all accidentally summed up years ago by F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer of The Great Gatsby, who said “…the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”. He could not have realised that he had just described the difference between India and the west.
It was the Greeks who gave the west their version of logical thought and absolute thinking (this is right, that is wrong) and as a result westerners are only able to focus on consistent ideas. But, in contrast, India’s colourful and vibrant belief system has embraced opposing ideas such as destruction and creation, good and evil, all within the one. Indian culture embraces paradox – two competing ideas often go together
How does this difference show up in business? One senior mining executive put it to me this way – the problem negotiating with Indians is that they definitely are keen to do business while at the same feel content to walk away from the deal. Two opposing mindsets in the one mind confuse our “one tracked mind” negotiators.
Another example of this difference is in “jugaad” – Indian “frugal innovation”. With a different way of looking at two separate things, Indians can create innovation from almost nothing – such as combining a motorcycle and some plumbing to create irrigation, or putting a motor on a trailer to create a truck. From these small examples, Indians take a different view and this is why their businesses have grown rapidly, often without access to easy capital.
This history of “jugaad” explains why so many business visitors are surprised to find that India is a smart, innovative economy.
A further difference with the west is the Indian belief that nothing lasts forever – the west on the other hand strives for longevity, if not permanence. One good example is the most loved god Ganesha, the human body with an elephant head who is the “remover of all obstacles” – if he was a western god, ways would be found to hold him permanently, but in India he is farewelled each year as Indians cast clay statues of him into the water, praying for his return.
It was out of this conviction of impermanence that India developed the unique concepts of karma (cause and effect) and maya (that we misunderstand the nature of reality, what we latch on to is illusion) and these ideas become central to cross-cultural differences between India and the west.
Helping us understand cross-cultural difference is a lifelong commitment of Devdutt Pattanaik who is Chief Cultural Officer at Future Group and an expert on mythology and its impact on how we operate. He points out: “In Greek mythology (forerunner of rational thought), chaos turns into order after a series of revolutions led by the Giants, then Titans, then Olympians and then humans. In biblical mythology, God creates the world and it is orderly until humans break the rules tempted by the Devil. In Hindu mythology, the world comes into existence when we wake up and becomes less frightening and more meaningful the more aware we become. In Chinese mythology, order exists in heaven and it can be replicated in our lives if we follow the Emperor who has the Mandate of Heaven to create heaven on earth. Everyone is convinced in the validity of their own understanding of the world. Wisdom lies in allowing others to mock our version as stupid.”
This goes a long way towards explaining the resilience of Indians. Take the case of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chair and Managing Director, Biocon Ltd who originally trained in beer brewing and found all doors closed: “My philosophy in life is that every failure can be converted into a success. As somebody said, defeat is temporary but giving up is permanent. The way I approached it was that I am going to be just not brainwashed by perceptions. I thought let me do it my way."
One outcome of western misunderstanding of India is we take too much of a short term or “band-aid” approach, nervously jumping when problems arise – without realising the great capacity of Indians to tolerate problems and their patience in finding solutions. Quick western responses are often not sustained, so outcomes are less than could be.
As Governments around the western world place more and more emphasis on security in the Indian Ocean region, they remain largely unsure how to go about it. Layers of complexity are not their speciality. They will have to know more about the mind of Indians to do well – right now the “Indo” part is losing focus as uncertainty leads to inactivity.
How can this confusion between India and the west be overcome? How can there be some accommodation between minds that live comfortably with two opposing views and the western single minded approach? A wonderful way to build long term relationships is via student contacts at school and university level, combined with short internships for new employees.
There are exchange programs now, but not on sufficient scale. Historically the Colombo Plan was large scale and meant many current Asian leaders had lived and studied in the west for some time.
It is now time to look the other way – providing a regular flow of our western students and young leaders to gain exposure to Asia and overcome some of the misconceptions in the survey findings.
To do this well, we need to deeply understand what is on the mind of India - the concern at the centre is that young Indian graduates and employees are not “world ready”. One response for English speaking western countries would be to send students and young employees with the mission to assist young Indians with spoken English and understanding western cultures – and in the process come closer to Indian culture. That is, by helping India in this way we actually gain benefit too – now, that’s an Indian way of thinking.
Building this understanding would be far superior to some of the ideas floating around in western countries, such as boosting the teaching of Hindi in schools – can you imagine how difficult it is to get beyond a basic conversational level? India has 26 major languages and in many parts Hindi is not spoken at all. My point is that language is not the key to success - knowing how the other person thinks is vastly more important than struggling with their language.
India has major security problems on its doorstep, so many western countries find it difficult to get their Indian counterparts to focus outside immediate boundaries. Perhaps if we connected with the mind of India, we would gain more of their attention.