A friend of mine has forwarded me the following imagined conversation. Biden, Putin and Xi were arguing on who’s in charge of the world? The US , Russia or China? Without any conclusion , they turned to “Narendra Modi”, the Indian Prime Minister and asked him who’s in charge of the world?
Modi replied, “All I know is:
- Google CEO is an Indian.
- Microsoft CEO is an Indian.
- Adobe CEO is an Indian.
- Net App CEO is an Indian.
- MasterCard CEO is an Indian.
- DBS CEO is an Indian.
- Novartis CEO is an Indian.
- Diageo CEO is an Indian.
- SanDisk CEO is an Indian.
- Harman CEO is an Indian.
- Micron CEO is an Indian.
- Palo Alto Networks CEO is an Indian.
- Reckitt Benckiser CEO is an Indian.
- IBM CEO is an Indian.
- Britain’s Chancellor is an Indian.
- Britain’s Home Secretary is an Indian.
- Ireland’s Prime minister is an Indian .
- And the American Vice President is Indian .
So who’s running the World ?
The above joke is very interesting and is (arguably) based on facts. The Overseas Indians are doing much better than Overseas Chinese in English speaking countries. This I subscribe, is mostly because the educated Indians have acclimatized to or have assimilated the English/American cultures.
Another reason, and I have written this in one of my blogs, is because of different communication style. Communication assertiveness was found to be the factor that enabled more Indianss to be admitted to the executive suites. To a large degree, these ethnic differences in assertiveness can be attributed to culture. “Strongly influenced by Confucianism, East Asian cultures are characterized by humility, conformity, and interpersonal harmony.”
It is precisely for the same reasons that the Chinese have done well in their native China while the overseas Indians are doing well in English speaking western countries.
Both countries were comparable in gdp per capita terms in 1990. In 2021, China is almost 5.4 times richer than India on the nominal and 2.58 times richer as measured in the GDP ppp method.
IMHO, cultural awareness and adoptation is the difference!
1) India is a complex mix of subcultures and languages, and English has become a major means of intercommunication. So cultural flexibility is a norm. It’s interesting to contrast the success of Indians against that of Pakistanis. Both are essentially the same ethnicity except the latter chose to carve themselves away with an exclusive Islamic mindset.
2) India has a strong tradition of the intellect….with their numerous philosophies logical/mathematical systems.
3) Indians are visibly Caucasians….just of a darker shade. Which right away makes their transition into White society smoother than for more remote races.