In this article, I would like to discuss one particular trend about India which the world respects it for and the role which the word ‘problem’ seems to have played in it. I am talking about amazing feats which have been achieved by Indians in the field of Information Technology all across the globe today. In ways more than one, Indians today provide most of the solutions when it comes to complex mathematical, analytical and numerical challenges, IT being one such supreme example.
There are countless examples to substantiate the above. General Electronics has set-up the largest research centre in Bangalore, forty percent of the 500 biggest companies have their back offices in India and many employees in places such as NASA, Microsoft, Intel and IBM are Indians. Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems, Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame and Vinod Dham, the person who created the Pentium chip are all Indians. We also know about the achievements of the homegrown IT companies such as Infosys founded by Narayana Murthy, Wipro by Azim Premji, TCS and many others. The stories about Indian accomplishments in this sector are countless.
There was been numerous studies done in the past to try and understand the reasons behind this seemingly inherent Indian skill. Most of them have covered the important factors such as how we have traditionally been a nation of people with a deep sense of understanding and application of mathematics and analysis. The Indus Valley and Harappa Civilization made extensive use of measurements for length, mass and time. They were amongst the first to generate standards for weights and measurement and it is also true that these cities could not have been constructed without the knowledge of geometry. Then we had mathematicians like Aryabhatta I (from the fifth century AD), Brahmagupta (from the sixth century AD), Mahavira (from the ninth century AD) and Bhaskara (from the twelth century AD) whose contribution to mathematics and astrology cannot be overemphasized.
Another significant reason was the initiative taken by the government during the initial years post independence. The early leaders (Jawaharlal Nehru in particular) who had a clear focus and made substantial investments in the field of higher and technical education and institutions such as the IITs, the REC and several others came into existence/ started to flourish. During the initial Five Year plans, as much as one quarter of the education development budget was spent on technical education.
A great influence on the Indian minds was also fashioned by the opportunities which started opening up post liberalization initiatives taken by the government in early nineties. People from small towns as well as cities saw examples of others making getting well-paid jobs across the world with an engineering degree and likewise. In a country of scarcity and limited opportunities which India had always been, there was suddenly a burst of prospects. People saw examples of kids getting packages with a starting monthly salary which was more than the annual salary of the parents. A strong sense of possibility emerged and it led to an increase in aspiration as well as effort in the hearts of millions.
While each of the above factors are indeed true and have played a dominant role in the progress of the Indian IT and software industry, there is another unique language trait, popularly used in everyday lingo which I wanted to explore in this article. My discussion here is about the manner of usage and the prevalence of the word ‘problem’ in India.
Ever since I was in school and even later in college, I remember that most of the questions in the mathematics text book were labeled as ‘problems’ and not merely as ‘questions’. Even when it came to subjects such as Physics and Chemistry, there used to be a combination of ‘questions’ and ‘problems’. It was customary with the teachers for these subjects to leave the classroom with ten ‘problems’ to solve after having shared one example. Even the question papers during the examinations used to glaringly challenge us to work on ‘problems’ while for other subjects they would remain merely as questions. There were text books with hundreds of problems while for other subjects there were stories to read and essays to write.
What is interesting to note here is that almost all subjects would label ‘questions’ as ‘questions’ or use a neutral approach by using Roman Numerals, alphabets or just numbers. However, when it came to subjects such as Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry our lives would magically be doomed with ‘problems’.
One possible inference we can draw from such nomenclature is the fact that these subjects traditionally occupied a status which was different from others in the minds of its teachers. While a study in other subjects would result in questions which were to be replied to, when it came to numerical and analytical subjects, there were problems which required deep thinking and a methodical approach to arrive at a solution. While other subjects had material which could be memorized and recreated, these subjects required application of concepts taught in a completely new scenario during the examination. In some way, though not always vocally, the teachers in these areas of study attached a greater amount of importance to these subjects over others.
It is also interesting to note that as we grow up, we continue using the word ‘problem’ as a part of our everyday life. As we grow older and more responsible, we feel that we are in a life stage where we need to prove our real worth and make use of all the knowledge and experience gathered during the ‘brahmacharya’ or the learning years of our life. It is at this time, when we move into the so called ‘real’ world that we face challenges most often completely unique from what we have known in the past. And, during such a period, we once again resort to the usage of the word ‘problem’ whenever there is a daunting task at hand. We say that once we get a better paying job, all our ‘problems’ will get resolved; my boss seems to have some real ‘problem’ with me which I am not able to understand; the ‘problem’ with this client is that they don’t have money; the crux of the ‘problem is; ‘Dost, ek problem hain, koi solution bol’, etc.
When analyzed deeply, we find a lot of evidence which suggests that we attach the word ‘problem’ to tasks which are of importance as well as require mental and emotional effort to resolve. When we use this word, there is a sudden flash of memory from the sub-conscious reminding us about the enormous effort we used to put-in to overcome similar daunting situations at a very tender age. Any situation to which this word gets attached, assumes a sudden sense of seriousness and urgency in the same way in which we would break our heads to complete ten problem assignments in school.
Coming back to the success of the IT and software industry in India, which depends on a work force of people with superior numerical and analytical skills amongst others, one cannot undermine the importance of the factors such as our brilliance with these subjects in our past, the efforts put in the government to develop these areas of study and also the burst of opportunities in this industry. However, maybe in a small secretive manner, there is a significant role which language (especially the word problem) has played by adding a sense of importance and urgency to these areas of study.
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