  Convocation Address at the IIT Delhi,  2001 by Shri.  N.  R. Narayana Murthy,  on The Indian of the 21st Century Dear graduating students,
 families,  guests,  faculty members,  the Director,  the Chairman and members of the Board of Governors:  my felicitations to you on this happy occasion.
 I am thankful to the Chairman of the Governing Council and the Director for the honour of participating in this landmark event.  My young friends:  today,  by your hard work and smartness,  you have been certified as learned by the elders of this institution.  For me,
 there is no greater joy than being with the young and the learned.  I am reminded of a Sanskrit sloka that glorifies the educated person:  Swagruhe poojyate jheshtha;  swagraame poojyate prabhuhu;  swadeshe poojyate raja;  vidwan sarvatra poojyate (
The eldest is respected in the house;  the head- villager is respected in his own village;  a king is respected in his own country;  a learned person is respected everywhere)  Graduation is a watershed event in one's life.
 On this important day,  it is worthwhile to ponder over what the purpose of all these years of education has been,  and how you can use your education to make a difference to society.  Progress is based on dreams and requires change.  Change requires learning.  Education is about learning to learn.
 I recall the words of Eric Hoffer who said:  In a time of drastic change,  it is the learners who inherit the future.  The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.  Indeed,  we live in a world where change is everywhere and constant learning is essential.
 In today's world,  natural resources or military strength do not determine the pace of a nation's progress.  Education does.  Education is about raising the confidence of an individual to think a worthy dream and to translate that dream to reality by high performance action.  It is about opening up one's mind to accept new ideas,  to evaluate them and to use them for progress.
 In a country where 28%  of the youth is illiterate,  you must be grateful to your parents,  your teachers and your country for providing you with this instrument.  It is appropriate that you think about a few important questions on this day.  Has India made sufficient progress since independence?
 Can we be happy about this progress?  Have we kept up with pace of progress in the rest of world?  Have we achieved progress that is sustainable?  Have we fulfilled the dreams of our founding fathers who wanted an India where every individual will be free and will be provided with wherewithal to rise to his /  her fullest stature?  Can we dream of an India where poverty,
 ill- health and ignorance will have vanished?  To borrow the words of Rabindranath Tagore,  an India where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;  where knowledge is free.  Dear students:
 the India where we -  your fathers and mothers and I -  started our careers is long gone.  When India started its tryst with destiny,  there was an enthusiasm for nation- building that lasted till the early 1960s.
 As you know,  this dissipated into frustration by the 1970s.  I was a die- hard socialist at that time -  concerned about removing poverty.  Among other things,
 the travails of creating and running a business put paid to all illusions I had about the merits of centralized planning.  Importing a computer required the head of a corporation to make 20 to 25 trips to Delhi.  A clerk in RBI would take five days to decide whether the MD of a software firm could travel abroad for a day!  In those days,  the successful Indian was one who had good contacts with the omnipotent Babudom.  With the 1991 reforms,
 we secured a measure of freedom to make economic decisions within the corporation.  Now,  we could get down to the serious business of creating wealth and,  consequently,  creating a better society.  The sense of enthusiasm was a marked contrast to the earlier years.
 In the decade gone by,  several Indian companies have competed successfully with the best in the world.  Indian professionals now command the highest respect across the globe.  Rajat Gupta,  Vinod Khosla and other alumni from your institute have gone on to mould and create institutions to be proud of.  It is against this backdrop that you graduate into a time full of opportunities.
 Yet,  are we there where our founding fathers wanted us to be?  Over five decades of independence -  what does our nation have to show for it?  We have political freedom but not economic prosperity -  the vast majority still do not have freedom from hunger,
 disease and illiteracy.  Political freedom without economic prosperity is meaningless.  With an adult literacy rate of 56. 5%  and with 35%  of the population below the poverty line,
 the nation's social welfare efforts are an unqualified disaster.  Even in technology,  where India has made rapid advances,  the country's progress is lopsided and disparate.  India ranks 63 on the Technology Achievement Index in the Human Development Report 2001 compared to China's ranking of 45.  This is despite Bangalore being ranked 11 among the 46 hubs of technological innovation across the world.
 It is our responsibility to raise India to the ranks of the developed nations.  In a civilized society,  every individual has to give back to the society,  in some form or other,  more than what he or she has received from it.  That is how countries achieve progress.
 Every hardworking,  sincere and honest citizen -  teachers,  politicians,  bureaucrats,  military personnel,
 professionals,  administrative staff and janitors,  just to name a few professions -  has an important role in this undertaking.  Nobody is too small for this task.  However,
 the educated ones among us have benefited from the sacrifices of our less fortunate brethren and have a greater opportunity and a greater responsibility to contribute to society.  If we have to eradicate poverty from this country,  we need a new Indian mindset for the 21st century.  Let me talk a little about the cardinal attributes of this mindset.  First,  we need high aspirations.
 Aspirations energise us to overcome limitations posed by the context.  They engender and sustain hope,  the main fuel for progress.  They help us achieve miracles.  Mahatma Gandhi's aspiration for an independent India is the main reason why you and I can live today as free people.  In sum,
 aspirations build civilizations.  Raise your aspirations high in whatever you do.  Cynicism has no role in the task of building a nation -  more so among you bright,  learned youngsters.  As Ralph Emerson said:
 I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency.  Cynicism takes away energy and enthusiasm,  which we require in plenty if we have to realize our dreams.  Confidence is extremely important for progress.  Openness is a sign of self- confidence.
 Hence,  the ability to accept,  evaluate and adopt new ideas is what will separate the successful from the not- so- successful.  We have to shun any thoughts and ideas that take us towards jingoism,
 chauvinism and parochialism.  In these days of an interconnected global village,  no nation desiring economic progress can isolate itself from the rest of the world.  Several nations that did so in the fifties and sixties realized the futility of such isolation,  reversed the trend successfully and benefited from the resultant openness.  We,
 in India,  in all our wisdom,  carried this isolation for a couple of decades longer than these countries and suffered the inevitable consequences.  It is time that we overcame the East India Company syndrome.  Clearly,  we have work towards adopting the best practices of nations that have achieved economic prosperity.
 Thanks to colonization of over a thousand years,  our society is one where people are distrusted and oppressed.  A society where the interest of the government is seen as more important than the interest of the people;  where the jobs of a few thousand people in public sector institutions are held more sacrosanct than the millions of consumers they are expected to serve;  where an Indian multinational feels less trusted by its own government than by governments abroad;  and where bureaucrats assume that they know more about running world-
class technological institutions than the finest intellectuals in those organizations.  Unfortunately,  even after fifty years of independence,  we have not overcome the legacy mindset of our erstwhile rulers who,  ironically,  have themselves changed rapidly in their own country.
 We have to understand that public sector interest is not public interest and that the interest of the government is not the same as the interest of the people.  One demonstration of this understanding is the proactive removal of all monopolies for the government.  Government monopolies all over the world invariably create asymmetry between the benefits to government officials and the people.  It is difficult for me to understand why the government retains licensing in education while it has disbanded industrial licensing to a large extent.  Over a period of ten to twenty years,  the government should gradually get out of all activities other than defence,
 external affairs,  home,  macroeconomic policy- making,  and regulation in all areas of commerce.  Our elite continues to behave like people with brown skin and a white mask.
 I urge you to help in changing this mindset and in bringing about these transformations.  Another bane of this thousand- year long enslavement is apathy.  The main reason why India is still very backward is our unwillingness to take proactive action even when the solution to the problem is staring us in the face for a long time.  A fatalist mentality conveniently blames reality and refuses to take responsibility for solving problems.  Let us remember the words of Prophet Muhammad who said:
 God changeth not what is in a people until they change what is in themselves.  My own interaction with people from all walks of life confirms this thesis.  We have become a nation that is good in rhetoric but poor in action.  Like our national cricket team that looks good on paper but consistently fails to deliver!  We have to downplay rhetoric and focus on action.  Ego,
 vanity and contempt for other people have clouded our minds for thousands of years and have impeded our progress.  Humility is scarce in this country.  Even Al Berouni,  the famous Persian writer who visited India in the 11th century and met many Indian pundits,  has remarked about this tendency.  It is time we realize that India is at the bottom rung in economic prosperity,
 accept it,  develop a healthy respect for people who are better than us,  learn from them and work hard to improve our own economic status.  No society that has shunned merit has succeeded in solving its problems.  While reservation in admission to schools and financial assistance for economically weaker sections of society is desirable for a limited period of time,  there are grave doubts whether economic backwardness should be determined by castes,
 as is done today in India.  It is ironical that people see sustenance of backwardness as an instrument for progress rather than turning to hard work,  smartness and honesty.  Thus,  we have become,  perhaps,
 the only nation in the world where people fight to be called backward rather than forward!  You have a responsibility to debate this issue and take appropriate action to create a climate of opinion where people aspire to economic progress the right way.  We adopted an economic model where the government took on the responsibility to create and sustain jobs without any regard for efficiency and accountability.  The result is underemployment,  inefficiency,  insubordination,
 demoralisation of the merited ones and value destruction in the economy.  There have been,  in recent times,  some discussions on dismantling this model.  However,  it takes vision,
 courage and rapid action to perform this creative destruction.  You are in a powerful position to encourage leaders who have taken on this task and to lend a hand in disseminating the positives of such an initiative to the masses.  You,  the cynosure of all eyes in the society,  have a duty to lead by example in work ethic,  honesty,
 following the rule of law and contract,  and charity.  In my opinion,  the Indian professional,  unlike his /  her western counterpart,
 is rather poor in charity.  Unless you can give back to your alma mater at least a small part of your life's earnings,  it is difficult to strengthen these institutions for future generations.  This is a mindset issue and not an economic issue.  Further,  the reputation of the Indian professional is very poor in living up to contractual obligations.
 In fact,  a large number of the professionals who received financial assistance either from the government or from educational institutions for studies abroad have gone back on their repayment commitments in a manner that neither they nor their children can ever be proud of.  One hundred percent compliance with contracts is the only way to help future generations benefit from initiatives to provide financial help to worthy and needy students.  Let me finally close with yet another Sanskrit sloka that summarises all that I said today.  Ahimsaa prathamam pushpam;  pushpam indriya nigraham;
 sarvabhootha dayaa pushpam;  kshamaa pushpam visheshathaha;  shanthi,  dhyaana,  dhaana pushpa thathaivacha;  sathyam ashtavidham pushpam;
 vishnum praseedham kareth ( Non- violence,  controlling the sensual desires,  forbearance,  forgiveness,
 peace,  meditation,  charity and truth are the eight kinds of flowers that pleases Lord Vishnu)  Indeed,  these attributes characterise the ideal Indian of the 21st century.  You are the best among the best -
 the chosen few.  You are in a unique position to change the course of India and perhaps even the world.  I have no doubt at all that you will serve as role models for the 21st century Indian and will help the larger masses realize the power of such a mindset.  This is the only way we can redeem the pledge of our founding fathers.  Best wishes and God bless you all.
