I was having a conversation with my friends Kaushank and Karthik, an exchange student from IIM Ahmedabad, on whether I want to live in India or abroad.If abroad, how I am going to bring up my daughter.Since I have always been cribbing about Indian values, he was wondering what kind of values do I want her to grow up with.I was trying to fit this to the frameworks that I learnt during this term.Let us discuss some ideas on this subject before I tell you what value will be good for her.

Why suddenly this topic of "Values"? This is the only word I have been hearing the whole of Fall 2007 term, be it in the E-Marketing class of Prof.Sugai, who is obsessed with this word or in the IBD class of Prof.Wakayama where he taught us Value Space, Value Networks, Value Innovation, RPV framework etc or during the group meetings with my friend Pontus, an ex-BCG Consultant from Helsinki Business School, whose first question is always "What is the value proposition here?". I started to see the value behind their love for "value". Value is the foundation on top of which individuals, families, cultures, societies, companies and virtually everything is built.

What are "Indian Values?

A text book definition is "Indians have laid high stress on values like peaceful co-existence, spirituality, deference to elders, recourse to nature, artistic ex-pression, seeking prosperity, strong family ties, respecting even the tools of your trade, joyousness and hospitality. " WOW! Such powerful values! Then Indians must be great! If these are the values that all/most of the Indians are practising or if Indians are the only people who are practicing such values, then I salute "Indian Values". Are these values only "Indian"?

The textbook definition of Indian Values is the "deliberate strategy", if put in HBS Professor Clayton Christenson's framework, and people didn't notice, evaluate and appraise the circumstances that led us to the "Indian Values" that I find it funny. Also, since these values were passed through religion and since religion is becoming weaker as globalization spreads its wings, there were new values that emerged.Right now, India is caught up in a confusion as to whether to adopt the new value or retain their tradition. But the old values are completely impractical.

Why am I calling these values funny?

If we ask any Indian guy about the "Indian Values", the most common answer is "No Alcohol, No Smoking, Vegetarianism, Respect to Women, Respect to Elders, No Boyfriend/Girlfriend before marriage, No sex before marriage" or if he is honest, then the most likely answer is "I don't know".If someone is smoking or/and drinking, then he is seen as evil.Also, most of the values revolve around food, sex and alcohol.Looking at the size of our population, I can understand where it came from.

Let's Analyze two values. How to correlate "Respect to Elders" with "No Alcohol"? How do we read the correlation through a lens called respect.Let's say, Mr.Lalu,37, who is a firm believer of Indian values, is going to meet Mr.Ramji, a 60 year old businessman who enjoys drinking alcohol.In India, what kind of respect is Lalu going to give Mr.Ramji? Is he going to respect the elderly person or disrespect the alcoholic.CONFUSION!!

Okay! If we have to respect elders, then does it mean we have to disrespect youngsters in India? Unfortunately, this is how it is being interpreted. Girls cannot have boyfriends or guys cannot have girlfriends before marriage.This value results in "Gayfriends" instead of girlfriends...or it ends up in extramarital affairs after marriage. It is simply interpreted as before marriage you cannot do whatever you want but you can do anything after marriage.

Let's discuss the value "Respect to Women"..

What is Marriage in India? It is a "License" issued jointly to the bride and bridegroom,by their parents, to "finally" "finally" "finally" have sex. Marriage in India is the only "business" in the world where "bottomline" and "topline" dont have any correlation.Surprised?Let me explain..The "topline" in an Indian marriage is "Ending your 30 year old asceticism on sex " and the "bottomline" is obviously profits(Dowry), which is the money given to the bridegroom by the bride.Actually, the bridegroom seems to have understood one of the textbook definitions of value(read again) which is "seeking prosperity".

Most of the guys in India "settle" after marriage.What does it mean to settle? He may be struggling in life with various problems, most importantly money, and finally he will decide to get married.Marriage is the easy way to raise "capital".Anybody who has a girl in their family has to lead a life of sacrifice and they have to give all their hard earned money to the "robber" in the name of Son-in-law.May be the Girl's father would have done the same thing to the Girl's mother.Things are changing today and definitely there were exceptions like my father but 99% (to be rational - remaining 1% equals 1 million X Percentage of males in that age group which is still a good number )of them would have done this business in their lives.Girls have been traded for generations by all those people who follow the noble Indian value called "Respect to Women".

Sex is glorified.It is the most sacred thing in the world.Indians believe that the westerners dont have control over sex and westerners have every reason to think that we dont have control over sex , looking at our population.You cannot derive control by controlling sex.You can derive control by understanding the circumstances in which that control has to be exerted.I think the western people seems to have understood this a lot better than us.

The people from certain castes/ regions feel proud of the fact that they dont eat meat.They advice at will, about vegetarianism.If you ask them "why dont you eat meat?" The most common answer is "How can you kill an animal and eat?"The same people who show so much kindness to animals are responsible for the greatest social evil called "human untouchables".They will be taking "cod liver oil" medicines, use leather products(shoes, belts, jackets), playing music intruments and do all sorts of things which defy their own logic, They fail to understand the fact that before human beings started to cultivate, they were hunting animals and eating.These people "try" to portray themselves as if they have evolved from some other entities other than human beings.Time plays a big part in shaping the values and in India, people could have eaten so much meat when some wise people at that time realized the threat it offers to the eco-balance and created these values.An interesting analogy for a similar value in the current world are the treaties like "Kyoto Protocol", where the developed countries pressurise the developing countries to control their pollution levels, fully knowing the ill effects associated with their very own development. Coming back,The vegetarianism would have been passed through religion, which makes it easy for anyone to understand. Vegetarianism is good,but not correct.The correctness depends on the circumstances. what if the circumstances change? What if the animal population exceeds human population? What about the people living in iceland and alaska? If they dont eat meat, what will they survive on? Practicality plays a big role.

Let's come to materialism. India is considered a spiritual country because even if people dont have money, they seem to live happily.They accepted the reality and have tuned their lives in such a way that they are not affected by poverty.LAME EXCUSE FOR FAILURE!! Instead, if these people have tried to understand what is going wrong in their lives and how they can acclimatize to the changing circumstances, then this country would have improved leaps and bounds.Again, westerners have succeeded in that.We are just trying to define success in terms which dont make sense and continue our suffering into one more generation.

Another clear example can be seen everyday in a Hindu Brahmin family. Before they dine, they put some water in their hands and move their hands in circular motion around the food.If you ask them why they do this, the answer will be "we are thanking god for giving us this meal".My question is why dont you thank god without the water in hand? What is the value that is being added by the water in this example? Nothing. But the same ritual had a different meaning for our ancestors and then, water was adding a value.How? In those days, they sit and eat in the floor.They use banana leaf as the plate and the houses are surrounded by tropical conditions.This ritual was done to create a "water" fence to prevent ants/insects from invading their "leaf" plates.Our ancestors were "innovative" and we are so dumb that we are just following the same ritual when we are sitting in airconditioned concrete houses and using dining table.

But luckily, this wired world has not only connected the individuals, countries etc, but also the values each of these different regions have.There is a big value dilution that is happening in India because of globalization and the previous generation is saying it is "Value Pollution".But I am happy that these values are getting diluted.There may be a multitude of values that will flood an individal and if he wants to succeed, he has to choose what is good for him.Once he makes choices on his own, then things will transform.

Deliberate strategies work only if circumstances dont change.But life is all about change and so whoever wished for the textbook definition of "Indian Values" need to consider all those circumstances for applying these values and whether a predicatable outcome comes out. I classify values into values of developed countries and developing countries.Developed countries have something in common, which is "success".They have developed certain values and when these values become embedded in their society, they get measurable, predicatable outcomes.Among the developed countries, there are two categories

Case 1: The examples of America and Singapore can be cited, where the immigrant population created new value systems that will allow them to live in peaceful co-existence,recourse to nature, spirituality..STOP.Am I repeating the textbook definition of "Indian Values" ? Yes..this textbook value will come to reality in an increasingly global world where borders are broken and people really respect each other. But it is in countries like USA, Singapore and the developed world, the divorce rates are higher, suicide rates are higher..whereas in India all these things are low..so what is my take on this..Definitely, the sacrifice by the women in India gives rise to a strong family bond but I would argue that it is not healthy because the women are not empowered.When women are empowered in a society, the male chauvunism will die and then if these strong family bonds exist, then it is a good sign.Take the values that made these countries successful and try to improve/eliminate the values that may not work well in our society.

Case 2 : The success of Japan, South Korea, Finland and Norway is what amazes me.These people went through major problems.Japan suffered in the 40's, Korea was completely given up in the 50's, Finland was poor..What made these countries to stand tall today.They didnt have many immigrants from whom they can imbibe new values.They did something which can be better explained by Einstein's famous quote "Doing the same things and expecting different results is foolishness".They adopted new values which led them to their current state of development.We hinged on to our age old values, which were good for the times in which they were created, and currently we have reached the sorry state we are living in.

Values change over time. They have to, else society would degenerate and stagnate. But before defying traditional values and norms, it is wise to question the need for change and to specify what part of society needs to change. Is our value system outdated, or do we need to change some common practices that are no longer relevant, or even evil, in their current form?

• In a globalized world, do we still want to get stuck to the values that are perceived by your group or do you want to get your values refined so that you can enjoy being in this highly connected world.
  
• It is not just a problem with India....It is a problem with every country.Embrace Values that will help to contribute to leading a peaceful life in this hyperconnected world.

Religion, the previous powerful value transfer/ethics controlling mechanism is loosing its importance in the face of globalization and now it is more of a generator of superstitious values.No law could successfully achieve anything in India.Now India is at a critical phase where religion and law are no more the mechanisms which can be relied upon.The other ways to impart control are through motivation and inspiration.Ofcourse there are some inspirational leaders in the business world like Ratan Tata and Narayanamoorthy but there is no one who could inspire Indians from every walks of life since the time of Gandhi....the closest it got was with Abdul Kalam but it is very miniscule when compared with Gandhi's gigatic achievement.That is why Indians have so many double standards as far as morals are concerned.

Just because I am criticizing Indian values, it doesnt mean that all the other value systems are correct.Indian Values are the only value systems I knew for a long long time.Every value system will have their own faults.There is nothing to feel superior about or feel inferior about.It is the way the values have shaped up because of the social mechanism prevailing in the region in which these values are born.But what is needed is a benchmarking exercise of all these values, thanks to globalization, so that the wrong ones can be identified and eliminated.

I am not trying to alienate mself away from these values.I was very much a product of these values but I am trying to learn at every opportunity.My learning is towards "unlearning" all that which my society told that it was right and "learning" all that that will add value in an increasingly connected and globalized world. This is the value system that I would want my daughter to adopt.