In recent times, there is a lot of empty rhetoric of “moving towards knowledge economy” in policy circles. The bureaucrats, top-ranking politicians, businessmen and the elite-intellectuals often present knowledge-economy as a way forward for India. Many intellectuals and organizations all over the world have provided various definitions of knowledge-based economy (KE). The overarching idea is that in KE, the economic activity primarily depends on the knowledge (or intellectual capital). In India, there seems to be an assumption that somehow we produce (or utilize existing) knowledge which will lead to economic prosperity. So far, I have not come across any insightful public discourse that examines this assumption systematically in Indian context. The public spending on research and development (R & D) has been raised in recent years; however, there is no clear rationale for how that will create economic prosperity in India. Note that I am completely in favour of increased funding and encouraging research and knowledge production (as argued in other articles). However, there are some major hurdles for knowledge production. Until India addresses that, I am afraid, the increased public spending may not produce any public good. In this article, I will explore some of the major threats to knowledge production in India.
Copy-Paste Culture: In India, there is a culture of not recognizing
intellectual property as someone’s property. People often assume that it is “OK”
to copy and paste text, audio, visuals, computer programmes and any other forms
of intellectual property. It is often the case that you have an idea and share
it with your boss. Next thing you know that your boss has launched the product
and taken all the credit. The big fish with power and money may influence the people
at large and the real creative intellectual may never receive the due credit. The
violation of intellectual-rights is extremely prevalent across variety of
fields – arts, music, filmmaking, writing, programming, academia and possibly any
field where one can innovate or create knowledge.
This
is especially true for R & D centres. My colleagues working at various
research centres (cannot disclose names for confidentiality reasons) admit that
even when they come up with a research idea and conduct experiments, their
bosses decide whose name is to be included in the research paper and in what
order. It may happen that their supervisor gets to be the first author and
their name is pushed far behind. At times, the name of the head of the
department or institution is included in the author-list in almost every paper
produced by that department/institution, irrespective of his/her contribution.
It
may sound surprising to the outsiders, but this copy-paste culture is rampant in academic
writing as well. During my higher education in India, I came across many text-books
which were nothing but copy-paste material from books and research articles of other
authors without any citation or references. It is fairly possible that an
individual is pursuing PhD and have absolutely no idea of citation or
acknowledging work of other researchers. Given the limited understanding of the
difference between plagiarism and original work even in academia, it is unreasonable
to expect that in the masses.
No incentives for Knowledge-production: India’s research sector is primarily driven by the
government run institutions. A very few research centres and elite educational
institutions care for contribution of its faculty members to the scientific publications.
The promotion of faculty members is often solely dependent on the personal
relationships and seniority in most of the Indian universities. The
tenure-track system which is based on publication of peer-reviewed papers, citations,
academic presentations and teaching quality is non-existent at-large in
universities. As a result, the faculty members do not have much of external
motivation for contributing to their respective fields of inquiry.
Furthermore,
the leadership structure of the universities is ill-fitted for the pursuit of
excellence and knowledge production. While talking on the higher education
systems around the world, Prof. Stephen Heyneman made an excellent point
explaining the difference between top ranking American universities and the
universities in developing nations. The leadership structure in top ranking American
university is very conducive for continuous pursuit of excellence. The board of
visitors (mainly, donors and alumni) appoint the president of the university on
contract-bases and pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars. In order to get
that job, the highly-skilled candidates have to present institutional goals and
action plans for the same – how the institution will achieve and maintain
excellence, how will the resources be generated and how all stake-holders will
be taken on board etc. Therefore, from the day one, the president has a mission
and s/he is highly accountable. On the other hand, the appointment of
Vice-Chancellors in most of the Indian universities is based on political loyalties
and personal influences. There is no vision presented for the institutional growth;
and there is hardly any accountability. As long as the system runs without much
media outrage (possibly on corruption, lack of governance, or more serious
criminal charges) and the political equations are in balance, the vice-chancellor
can survive.
In
total, neither the institution leaders nor the faculty members face any
negative consequences for not contributing to the knowledge production.
Poor Intellectual Property Rights: India has one of the weakest intellectual
property protections to offer to its citizens. Although the laws exist, there
is hardly any implementation. In addition, various vital definitions (e.g., plagiarism,
inspiration, and original work) are not clear. This gives scope of various
interpretations of plagiarism – for e.g., what if someone copies two lines from
your research article, writes your codes in different programming language, or
changes three scenes of your screenplay – is that plagiarism? I hope it is a ‘yes’,
but I have heard varying responses.
Not valuing Creative Intellect: This is about the society in-general where masks
are way more valued than creative minds. To make my point clear, let’s look at
various fields. People go mad after actors, who simply follow director’s instructions;
but the script writers who create brilliant stories, visualize their effects on
the masses and develop characters that touch our hearts, go unnoticed. Singers,
who do the same job as any other instrument players, get standing ovations,
while we hardly care about the music-composures who come up with mind-blowing
tunes that perturb millions of hearts. Our society over-appreciates what it
sees, and fails to value the major contributions of the people behind the
scene. This shows a lack of critical thinking ability of our masses. All the
name, fame and money follow the mask, and not the mind. This gives a clear
message – if you wish to be successful, get seen-heard and noticed. It does not
matter where you get things (ideas) from, but be the first person to bring
those ideas to the masses. Importance is given to the one who introduces new
things to the masses, and not to the one who creates new things.
This social scenario is very discouraging for
creative intellectuals (CI), if they are unable to reach out to the masses.
Eventually, they may feel – “why should I put in so much of efforts when others
are beneficiary of it, and not me?” The frustration may lead them to the
following routes:
·
Succumb to the copy-paste
culture: Giving up sounds bad,
but it is always an obvious path taken by the majority of people. A creative
intellectual may start applying his/her energy in finding newer ways of copying
and hiding sources. After all, even if one finds no gain in money or fame, this
option reduces cognitive labour.
·
Stop sharing: “I will keep my work undisclosed and wait
for a favourable time. And if that time never comes, my creation will die with
me but I won’t let any big fishes take credit for my work” – this can be their
response to the society’s apathy for intellectual property.
- In Indian schools, this
trend is widely prevalent. Very few students would do their assignments
independently. The rest of the class would either get things done with
the help of parents/tutors or copy from digests/guide-books or from the
notebooks of their peers. Now, the students, who have done assignments on
their own, would be very reluctant in sharing their work with their peers.
This is because, like Indian society, the teacher focuses on whether the
assignment is completed (or not), and not on how it was completed. The
result is underscored and not the process. I have complete empathy
towards those very few CIs in our classrooms.
- Find a place where CIs
see appreciation: “Get settled in a
place/country where your contribution is appreciated”- this is one of the
biggest reasons why many CIs settle-down in the developed countries. Though
intellectual property theft is prevalent across the globe, there is definitely
a perception that the western world does a far better job of protecting
IPs. No country can afford to lose its top intellectuals and suffer
brain-drain in knowledge-era.
All three scenarios mentioned above are nightmare
for not just the CIs, but for the entire nation. Especially, when the world is
moving rapidly towards a ‘knowledge economy’ era, a developing country like
India needs to begin valuing minds. Today, India needs an intellectual
revolution. I have the following broad suggestions:
- Value for intellectual-rights must be nurtured in
children at homes and schools. Programmes/courses should be designed such
that creativity is encouraged in students. Every new idea should be valued
and a student who generates an idea should be rewarded publicly in
schools. Students should be trained to write essays/assignments with citation and references right
from upper primary standards.
- Government and civil society must join hands to run nationwide
campaign for spreading awareness about intellectual property rights,
privacy rights and for inculcating a habit of attributing credits to the
content creators.
- Clear cut procedures should be available for
reporting complaints about copy-rights violations at every level. These
complaints must be addressed within well defined timeframes without delay.
- The society needs to realize its greatest assets,
Creative Intellectuals; and must revere their contributions.
- Lastly, the CIs themselves must raise their voice and be more assertive for securing intellectual-rights. After all only they can carve their unique place in the Indian society.
Note: A shorter version of this article has been published in Fair Observer international magazine on June 5th, 2013. It can be retrieved from: http://www.fairobserver.com/article/indian-conundrum-copy-paste-culture
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