When it cost us so much to free ourselves from colonial slavery, how is it that this kind of slavery we call ‘brain drain’ passes unchallenged, and we take no action against it?

On a recent visit of India, Nobel prize-winner Sir Andrew Huxley, who is currently President of the Royal Society in London, delivered a lecture at the Indian National Science Academy — “Science and Politics” — in which he stressed the fact that at present it was only the USA and Russia who had the resources to do really advanced research in Science, and that although Britain was doing good work in various fields, this had to be with the collaboration of several Western European countries. He pointed out how ironical it was that though the developing countries were still so far behind the rest of the world in scientific research, their much-needed talent was rapidly being drained off by the industrialized countries.

The elder generation sacrificed a great deal to be able to out Western usurpers from their country and it is now with grief and incredulity that they see the brightest members of the present generation flock to the West, ostensibly to do well for themselves, but stubbornly refusing to face up to the fact that by allowing their talents to be exploited, they enable the West to retain its world leadership.

The best way to surmount this difficulty would be to adopt Britain’s solution: arrange to pool resources with a number of other countries and then forge ahead with advanced scientific research. This would create a viable outlet for indigenous talent, so that it need not be lost to other countries. But the sad reality is that in the Third World, there are no two countries who are willing to enter into a whole-hearted cooperation with each other. They find it easy to unite in order to destroy, but not in order to construct. When it cost us so much to free ourselves from colonial slavery, how is it that this kind of slavery we call ‘brain drain’ passes unchallenged, and we take no action against it?

Source: Simple Wisdom-2