Explained : Politic | The Galgotias Syndrome That Plagues India and Its Impact

Imagine a global summit called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on peace and social harmony. Who will be surprised if worthy participants like Bajrang Dal and other vigilante groups create some disturbances there? That probably explains how a private university spoiled the show at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) summit by the fraudulent act of displaying a Chinese instrument as its own innovation.   

Nobility and brilliance aren’t turnkey projects. Politics shapes social and cultural traits. It can nurture or destroy moral precepts. Mahatma Gandhi, as a leader, is bound to have a different support base compared to Benjamin Netanyahu. Haven’t we seen important persons stealing credit, distorting history and indulging in blatantly false propaganda to mislead the gullible masses? 

Hawking lies don’t invoke a sense of remorse today. An unscrupulous businessman says he developed a cure during the pandemic and sells the unverified concoction to make millions. A thug claims divine power; takes out chits to fool people on a daily basis and holds public durbars to spread superstition. Forget punishment or discouragement; top politicians fell at his feet and the prime minister empowers him by describing him as his “younger brother”. 

Some will prescribe cow dung and urine as the cure for cancer; others will talk about the mythical flying machine called “Pushpak Viman” and surgery in the primitive age to fix Ganesha’s head. An entire ecosystem has flourished under political patronage to smother scientific temper.

We have seen economists casting serious doubts over the credibility of our data. Suppression of facts to project a false scenario of development and good governance is routine. We have anointed ourselves “Vishwaguru” even as we remain at the bottom of global indices on almost every parameter. 

Our per capita income is pitiably low, hovering around 140 in the global ranking, but we hype up the size of our economy to claim greatness. Outfits and individuals notorious for intellectual bankruptcy dream of guiding the whole world. Has this not legitimized the culture of fakery and forgery?

Imagine what would happen if our students learnt history from our politicians. They will write that India got freedom in 2014 and Jawaharlal Nehru was a traitor. Forces running WhatsApp universities have left no stone unturned in creating an anti-intellect environment. Who commands the ill-informed and abusive troll armies on social media? Who has deepened the perception that India’s salvation is possible through the construction of a Ram temple, post-Kumbh consciousness and Sengol gimmickry?

AI leadership?

The prime minister while addressing the AI summit said, “India is not just a part of the AI revolution, but is leading and shaping it.” India has legitimate aspirations on this front but leading in this space is a distant dream. Bombastic rhetoric cannot override the truth. We are nowhere near the US and China in capacity or intent.  

The US spent $400 billion on AI in 2025 and the amount could rise to $650 billion in 2026. China spent $125 billion in the sector. Meanwhile India’s expenditure was below $13 billion. Our budgetary allocations on education and research have been much lower than developed nations. China has done wonders in technological advancements while we were happy producing IT coolies. The government’s focus on cutting-edge technology has been severely deficient. Even our corporate sector is miserly in spending on research and development. The most dramatic rise of one corporate house in India in recent years has been caused by political patronage that enabled grabbing of national assets, not by manufacturing or technological excellence.        

Before Modi woke up all of a sudden to organise the AI Summit, he should have carefully scrutinised the prevailing academic environment, our intellectual capacities and institutional might. A social audit of the quality of Vice-Chancellors, professors and teachers will throw up a frightening scenario. 

Some renowned intellectuals believe India’s academic mettle is fettered. A large number of teachers appointed by universities are incapable of any meaningful academic activities. Research, creative freedoms and innovations have suffered as the government’s priority is ideological control. The pursuit of excellence can be measured through this government’s choice of bureaucrats, judges, journalists, historians, writers, poets, film-makers and actors. You will find the Galgotias syndrome everywhere.  

Addressing the AI Summit, Modi said that India has the greatest talent pool and hoped for a paradigm shift in our thinking and approach. India indeed has enormous talent and a shift in thinking and approach can really unleash our youth’s creative energies, if it is redirected from non-academic activities, divisive political agenda and mindless religiosity. India is crying for constructive politics; a politics that is capable of harnessing our youth’s true potential.

The leadership must not define new technologies in binaries of “Bhay & Bhagya” as Modi explained AI. Realism, not propaganda, should drive policies. AI will demolish jobs and can create databases for a totalitarian regime. It can curb democratic freedoms through surveillance and targeted coercion. We have seen how the Election Commission refused to provide machine-readable electoral rolls but allowed the ruling party to purge the list using technology. The need of the hour is scientific temper, not techno-nationalism.      

Nehru’s foresight

Nobody worked for “scientific temper” with greater dedication than India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It is impossible to find one instance when Nehru contributed to the creation of anti-intellect ambiance or promoted superstitious beliefs. His modern thinking is an example of exceptional foresight at a time when the majority of Indians, engrossed in religiosity and superstitions, were ignorant about science. 

Nehru wrote in the early 1930s: “No country today is really independent or capable of resisting aggression unless it is industrially developed. Despite suffering the trauma of being in prison, he thought and wrote about religion and politics, science and philosophy, and visualised what kind of a nation-state India will become after Independence. During his days in Dehradun jail, he wrote in his autobiography: “Most of this has been written under peculiarly distressing circumstances when I was suffering from depression and emotional strain.”           

Unlike today’s politicians, Nehru had the moral courage to speak the unpleasant truth. Referring to the big business in India under colonial rule, he wrote, “Our captains of industry are quite amazingly backward in their ideas. They are not even up-to-date capitalists.” 

While today’s rulers were praising the Galgotias University for academic excellence, they went out of their way to destroy Jawaharlal Nehru University because of ideological pique. The prime minister himself advertised the non-existent success of Make-in-India project, refusing to call out industrialists who thrived in assembling and selling imported machinery. This falsehood slowed down India’s emergence as a manufacturing hub. Construction of “New India” needs sincerity, not fraud.    

This phrase – New India – was first heard in March 1952 when Nehru laid the foundation stone of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur. He said, “these are the bases on which New India will be built.” In March 1959, laying the foundation of the second IIT in Bombay, Nehru said, “Among the many things that are being done in India today, the establishment of these great institutes of technical training and knowledge is perhaps the most important, not only for the present, but even more so, for the future.” 

Nehru’s colossal vision was a rarity in that era; while he was building the scientific and technological infrastructure in a nascent nation, he paid equal attention to creation of independent institutions to promote science, fine arts, literature, music, drama, film and culture.

Nehru directed provincial governments through the Congress Working Committee in 1937 to appoint committees of experts on science and technology. In 1938, he was interacting with scientists like Meghnand Saha and P.C. Mahalanobis in his capacity as the head of the National Planning Committee. 

Scientists invited Nehru to preside over the Indian Science Congress in 1947 because of his enlightened views, not because of political eminence. On February 11, 1947, he drafted a note giving suggestions on the need for a Scientific Manpower Committee, which was set up in April in the same year. 

In 1945, Nehru formed a high-power committee under the chairmanship of Nalini Ranjan Sarkar to establish high-grade technical institutes. While meeting Indian scientists to evolve a blueprint for a developed India was his key priority, he developed a personal rapport with international scientists like Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russel, Henry Dale, Alexander Fleming, AV Hill and Niels Bohr among others.

In April 1948, Nehru placed the Atomic Energy Bill before the Constituent Assembly, which accorded power to the Atomic Energy Board to carry out atomic research in a secret manner. The Atomic Energy Commission was set up on April 10, 1948 – merely a year after India’s independence.

This article went live on February twenty-second, two thousand twenty six, at thirty-nine minutes past eleven in the morning.

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