There is a very commonly forward mail among Indians. There are various versions of that mail with different facts and interpretations but the basic gist of them all is to make you feel proud to be an Indian. Such emails emphasizes on some successful Indians. While ignoring the Individual efforts behind these success stories and actually analyzing the facts on rational grounds such messages try to invoke the false-euphoria of collectivism.

I used to feel proud at them too, but not any more.
Let me break down one such mail for you — 

I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN
FACTS TO MAKE EVERY Indian PROUD
Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard (HP)?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Accuracy: Correct
Facts: Rajiv Gupta graduated from IIT Kharagpur and then moved to USA, did his Master’s degree and PhD from CalTech in writing compilers and compiler optimization. Then he became a General Manager in HP of E-Speak Division. Then he founded his own company Confluent Software. Currently he is the founder and the CEO of Securent, and he is considered as the father of Web Services and SOA. Source

Analysis: No doubt that Rajiv Gupta is a brilliant entrepreneur and a successful businessman, but there is nothing there for Indians to be proud of. We as tax payers of India give massive funding to IITs, and in return it churns out these graduates who move to USA to work or pursue higher studies. We clearly fail to understand why they moved to USA and call it “Brain Drain”. Years down the road when they achieve success we put them in “Proud to be an Indian” list and forward it to our friends and family. This is not really an example of success of Indian socio-economic environment, its clearly an example of success of American socio-economic environment.

Why do people move abroad? Because we first we have this fetish with 100% Education, then our fetish is with IITs, IIMs, and AIIMs, massive amount of money is taken from people in terms of Taxes and Revenues. The whole environment of business and entrepreneurship is killed by IITs, and IIMs, then we expect that once our kids graduate from these institutes they will be able to become entrepreneur and give something back to the society. Nothing is more ridiculous than this. Read more here.

Rajiv Gupta may have studied in IIT Kharagpur, but it was clearly an example of his personal success in landing into such an institute, and then moving to America to pursue his dreams. He could not have stayed in India and done the same because in order to educate him, his future possibilities were killed. He started two companies in America, because of the(relatively) Libertarian nature of their society. We as Indians cannot be proud of him because we have done little contribution in his success.

Presentation: Not all the facts are wrong, but its the presentation which matters. This fact is made to present as if the whole company of HP relies on his shoulders. The question is framed as “Who is THE GM of HP?”, as if there is only one GM of the whole company. For example a question “Who is the CEO of HP?” would be a valid question because there is only one CEO. The proper grammatically correct question should be “Who is a GM in HP?”, but then that would make the fact uninteresting.

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today’s computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm

Accuracy: Correct

Facts: Vinod Dham did his Engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering in 1971, moved to US to do his MS degree from University of Cincinnati. Then after switching jobs he joined Intel Corp and worked on Pentium chip. He is also a co-inventor of Flash Memory. He rose upto Vice-President of Intel and then he left it in 1995. Since then he has been a venture Capitalist, and joined many start ups. In an interview he also claimed to come to USA with only $8 in his pocket. Source
Analysis: Again a guy who did his Bachelor’s degree from India and moved to USA to work in one of the leading technology companies and contributed a lot to Science and civilization. He made heavy use of the Capitalism and economic liberty of America. In 1960s-70s, leading technology companies like Microsoft, Intel, AMD, were founded in America, and around same time we were sending Coca Cola back to where it came from, adding the term “Socialism” in our constitution, taking away our civil liberties(Emergency 1974), and waging wars.

I mean you might feel a bit proud on Rajiv Gupta, but there is no way you can take credit for Vinod Dahm. That guy turned $8 into billions of dollars in America. He would have been nobody had he stayed in India. We follow the concepts of Society, and Equality, we prefer to be equally poor than allow the most worthy of us to become rich.

Presentation: The question is presented as Vinod Dahm single handedly created Pentium Chip in India, and its our contribution that 90% of the computers run on it.

Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Azim Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6th position now.

Accuracy: Incorrect

Fact: Azim Premji is actually 21st richest man in the world(Source), and 5th richest Indian. Now it could be that when the list was compiled he was 3rd richest man in the world, but that’s highly improbable. Anyways, I wouldn’t go on the specifics of that. Azim Premji’s grandfather was a rice king in Burma. His father refused to go to Pakistan and settled down in Mumbai. After studying in St Mary’s School in Mumbai, Azim Premji went to Stanford University, but had to leave it in between because of untimely death of his father. He then finished his Electrical Engineering bachelor’s degree through correspondence courses. He then took over his father’s fledgling vegetable oil business, Western Indian Vegetable Products Limited (now called Wipro). Premji was recognized as one of the “Greatest Entrepreneur of All Time” by Business Week magazine.Source

Analysis: The truth is, that Azim Premji IS one of the biggest success story of India on which Indians can be proud of. But Azim Premji is an Outlier. He is an individual who achieved success despite all odds against him. In India we do not value entrepreneurship, because we hate riches. We hate rich people because in our world view being rich or being poor is just a matter of fate or luck. You can never make this kind of argument to an American “why do you not support govt sponsored education, why should a poor kid be punished because he just happens to be poor?”

Presentation: I don’t know why the answer talked about Sultan of Brunei, but I guess in urban trivia in India Sultan of Brunei was considered as the richest person in the world. Another way to present this fact is “He is also world’s richest Muslim. World’s richest Hindu is American, world’s richest Jew is American, world’s richest Christian is American, but world’s richest Muslim is Indian. Yeah you can be proud of such a fact.”

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world’s No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Accuracy: Correct

Fact: Sabeer Bhatia is actually a co-founder of Hotmail, and an entrepreneur. He was born in Punjab, got schooled in Bangalore, joined Birla Institute of Technology Pilani but then moved to CalTech after two years. After finishing his Bachelor’s degree he went to Stanford University to pursue his MS degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1996 he co-founded Hotmail a free web based email service teamed with Jack Smith. In 1997 it was eventually sold to Microsoft for $400 Million. After Hotmail Sabeer Bhatia launched a bunch of companies here and there, none as successful as Hotmail, yet his contribution to Technology is immense. Source

Analysis: Sabeer Bhatia is quite famous in India. But it is to be noted that he is totally a creation of American Capitalism. He wasn’t just bought out by Microsoft, he recieved $300,000 of investment by Draper Fisher Ventures to launch Hotmail. A lot of people say that had he been a part of IT revolution in India he could have done equally well. The truth is he could not have received that investment by anyone in India. Remember in Indian society being rich is a matter of luck, so we try our best to level out the playing field for everyone. That means if Sabeer Bhatia actually started with a brilliant idea in India, then without any investment Hotmail couldn’t have reached to 1 million subscribers in six months. In fact there is no Capital accumulation possible in India. His profit would have been bled by the Indian govt through bureaucracy, taxes and revenue, thereby making him take years to reach the infrastructure he really needed to support that many subscribers.

American Capitalism founded him, and gave him the input he required to do what he did. There is nothing in for Indians to be proud of him.

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravali

Accuracy: Correct

Facts: Arun Netravali was born in Mumbai, who did his bachelor’s degree from IIT-Bombay, and then moved to USA to pursue his MS and subsequent PhD from Rice University, TX. Netravali has been President of Bell Laboratories and Chief Scientist at Lucent Technologies. He has taught in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University and Rutgers University. He has authored numerous technical books and papers, and holds 70 patents in his name. Arun Netravali has also received U.S. National Medal of Technology and Padma Bushan. (Source)
Analysis: As usual we seem to have a pattern of Indian citizens who are a product of Indian educational system move to USA, acquire a higher degree and then make a career by utilizing American Economic Liberty. Nothing to be proud here. We could not have given him the environment he needed here in India. Right now he is a venture Capitalist, that is he finds start ups and ventures who need Capital and provide them with Capital. Our Capital in India is being used to make the ground level for all the poor children so that they may also have a shot one day to be able to move to America and make a fortune out of it.

Presentation: Arun Netravali has done immense contribution in the field of technology, especially in digital signal processing. The question above makes it look like he was behind the invention of C/C++/Unix. In fact we in India don’t even know what HDTV(High-Def TV) is, which is his biggest latest contribution.

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika

Accuracy: Unverifiable

Facts: I could not verify this fact because when you type Sanjay Tejwrika in google, all you get is links to web pages mentioning these facts in the same order I am presenting them to you.

Analysis: Honestly speaking testing is a very lousy job, considering how buggy Windows 2000 was, you should be ashamed of the fact that testing director of any version of Windows was Indian.

Q. Who are the Chief Executives of Citibank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

Accuracy: Correct

Facts: Victor Menezes is one of the greatest financial minds India has ever schooled. As usual he studied in IIT Bombay, and then went to MIT Sloan school of Management to receive MBA(I am even surprised if you couldn’t guess it). He has worked in pretty much every continent and has been involved with huge international financial organizations. Rajat Gupta is the current special advisor on management reforms to the Secretary-General of United Nations. He is also an independent director at Goldman Sachs and a member of board of trustees at University of Chicago. He studied in IIT Delhi to do his Mechanical Engineering and then moved to US and got his MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1973. Rana Talwar is currently the Chairman of Centurion Bank of Punjab. He did become group CEO of Standard-Chartered bank until 2001.

Analysis: IIT Bombay calls Menezes as its “product” who reached the highest levels of banking and finance. Menezes did Electrical Engineering degree from IIT Bombay which is world-widely praised for its coverage of finance and banking (being sarcastic here guys, there is nothing in Electrical Engineering which is remotely related to banking and finance, IITB is just bloating). Rajat Gupta is considered to have broken the glass ceiling in America and become the first Indian-American to have got that much success. Rajat Gupta is again a real success story of a person pursuing his dreams by studying on Indian tax payers and then utilizing the economic freedom of America. He could not have become what he is had he chose to instead become one of the tax payers. So there is nothing to be proud of for Indians.

Rana Talwar can be considered as a real Indian success story, just like Azim Premji. He was educated in India, started his career in India and rose to the heights of Citibank, before becoming the group CEO of
StanChart. in 2001 he became chairman of Centurion Bank of Punjab and now its branches are spread all across India.