My favorite routine every Sunday is to stroll in the bazaar purchasing fruits and other stuff. One of the stops is at Himanshu Kothari's hardware shop. I sit there and chat with him and other friends. It is an assembly point for us.
Right in front of the shop is the city center. Daily wage earners flock there every morning, waiting for a prospective client to come and hire them. A Mahindra Utility pulls up. The Client is in a hurry. He speaks with a few and randomly picks up a couple of them and leaves. The wait for others continues. After 11 am, people who could not find employment dejectedly leave the place. It is saddening to see this happen every day, and this has been the situation for decades. But it is not just restricted to India. Back in 1998, I have seen this scene in the US where the majority of labor was Hispanic.
Education, Make in India, Skill India, and other such initiatives cannot change this scenario. The problem is that if something can be done following instructions and with a little bit of training, then there would always be someone else who can do it cheaper and faster. Eventually, this person would be replaced by a machine or some form of automation. This has been the trend over the last 100 years. In fact, the speed of becoming obsolete has accelerated with technologies like AI and Machine Learning.
So, what is the solution?
I think our education system emphasizes on making us a conformist and following rules. It was designed to generate herds of obedient people for the industries. Education would certainly not help. We would need to look internally and change. I do not believe that we always look for the cheapest stuff. We aspire for a better experience even at a higher price.
At a certain level, all of us are like those daily wage earners. We possess basic skills, and we need a committed salary package with a well-defined job list. We don't want to step out of our comfort zone because we are scared of failures.
Rama and Khema are tribals who are illiterate as far as formal education is concerned. Yet, I adjust my schedule of housekeeping, gardening, and other such tasks to match theirs. I have not looked for an alternative to them even when I know that I can find a cheaper option. The reasons for this are:
a) They are skilled and take responsibility, and they don't have to be instructed or guided.
b) They maintain the relationship. Khema gets us vegetables grown on his farm and does not care to be compensated for it.
c) They go out of their way and do tasks that are not expected of them. They don't ask for a Job Description.
It may sound simple but, that's the recipe for growth in the present era. Automation, AI, or Machine Learning can't do the things Rama or Khema does. The key differentiators for being future-proof are no longer education and skills. Instead, they are caring, being empathetic, understanding the value of building relationships.
Subodh
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