How India Became Great Again

 

As far back as he can remember, Anil Jethmal has admired one historical figure above all others.  To this day, he marvels at how Mahatma Gandhi brought the mighty British Empire to its knees not by force, but by moral embarrassment.  A reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization.  “I think it would be a good idea”, he wittily replied.

Gandhi, of course, was speaking of Great Britain and their very uncivilized conduct from the mid-18^th century to the mid-20^th century.  It was a period marked by depredations in India, slavery from Africa, the creation of an opioid crisis in China, the creation of several famines in Ireland and India and several other international atrocities.

The British worldwide conduct of looting, drug dealing and slavery was done for similar reasons that many common criminals loot, deal drugs and commit unspeakable acts.  It was done for money and, in Britain's case, was fueled by racism.

A schoolmate of Anil Jethmal, Indian Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, points out in is famous Oxford Union speech that when Britain arrived on India’s shores in the mid-18^th century, India had 23% of the world’s GDP and was, during that century, the wealthiest country in the world.  By the time the British were forced out in 1947, after 200 years of theft and looting, India was left in tatters and a veritable poster child for third world poverty.

A mere 70 years later, India has rebuilt herself, rising from the ashes economically and has actually passed the UK in GDP.

So, what was it that made India great again?  Anil Jethmal believes that India’s resilience and strength lie in its richness of diversity.  India is what it has always been…a country of acceptance. 

India, after all, gave refuge to the Jews after the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians and thereafter by the Romans.  And to this day, India remains the only Jewish diaspora on the planet to never have had a single incident of anti-Semitism by a local.

The same is true for Christianity.  Legend has it that when Doubting Thomas, the apostle, arrived on the shores of India around 52 A.D, he was welcomed by a flute playing Jewish girl.  Saint Thomas spread Christianity in India peacefully and found many followers, well before any European had even discovered the religion.

The same is true of Islam.  The religion came peacefully to the south of India over many centuries through merchants sailing the trade route between India, Africa and Saudi Arabia.

In fact, India has accepted every religion known to man with the possible exception of Shintoism.  The Rupee (India’s currency) has its value written on the note in 17 different languages.  The Constitution of India recognizes 23 different official languages.  The great Rabindranath Tagore encapsulated what India is by calling it “one nation embracing many”. 

So how does the racial acceptance lead to economic success?  Anil Jethmal believes that racism is massively wasted energy that could be otherwise used in productive endeavors.  More profoundly, in a pluralistic country like India, acceptance leads to cooperation among people with different ways of thinking, and thus, takes advantage of different skillsets. 

It is why India, for example, became the world leader in so many industries…..textiles, steel productions, ship building, etc.  And, it is why today companies including Pepsi, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Micron, MasterCard and so many other successful global brands have Indians at the top spot of their company.

And while much of India’s talent has been exported and is now featured prominently on the world stage, many talented Indians remain in India pushing India up the global rankings. Economic forecasters agree that India will be the world's 3^rd largest economy by 2030 and the largest economy in the world by 2050.

The secret sauce, Anil Jethmal believes, is acceptance and cooperation.  That, above all else, is how India became great again.

Classically Trained

In 1983, at the Welcoming Convocation for Freshman Students at Bowdoin College, Anil Jethmal recalls, in great detail, a conversation that he had with the college's President.

As an entering freshman, it was customary to sign one's name into a thick leather-bound book.
When informed that every student who ever attended Bowdoin College had also signed, Anil Jethmal asked President Greason if alums, and literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had also signed the book as incoming freshman.

Beaming with almost a sense of parental pride, President Greason retrieved a much older, thick leather-bound book and showed Anil original signatures of Hawthorne, and a few pages later, Longfellow.

Noting that the signatures were just a few pages apart,  Anil Jethmal asked Greason if those two legends of American literature attended Bowdoin simultaneously,  He informed Anil that both were of the class of 1825.   Both were English majors and were goods friends.  Furthermore, he emphasized, legend had it that both were obsessed with perfecting their crafts.

Anil quipped that he would hate to be in an English class with those two....and to be graded in that class on a curve.  Smiling enigmatically, Greason said something that Anil Jethmal says that he carries to the present day.  In order to be great at anything, he proclaimed, one must practice whatever that is obsessively.  He stated that over the next fours years at Bowdoin, Anil, as with all incoming students, would write and submit over a thousand pages of papers to his professors.  Four years later, Anil calculated that number as a very conservative estimate.

More importantly,  what Anil Jethmal took from that conversation was that to be exceptional at most anything worthwhile in life, one must spend hundreds or even thousands of hours working at it.

And when life inevitably has presented its opportunities and challenges, Anil Jethmal often thinks back to that conversation he had as a wide-eyed freshman...and more often than not, it has buoyed him to keep moving forward.

Just Say No To Cannabis During Pregnancy

Financial advisor Anil Jethmal is asked about it all the time.  And his answer is always the same.  He refuses to recommend purchase of any cannabis stock.  It does not matter what the prospects for the stock or the industry are.  Some things, Anil Jethmal strongly believes, are more important than money. 

The concern is less for adults and what harm they may or may not be doing to themselves.  His issue has to do with pregnant mothers’ usage of cannabis...and the lifelong harm it does to the defenseless human beings yet to be born.

As cannabis use has become legal in an increasing number of jurisdictions in the US, more people are being forthcoming about their use.  While it seems intuitive that marijuana use would be dangerous for the health of the baby, medical researchers now have conclusive evidence of its ill effects on the fetus during gestation.   The cannabinoids cross the placental barrier, then pass through the umbilical cord and towards the baby’s liver.  They can then remain within the baby’s circulatory system for up to five days.

The danger does not end at birth. Once the baby is born, those breastfeeding mothers pass on additional doses of toxicity to their newborns, equivalent to eight times the mother’s THC to blood level.

Research has shown that these babies on average experience significantly lower birth weight.  In early development and adolescence, they develop elevated levels of attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, anxiety and depression.

Alarmingly, seventy percent of women in the UnitedStates believe that there is “slight or no risk of harm” in using can­nabis during pregnancy.  Increased legalization could move that percentage higher. 

Unfortunately, many mothers refuse to acknowledge the harm they are causing their babies.  This is likely due to their lack of education on the matter coupled with their physical and mental addictions to cannabis.  For Anil Jethmal, education is the key.  Without it, sadly, it is the yet unborn who will pay the price for life.

Of Indian descent, but virtually a lifelong New Yorker, Anil Jethmal is often asked about the caste system in India.  Many confuse the "caste system" with the similar sounding "class system".  Anil Jethmal is quick to point out that the Indian caste system is vastly different from the American class system.

The class system, in the Western world, is generally about money.  The upper class is defined by those having more money than those in the middle class….and the middle class is defined by those having more money than those in the lower class.  Some might quip that the word “class” is a misnomer. However, in general American parlance, those with higher levels of monetary wealth are considered to be in a higher class.

In the Indian caste system, the wealthiest business people belong to just the third highest of the four caste levels.  The highest caste is the Brahman (spiritual)…then, the Kshatriya (warrior or ruler)….third, the Vaisya (skilled worker/businessman) and last, the Sudra (unskilled worker).  Thankfully, the caste classification of “untouchable”, a despicable period in Indian history,  no longer exists, having been banned in 1949.

The highest caste, the Brahmans, understand that making money, in itself, should not be an end, or even the sole means to an end.  They understand the need for balance and that contributing to the common good is a necessary ingredient to attain that balance—not just giving money, but also giving of one’s self.

Many Vaisyas (businessmen) in India instinctively aspire to a higher caste by attempting to incorporate those Brahman ideals not only into their daily lives, but also into their own day to day business.

From early childhood, Anil’s family adopted those ideals and led by example.  They demonstrated, time after time, how many spectacular successes can occur in business, seemingly effortlessly, when a truly worthy purpose was intrinsic to the goal. 

Anil Jethmal recalls his father speaking about “tapping into an energy” when one is doing what is right.  More than that, his father continued, those who do garner that energy never seemed to care who got the credit for a successful endeavor, often donating to others and giving of themselves anonymously.  As proof to his skeptical son, he pointed out that the best colleges and universities (with presumably the most accomplished alumni) receive the most and largest anonymous donations.

Through the years, Anil Jethmal recalls several instances where his father would act in a similar manner---often going well out of his way, in order to do the right thing---even if he thought no one was watching. It is a philosophy truly worth following.  And for Anil, it has the added benefit of connecting him to his family and to his heritage.

Are Student Loans Worth It?

Six months after graduating from Bowdoin College in 1987, Anil Jethmal received in the mail his student loan installment plan.  Only twenty-two years old and with an entry level financial advisor job with its associated entry level salary, reality began to set in for Anil that he had to start paying back tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

Was it all worth it?  Of course, it was.  Anil knew all the statistics.  For every dollar invested on an education at Bowdoin, the lifetime financial returns are considerably higher.  True to form, Anil was able to pay back every penny of his student loans with interest well before the 10-year allotted schedule. 

Anil Jethmal is well aware that his financial successes in life, including his being featured in The Winner’s Circle II: How 10 Stockbrokers Became the Best in the Business, can largely be attributed to his education.  However, he has since learned to appreciate his education in a much broader sense.

In a time where racial tensions in society have reached a boiling point, Anil recalls a conspicuous absence of racism during his entire 4 years at Bowdoin College.  Anil was aware that Bowdoin College is perennially ranked in the top 1% of all colleges in the U.S and, therefore, only accepts the best, the brightest and hardest working students. However, it wasn’t until he got there that he realized the wonderful by-product of Bowdoin’s vetting process.

Anil Jethmal, in a conversation with famed author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, discussed the relative, if not total, lack of racism at Bowdoin.  Maya Angelou theorized that it was due to an abundance of “intellectual curiosity” on campus.

She held firmly that those with an “intellectual curiosity” don’t fear people who are different.  They want to know more about what and why others are different.  Those with an “intellectual curiosity” have healthy self-esteem—they don’t need to put down others to feel better about themselves.  

Through the years, Anil has found that his education has bettered him and broadened his own scope of interests in countless other ways. 

His studies of history, for example, inspire Anil often to choose vacations where he may explore new and exciting world cultures.  He feels that those who exclusively spend their vacations at the golf course or at the beach are bypassing some of the best that life has to offer.  Even with something as simple as food, Anil Jethmal finds, those with eclectic interests (inspired by intellectual curiosity) discover many wonderful ethnic cuisines that others may never know and enjoy.  

His enjoyment of the fine arts and for the symphony can be directly traced back to his incredibly engaging professors and the stunning facilities at Bowdoin.  The list goes on and on.

While so many may analyze the monetary benefits of an elite education in terms of financial returns, Anil feels that education has enriched his life in so many other ways.  And that, as the saying goes, is priceless.

Dress for Success

When Anil Jethmal was 6 years old and attending the Campion School in Mumbai, India, he wore a tie to school.  The tie was part of the school uniform for 1^st grader Anil.

At age 10, Anil Jethmal and his family moved back to New York permanently.  For his first day of 5^th grade at the Browning School, located on Park Avenue in Manhattan, Anil again wore a tie, this time with his three-piece suit.  The suit had a decorative pocket square in the breast pocket.  He carried his books to school in a brief case.

While many consider Anil’s attire to be unusually formal for a 10 year-old schoolboy, The Browning School felt otherwise.  Founded in 1888 by John D Rockefeller, Browning’s stated goal since inception was not only to educate, but also to foster an atmosphere where boys grew up to be gentlemen.  The clothing was just a part of that endeavor.

However, something interesting happened along the way.  After several years of wearing a suit to school every day, Anil began to psychologically associate dressing up with working.  Four decades later, even when working from home, Anil Jethmal still finds a need to dress up in order to be productive. And while he does not wear a suit and tie when working from home, he comes pretty close….always a professionally pressed collared shirt and creased pants.

Moreover, in an age when technology is insidiously blurring the line between work and leisure, Anil, now more than ever, feels the need to delineate the two---what better way, then, than dressing for success…and equally important, dressing for leisure and family time.

An Oasis in Time

A native of New York and of Indian heritage, Anil Jethmal was used to hearing ethnic "jokes", comments and innuendos from far too many of his native New Yorkers. He often heard that the cultural diversity of New York actually made the city a much more tolerant and accepting place than other parts of the country.

So when Anil Jethmal attended Bowdoin College in Maine, it marked the first time that he would be living away from his New York home.  He read that Bowdoin College was mostly comprised of a somewhat homogenous "white" student body.  It was Anil's full expectation that the jokes and comments would come more fast and furiously than anything he had experienced prior to the point.

In reality, quite the opposite turned out to be the case.  In Anil's four years at Bowdoin, he does not recall a single slight towards him because of his nationality.  Yet, when Anil would return to New York for summer and winter break every year for four consecutive years, he felt each time as if he were journeying not just back to New York, but back to America's intolerant past.

In a period of time, where so many feel emboldened to express their intolerance and racist tendencies, Anil Jethmal often wonders exactly what it was about Bowdoin that made its constituents break down racial divides.  The most obvious answer is that Bowdoin College is known to be one of the best, if not the best, college in the United States.  It accepts only those students whose academic achievements rank them at the top of their class.

So, when Anil would inform his fellow students of his ethnicity, he would brace for an all too familiar negative response. Instead, much to his surprise and delight, he encountered a very different attitude. He found that his fellow students had an intellectual curiosity about India, and of Anil's experiences as an American of Indian heritage living in the US.

Given the recent social climate in the US, Anil is convinced more than ever that quality education is the most effective antidote to racism.  And, as he fondly remembers those four wonderful years, he is jolted back to the realization of how far away we, as a country, are from that utopia.  How to get there, of course, remains the million dollar question.