The abrupt resignation and flight to America of Arvind Subramaniam, chief economic advisor to the Central government, so soon after he authored the widely acclaimed Economic Survey 2018-19 on the flimsy ground that he has become a grandfather, highlights one of the great infirmities of post-independence India’s society. It is saddled with an effete elite fashioned by Nehruvian socialism which accords little value to the country’s hard-won independence and prefers to cut and run at the first opportunity to serve our erstwhile white masters or their kith and kin.

Curiously, most educated middle class Indians don’t find it odd that their countrymen born into so-called good families who have derived the benefit of heavily-subsidised college and university education, and whose parental connections assure them of a good start in life in this country, don’t give a second thought to emigrating and serving in patronising, if not hostile, societies abroad. Indeed, even educated upper middle class parents seem unaware that their pampered progeny will inevitably have to suffer daily slights, snide remarks and insults, if not blatant racial discrimination on the road to success. Even children of several presidents and prime ministers prefer to live and serve abroad rather than in the country fashioned by their sires — surely a resounding vote of no confidence.

One can understand citizens from bottom-of-pyramid households denied the basics of respectable livelihood by the self-serving neta-babu brotherhood whose zeal for socialism is matched by its business illiteracy, wanting to get their progeny out of the country. But if top economists, political scientists and academics prefer to be tolerated in Western universities, rather than occupy the highest offices of their native land, the future of the nation is cloudy. India’s effete middle class needs a radical mind-set change, and reminded that it’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.