>If you live in Gujarat, you are respected a lot more for having your own business (whether its a Multi National Company or a corner shop) rather than an employee, even if you have a great job.

So most kids in Gujarat are not pressured to complete high school?

>If you live in Kerala, I imagine you are respected well if you go abroad and send remittances back.

To be honest, in my very limited experience, Indians living abroad are responsible for trying to improve quite a few institutions in India (in particular trying to build more educational/social institutions that benefit society in a way that existing ones fail). I honestly don't know if they are from Kerala though.

>Credential ism is a very recent phenomena in Indian society, in place mostly because of the police-state like rule imposed on Indian society by the British.

While I accept blame on the British, things that happened over 70 years ago is not "recent". The failure of not moving away from credentialism does not lie with the British.

>of course the society will re-orient itself to satisfy those requirements.

Incidentally, much of the credentialism existed in Britain as well in those years. Their implementing it in India was merely a way to mirror their own structures. However, the UK today is significantly less focused on these things, yet the sentiment is still strong in India. Yes, of course society re-orients itself to satisfy requirements, but the burden is on the society to re-orient itself once those requirements are no longer there.

BTW, my aim is not to minimize the impact of colonialism. I'm trying to point out that blaming colonialism will never be part of the solution to a country's woes.