10.09.2026
Why do we compete? Evolution tells men that we have to compete for women. Society forces us to compete for resources such as money. And in education? In education, the competition is for prestige. Getting the best marks. Publishing in the most reputable journals. Making a name for oneself.
I have always seen education as a competition. Generally speaking, a competition which I win.
At school, we got prizes for the ‘A’ Levels. I won all of them for my subjects. When we had the prizegiving, everyone was surprised that they kept on calling me up onto the stage to receive yet another prize. I won an essay writing competition for classics from Oxford in my ‘A’ Levels too, whether Aristophanes was funny or not. The prizes were always books. A particular luxury because my parents wouldn’t buy me or let me buy books and I was a bookworm. They thought that books were to be read free from the library.
While I got good results at university, what got me through my PhD was my competitive edge. I am a competitor. And competition brings out the best in me. The pressure produces diamonds. An example is a Scrabble game I played against a computer Grandmaster from a couple of days ago. This computer intelligence was about two hundred points in front of me. But I never give up. In the end, the computer Grand Master only just about managed to beat me.
It was this philosophy of competition that motivated me throughout my PhD and the subsequent publication of my doctoral thesis. The way that I saw it, France had its turn, Germany had its turn, now it was my turn. India’s turn. Punjab’s turn. It was us that were going to be the top thinkers now. I saw myself as a top scholar.
And what have I learnt about this competition that is education and academia? I have learnt that just because you are more intelligent, more hardworking and more talented than others, just because you have better arguments, that does not mean that they will rate you as the winner in this competition. Because we are Indian, they marginalise and silence us. Because we are ethnic minority men, they will not be persuaded or listen to us. Because we follow our own agenda, we are ostracised.
No matter how much we achieve, they will never rate us. We can see things that they can never see and they will not value our contributions. We can write beautifully, have profound insights and broach the most original and important topics. And yet, we have to work and live outside of the institutions and pay for our minds. Because we have a foreign name. Because we are different. Because we are difference.
In fact, the sad reality is that the only scholar I can genuinely compete against is myself. To outdo what I have done before. Yes. I say it. The others do not count. They do not count. They write out of a system of privilege. They are blind and deaf. In the same way that they and their community have not rated me, I do not rate their community. I do not see them as a meritocracy and in no way do I see them as superior to myself. I return my injuries with interest.
In fact, I am much better than them because I have genuine freedom. Independence of thought and agenda. Freedom from their racism, navel-gazing, sycophancy, conformism and hypocrisy. I am truly an independent scholar. And they? They are not.
