‘Sell the India story, but save for Harvard’: Devina Mehra slams elite education hypocrisy

Devina Mehra, founder and CMD of First Global, has unleashed a sharp critique of India’s top corporate voices, accusing them of a glaring contradiction: promoting the India growth narrative while privately investing in foreign education for their children.

“I see an interesting trend in any news reports on the Indian elite talking about their financial goals and what they are saving for,” Mehra wrote on X. “For top-level executives (the CXOs) and fund managers, a big part of their targeted financial corpus is towards the 'foreign' education of their children. Pick up almost any of these reports or videos and you will see that pattern!”

She didn’t hold back in her indictment: “The somewhat strange part of this equation is that in their day job all of them are pushing ‘the India growth story,’ telling people how India is the greatest economy and/or market to be in—and yet their bet is that not just now, but even 10 or 15 years hence there will be no world-class institutes or universities in India!”

Mehra capped her argument with a pointed observation: “Always go by what people do and not what they say—especially not what they say YOU should do.”

In a follow-up reflection, Mehra added context from her own generation: “When we were growing up, hardly anyone even thought of going overseas for an undergraduate degree—except maybe children of top industrialists. Some went for a master’s or post-doc, but that’s about it.”

Her post struck a nerve online, with users echoing her concerns. 

One user commented, “Same thoughts when I read that a popular fund manager had a Rs 10 crore savings goal for a kid’s education abroad after 15 years—while telling everyone how India is the place to be.” Another added, “Children going abroad to learn English in the UK, while parents promote Hindi and virtues of gaumutra in India. Can't get worse than this.”