Why India is not known for engineering excellence?

I have always wondered why it is always the German and the Japanese companies who take the honors when it comes to engineering excellence. When I explored the reasons, what I found was not very surprising. Let me delve into a couple of major reasons why we may not see engineering excellence in India in this generation.

Firstly, soon after India got independence, the political leaders of India wanted to build institutions of excellence and government took up the responsibility of building it all. The license raj ensured that the private enterprises got to build what government wanted them to build and not what market wanted. In effect, we followed the Russian model (before it broke). As a result, there was no incentive for anyone to build the best products with best workmanship. Hence till 1991, we all had to live with sub-standard products unless we had some friend abroad who brought us a Bose music system.

Secondly, even after the introduction of reforms in 1991, private enterprises went about signing joint-ventures with companies abroad which had excelled in building great products (read engineering excellence), but their engineers / workers were of the pre-reform mindset. For these engineers just making products which are usable was good enough. Hence we have Tata cars which have lot of innovation, but not great finish. Even when complete technology was brought from abroad, our engineers built products of inferior quality. I have a Sony music system in my house manufactured in India and having used a similar system in US (which was made in Japan), I can make out the difference in quality.

So far, I have seen only one exception in India and that is Hidesign, which makes leather products like purses, etc. This is the only company that I know of, in India which focuses on engineering excellence and delivers products known for world-class workmanship.

Overall, I have a strong feeling that till the current generation retires, we may not see engineering excellence in India and even that is doubtful. Building products like Mercedes Benz or a Bose music system which are known for engineering excellence is still not in our DNA. I guess it will take one whole generation post-1991 for us to at-least have a product from India known for engineering excellence. So far I have not seen any, but I am hopeful.