Are Indians really better at maths

1. Ancient pedigree: a real historical claim, well documented

Indian scholarship produced major mathematical innovations — the recorded use of zero, early decimal numerals, negative numbers, algebraic and trigonometric advances, and Kerala-school series that predate some European work — and historians and education writers cite these contributions directly ^{[1] [2]}. These facts explain why many commentators link "Indians" and "mathematics" as a cultural-historical association ^[2].

2. Contemporary strengths: concentrated, not universal

There are notable contemporary strengths: some Indians excel in mathematics and STEM careers, and coaching cultures, competitive exams, and career incentives push many students toward quantitative fields (available sources mention coaching and exam preparation culture indirectly in practice guides but do not provide national statistics on excellence beyond ^[7] and ^[9] which discuss preparation and tests; those are not national performance claims). However, large-scale learning diagnostics show many Indian students do not meet expected foundational-math benchmarks: a study using representative data for 101,084 public-school students across 19 states diagnoses gaps in key skills and raises concerns about transitions from concrete to abstract representations ^[4].

3. Practical numeracy vs. school math: different skills, different outcomes

Empirical research finds a clear split between applied, marketplace numeracy and formal school math. An MIT summary of a Nature paper reports that Indian children working in markets were competent at fast, applied calculations used in trading but performed poorly on standardized school-type problems; only 32% of working children could divide a three-digit number by a one-digit number on a national test in one sample, and in a Delhi replication only about 15% of market-working children who were also in school reached average proficiency by school metrics ^[3]. This shows that "being good at maths" depends heavily on what tasks you measure.

4. Regional, socioeconomic and gender variation matter

The large public-school diagnostic explicitly disaggregates achievement by grade and sex and warns of pressing gender gaps and state-level variation in foundational skills ^[4]. Smaller classroom- or district-level studies (e.g., Haryana districts, or studies developing mathematical-aptitude tests) show urban/rural, private/government, and gender differences in aptitude and achievement too ^{[5] [6]}. Thus national averages conceal substantial heterogeneity.

5. Education system, culture and incentives: multiple explanations, multiple viewpoints

Observers point to several mechanisms that could produce high performers alongside many low performers: historical esteem for learning, the prevalence of coaching and exam-driven study paths, occupational sorting into engineering and tech, and harsh selection effects (some online accounts connect engineering popularity to stronger cohorts) ^{[7] [8]}. At the same time, formal diagnostics show systemic learning gaps despite exposure — implying that culture and selection alone do not guarantee uniformly high math skills across the population ^{[4] [3]}.

6. What the available sources do not say

Available sources do not offer a single, nationally representative metric that proves Indians as a whole are "better at maths" than other populations; they do not present cross-country standardized comparisons in the provided set. They also do not prove that cultural or genetic explanations are decisive — available reporting focuses on historical contributions, micro-studies of skills, and public-school diagnostics, not on broad cross-national causal tests (not found in current reporting).

7. Bottom line for the claim "Are Indians really better at maths?"

Historically, Indian mathematicians made world-changing contributions — a factual foundation for the idea that India has a deep mathematical heritage ^{[1] [2]}. In the present, there are concentrated centers of strong mathematical performance and a workforce with strong applied numeracy in some settings, but large-scale diagnostics reveal many Indian students fall short on formal school mathematics, and marketplace numeracy often does not transfer to classroom success ^{[4] [3]}. Any simple blanket statement that "Indians are better at maths" misreads both the historical record (which is strong) and contemporary realities (which are mixed and highly variable by context) ^{[1] [4] [3]}.

If you want, I can: (a) summarize the Nature/MIT study in more detail with specific task examples and sample sizes ^[3], or (b) pull more findings from the 101,084-student diagnostic to show state- or gender-level variation ^[4].