Telecom inventor, entrepreneur and longtime Congress associate Sam Pitroda on Sunday said that temples will not create jobs and that only science will build the future.

“I get worried that the ongoing debates in this country are on temples, religion and caste,” Pitroda said at a session on employment and entrepreneurship during the Youth Parliament at Karnavati University in Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar, according to The Indian Express. “Whenever you talk of employment, there is always political interference. Temples are not going to create jobs for the youth. We talk about statistics, we mislead our youth, we misguide them onto wrong paths, we lie to them. I say there are three sets of people you should not listen to – your parents, teachers and, the third, politicians. This is because they all have limited knowledge of the technologically changing world.”

Pitroda said there was very little conversation on science in the public domain. He said a lot of leaders had not “achieved much in their life besides giving speeches”. “They are not qualified to guide our young [people],” he said.

Pitroda said India lacked the “right mindset” to look at jobs of tomorrow as the “concept of jobs that we understand today is long dead”.

“Jobs of tomorrow will come in the form of entrepreneurship in smaller areas,” Pitroda said. “SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] will create more jobs, which will come with focus on better energy, infrastructure.”