In this paper, we identify the principal societal, systemic, organizational and governmental barriers to innovation and the creation of a knowledge society in India. Societal barriers include an ambivalent attitude towards knowledge, a "knowing-doing gap", hesitation to specialize, a static view of techno logy, i.rltolerance offailure, and a declining respect for diversity and dissent. A lack of design and experimentation in engineering curricula, lack of cooperation between firms, lack of depth in different industries, absence of a culture of debate, and barriers to the founding and growth of high technology firms are systemic barriers.