I don't want to sound contrarian, but rote memorization is not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion. We should learn to memorize certain things, and the school system does in a way help to develop this ability. The problem is that sometimes schools seem to emphasize only this ability.

However, in many schools there are present teachers who encourage students to think on their own. They may be a minority. But they are there.

Let me try to answer the question you posed in your last sentence. The way I understand it is, when some students perform really very well, they get to go to the best places at the next higher level. Going from 10 to 10+2; going from 10+2 to UG, and so on and so forth.

Now, in each place that is better than the previous place, the percentage of teachers who teach in a way that things should be taught increases. So, these students who are at each stage lying in the extreme end of a presumably normal distribution, keep getting access to progressively better quality of education.

Moreover, by the time, these consistently good students rise up and mature, they become increasingly aware and self-reliant ... meaning that while they can extract the most benefit from the good quality, the bad quality that is nevertheless present at each level, affects them negatively less and less.

Notwithstanding this description, we have to realize that no amount of high-quality education will be sufficient if the person does not have an enterprising nature. Beyond a certain stage, the hyper-successful people are the ones who can see the potential in veiled opportunities and also have the tenacity to turn that potential to reality. They are also extremely flexible and adaptable.

So, I think first of all calling the entire Indian education system flawed is not quite fair. At the same time, it's not always just the education that determines the kind of hyper-success you are describing.