The Long Revolution The Birth And Growth Of India’s IT Industry;
By Dinesh C. Sharma; Publisher: HarperCollins; Pages: 488; Price: Rs 595
Writing a book on India’s IT industry is a brave attempt considering the frequency with which it has been discussed and dissected by journalists, academics, analysts and consultants, and the obvious fatigue that has set in. Dinesh C. Sharma, writing as a New India Foundation fellow (fellowships are awarded to scholars and writers working on different aspects of the history of Independent India), treads on a road well-worn, but pulls away from most other writers because he attempts to chronicle the IT story from the origins to the present.
The Long Revolution is a comprehensive catalogue of the country’s struggles, many false starts, state-created inertia, gradual discovery and eventual emergence as a global IT giant. Sharma’s narrative begins in the 1920s and ’30s, when the use of IT in India started at about the same time as the rest of the world. This was thanks to P.C. Mahalanobis and Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who took the first few baby steps that has since exploded into a revolution. This was the pre-computer age of tabulating machines and unit recording machines. Mahalanobis and Bhabha used predecessors of computing machines to solve their own pain points — the former using it to analyse data from the National Sample Survey, and Bhabha for designing and running nuclear reactors. What began then is traced all the way through to the present.
 Dinesh C. Sharma has reported on science, technology and environment for the national and international media since 1984. He has won the National Award for Outstanding Effort in Science and Technology Communication in the Print Medium’ in 2006 and the ‘ACE Reporter’s Award’ from the European School of Oncology in 2003. Sharma is a postgraduate in journalism and communications from Osmania University, Hyderabad |
Sharma’s task is tough because the story of the Indian IT industry is synonymous with outsourcing to most casual observers. But the book goes beyond that, and focuses on the history of the use of IT in India, and also the software, hardware, semiconductor and design industries. The IT story is believed to have started after the liberalisation in 1991, when a progressive software policy created the perfect storm for the industry to carve out India as the premier IT outsourcing destination. The book dives below the tip of the 1991 iceberg to emerge with a lot of relatively unknown data and interesting anecdotes. Some of these stories from the pre-1991 era are either not well-known or are otherwise untold.
Sharma’s eye for detail and painstaking research is obvious from his chronicling of the great Indian IT journey. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, he notes India’s emphasis on indigenous technology and self-reliance — entry of global IT giants such as IBM in setting up manufacturing units and selling computers — and the role of institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Indian Statistical Institute in promoting computing.
The book works well as a reference, especially for those who want to know the facts, turning points and cull interesting anecdotes from the early days of Indian IT. For instance, key policy decisions are highlighted, such as the recommendations made by the Mantosh Sondhi panel in 1979, which for the first time spoke about giving special clearances for the import of computers against the obligation to export software. This led to the birth of the software industry.
Sharma also highlights the role of the state in pushing the IT agenda further, such as the 1984 computer policy, which reduced hardware prices, and then the 1990s when the government went all out with tax holidays, setting up software technology parks and marketing the industry externally.
While the book does a good job of recounting the pre-1990 era, it comes up short post that when one expects new stories tumbling out of the closet, insights and the behind-the-scene stories of how India disrupted the global IT industry and altered it. Sharma makes little or no mention of the clustering of the IT industry in a few cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. In almost all tech industries, clustering is a phenomenon, such as Route 128 in Boston and Silicon Valley. He also does not tell us how Bangalore edged out Mumbai in becoming India’s Silicon Valley.
Sharma overlooks the important role that state governments played when they allowed privatisation of engineering colleges, resulting in over 80 per cent of engineering graduates pouring out from them.
One of the biggest criticisms of the book is that it does not delve into the buses that India missed as it focused on software services and outsourcing opportunities. The vast training institutes run by the IT companies and how that led to the polishing of the poor quality of graduates turned out by engineering colleges finds only fleeting mention in the book.
This review was published in the Businessworld issue dated Dated 17-23 March 2009
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