Indian Telecom Diaspora: The Success Called Idea

"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed
some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of
life, and has found solutions to some of them even of those who have studied Plato and Kant>.... I should point to
India."

Friedrich Max Muller

India, what can it teach us? 1882

Why do Indians succeed?

At one level, the answer to this question can be provided very
matter-of-factly. As Dr AnnaLee Saxenian says (see interview on page 54), it is
because of the right combination of talent, hard work, and social networking.

Hold on...social networking as an ingredient of success in the global scene?
We always knew Indians love social networking. But it to be put in the same
bracket as talent and hard work as the qualities that lead to success?

Yes, it is Dr Saxenian herself who has put it there. And she has argued
cogently to prove her point.

So is it the factor?

When you consider Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship, it could well be.
However, when you take fields such as say, fine art or literature, where extreme
eccentricity may not be a barrier, how do you explain such success?

What is needed perhaps is a far deeper understanding of the Indian mind. And
there is a clue to that understanding, in the above words of Max Muller, an
Indologist par excellence. This is what he says, ‘pondering’ on the greatest
problems of life.

The Indian mind is somehow naturally tuned to this pondering.

And it is this pondering over, this inquisitiveness, this constant
intellectual exercise to find a solution to a problem, that may not be your own,
is what the Indian mind has considered supreme from time immemorial.

Most of us are familiar with the legendary tales of Isaac Newton’s
discovery of the gravitational force, George Steveneson’s invention of the
steam engine, or Marconi’s discovery of the radio waves. In all these great
intellectual breakthroughs of the modern time, the common and the most
fundamental can be called the inquisitive spirit.

This inquisitive spirit is natural to the Indian mind. It is deeply
entrenched in the Indian mind right from the Vedic period–that is a few
thousand years before the Christian era began. Some of the questions that the
Vedic sages have pondered over, about all aspects of life–and not just
spiritual–are easily the greatest example of intellectual inquiry that can be
found in the history of human civilization.

And this path of intellectual inquiry–the path of knowledge–has always
been held in higher esteem than not just materialistic things but also the
religious rituals and rites.

This intellectual journey has given an unmatched status to ideas. The true
history of ancient India, to those who are fully familiar with it, is not a
history of kings and queens, not a history of battles and wars. It is a history
of ideas.

So much so that many scholars feel India itself means much more than just a
political nation. It is an idea. Hinduism, the most predominant religion in this
country–if it can still be called by that somewhat restrictive word–is an
idea. And the one that encompasses so many ideas, sometimes so opposed to each
other.

This co-existence of seemingly opposing ideas–that not only tolerate but
also respect each other–is India’s greatest contribution to the world.
Something that is becoming fundamental to the new economy.

It is not holding on to your ideas but distributing it that makes you
powerful in the new economy. And no where is it practiced better than in the US.
And within the US, it is the Silicon Valley that is known for this. As
journalist Michael Lewis observes, Silicon Valley is to the US what the US is to
the rest of the world. It is a place where ideas rule. There free sharing is the
culture. The Indian mind does feel more at home in such a place than anywhere
else.

That would probably better explain why Indians are succeeding more in modern
times. That also explains why many of them are succeeding in the US. It also
explains why most of them are succeeding in the Silicon Valley.

That is why you will find most successful Indians who are featured in this
issue are the ones who are intellectuals, who have reached there through their
innovative ideas, and constant intellectual effort to find solutions to the most
complex problems of the world of communications.

You will find a Pradeep Sindhu who thought that something could be done in a
much better way than it was being done then. And relentlessly pursued it. It
required another great Indian–Vinod Khosla–to recognize and respect that
idea.

All the Indians about whom you will read in this issue are changing the world
of communication in one way or the other. But unlike the past, researchers who
debated on and on about a specific theory, these intellectuals are sensitive to
the needs of the people. Coming from a third world country that has about 16.7
percent of the world’s population, they have seen and experienced some of the
acute problems of human society. Their approach to problem solving is more
realistic, more humane.

Take Sam Pitroda, who changed the face of Indian telecom in a span of a few
years, that no one arguably has done in any field in India at any time. He was
born in a village that had no electricity, had also never used a telephone
before he went to the US. Who can understand the needs of common people better?

You will read about Indians like Raj Singh who–unlike a Jim Clarke–does
not start with wealth creation in mind while starting a company and who–unlike
the researchers in labs–does not do it just to satisfy his intellectual need,
though he ends up doing both. His prime objective is ‘to fill the gap’–the
same thought that had once driven Alexander Graham Bell. The same thought that
had once driven Cristopher Columbus.

You will read about people like Dr Narinder Singh Kapany and Mano Murthy. Dr
Kapany, the father of fiber optics to the world of communication, is unmatched
by his contribution to the world of art. He introduced to the world what is
today known as Sikh Art. People who can well be called true examples of what
writer John Brockman calls the intellectuals of the ‘third culture’. He is
joined by people like Mano Murthy who is known to the world of entertainment for
a very different reason, he has actually scored music for some Kannada movies.

You will read about Dr Arun Netravali, who believes his mentor is Lata
Mangeshkar, though the melody queen would probably never understand what high
denition television actually is.

You will read about 49 such individuals who are changing the world of
telecom. Yesterday, many of them would have been cited as examples of brain
drain. Today, it is brain circulation that we talk about. By developing ideas,
making inventions, and building institutions–these Indians are contributing to
the betterment of human life throughout the world.

Measured from traditional economic terms, they are bringing investment back
to India and encouraging entrepreneurship here and catalyzing the technology
revolution in India.

But if India is truly an idea, if it is not just confined to the political
boundary, if it is Indianness that we should be celebrating, then the success of
Indians anywhere is the success of India. They have put the essential Indian
qualities–inquisitiveness, free sharing of ideas, social networking–to test
in solving the most complex problems of today’s world of technology. And they
have succeeded.

Isn’t that a victory for India?

Let us measure their contribution from a broader perspective. They are laying
the foundation for leading the world of tomorrow, when ideas will enlighten the
human race, when the political boundaries will become less relevant. And when
the whole world will become one big family. Again, something that our seers
noted thousands of years ago in the Rig Veda–vasudhaiva kutumbakam.

Shyamanuja Das