Computer and ITadoption in India my experiences in India

 Indian development activities from a technology vs people perspective with respect to computer adaption and absorptions and my experiences

Prof D K Subramanian, Indian Institute of Science

Past professor, IIT, Bombay

Visiting faculty, Univ of Manchester, AIT, Bangkok, PSTI,IIM, Bangalore 

Advisor, TCS,governments, Banks, universities, Jayadeva institute, Jindal Steels,and industries

              1.Introduction

Development ensures our good lifestyle and enriches our living both on the positive and negative side. We get alerts from our developmental activities. Our actions impact several sectors, several resources, several social and cultural aspects,several groups of people, several cities and villages etc.

There are thousands of researchers focusing on the sociological aspects due to development. Here, we focus on one aspect - technology absorption and problems, hurdles associated with it.

        2.What is development?

Development is a continuous process of positive, qualitative change, growth, and improvement in individuals, societies, or economies. It involves advancing to a more advanced, mature, or complex state, encompassing economic progress (higher income), social improvement (better education/health), and personal evolution (skills/maturity).

Simply stated, development is a process of moving forward to improve the lifestyle of people and adapt to changing situations and to new technologies and modern lifestyles.

Technology is an integral part of today's developmental focus.

That definition doesn’t tell us anything. We need more information to understand development to a deeper level. 

First, development is not a problem solving methodology.

It is not even a complex project involving resources, plans, processes, timelines, schedules, implementations etc.

It is a multi sectoral, multi people, multi disciplined program. It has a major long term goal and involves many projects executed concurrently. It may involve many stages and types of implementations, which may change with time. 

A project can be well structured, but a program may need changes during the period of its implementation.

For example, developing a nuclear eco system in the country is a program. Building a power plant at Tarapore is a project. Similarly, creation of a space science eco system is a program, but building a satellite like Aryabhatta is a project. Improving food availability to all is a program and creating a command area of irrigation under the Beas dam project is a project.

        3.Systemic understanding

This gives us some depth in understanding the concept of development. Components and interconnections and relationships come out in this view.

Let's look at a systemic view.

Development is a large, complex and interconnected system built on a goal, policies and roles,a good definition of the problem with good understanding, processes, adaptation, feedbacks and controls, dynamic processes, corrections, education, discussions, participations, resources, physical components, options and decisions etc.

It depends on people, their behaviors, culture, present state, bureaucracy, government policies and approaches, economy, resources,absorption indices, hurdles,etc.

             4.Other views

Development is to alleviate some problems of a society leading to improvements. Examples are removing the scarcity of food, poverty alleviation, reducing child mortality etc. These are social needs.

Development may be initiated to increase the sustainability and security - food, energy, water- of a country.

Development can be the introduction of a new way of living, new technology etc. Examples are swatch bharat, industrialisation, science and technology, education, computers introduction, mobiles and broadband, AI preparedness etc. 

Development is a generic term referring to many kinds like

Personal development

Mental development

Sectoral development like agriculture, steel industries, education etc

Social development like health for all, safe water, pollution control, jobs to all etc.

Technology developments like computers, communications,AI

Economic development like poverty alleviation, drinking water available to all, 

Development of a country. Etc.

Each group may have several components, processes, connections, impacts and characteristics. The only commonality is the following steps

1.Discover a problem to develop. Define a goal. Identify primary subgoals and major entities and operations. 

2.Discover the components , implementation processes, resources, mechanisms etc. It is a continuous activity and will keep on updating changes in reality.

3. Initiate actions. Measure outcomes.Feedbacks and responses.Review. Change. Monitor. Educate. Repeat.

4. Look at hurdles. Address and initiate

 remedial actions.

A still better understanding happens when we look at the characteristics of a development program.

              5.Characteristics of development

Developments are complex, difficult to assess apriori the requirements, the processes, the outcomes, the impacts. Detailed discoveries are needed before starting on a development activity.

Developments may have multiple approaches. Consider the goal- food for all. We now think of increasing food grains production as a solution. There are several ways of doing this- some easy, some difficult. The first five year plan discovered water availability as a major problem and went ahead with constructing dams. But local level canal developments were ignored as that was a hard task. Then, it was inputs. The government took initiatives to produce chemical fertilizer and distributed it to farmers. Manure development was missed. Then the government looked at the distribution side and decided to increase storage facilities.

Developments are ideology driven or policy driven or driven by current needs. Look at energy development and energy policies. It started with conservation, then moved to renewables, then to strengthening supply chains and then to climate focus, and now to energy security focus. Similarly poverty removal started with self sufficiency- increase production, then moved on to storage and distribution of subsidised food grains and access to distribution.

Developments are determined by philosophies- good vs evil, rich vs poor, model A vs model B etc. 

Unfortunately most people think of development as A vs B- socialism vs capitalism, or developers have a single track mind.

Developments normally start with an objective, goals and policies followed by a detailed implementation plan that is feasible, realistic, achievable, beneficial and acceptable/ adaptable as well as current and futuristic.

It is people oriented, people driven, people managed. Unfortunately it may be a government driven show. Even democratic governments are fixated and dictatorial in development.

Developments depend on participation by people and good, timely, transparent and easily accessible information transfer mechanisms. Removal of mis information, rumors are equally important for the success.

Development is dependent on mindsets and beliefs.

Development has many processes with long time delays.

Developments are conjectural and dogmatic, not rational.

Some developments have builtin biases.

Developments are connected processes- intertwined with economy, resources, technology, markets, tech skills, people mindsets and behaviors, absorption capabilities, reachability and most importantly sustainable from environment and users point of view.

Developments do a balancing act. We juggle with many aspects like money, skills, delays, reach to people, information transfer, acceptance, cultural shifts.

Developments can fail.It is difficult to assess acceptance a priori. Swatch bharat is still struggling. Biogas was a great starter but stagnating now. Biases, egos, poor planning, insufficient funds, loss of interest, too long a time frame, poor benefits and culture are some reasons for failures.

Developments can be general- for a country or sector specific like energy or a tech specific like computers.

        6.Why do we need development?

Human life needs many basic components to live. Initially our objective was to get food and safety. Our developments started there. From gathering and hunting, we moved to agriculture. We developed tools and fire for safety. These led to settlements and group living. So developments have been the focus of our life. 

Developments came from our thinking. So the next step in development came from our curiosity- to understand our society, our neighborhood, our universe, our evolution, our wellbeing. It gave birth to order, governance, ethics, religion and new ways of living like cooking, irrigation, use of steel, and unwanted new threats like warfare etc. This urge to know moved us to fast forward to a concept of civilised living. So that led to an explosion of developments in philosophy, nature, cosmos, metallurgy, thermodynamics, biology, sciences, mathematics, organization, management,construction, technology etc. So development is an integral part of human life and progress. 

            7.A basic story of development in India

Development started in India from prevedic times- shelter, drainage, etc. Vedas discuss both physical and mental developments. Upanishads focus on knowledge and philosophy. We see astronomy, geometry, number systems, metallurgy and heat in vedas- a formidable array of developments as the first steps for knowledge.

Modern era, a well recorded incident is the quest of JN Tata on multiple forms of development- hotels, textile, silk, steel, education and research. That was the first integral form of industrial development in India. 

The first prime minister, J Nehru, focused initially on food production and concentrated on heavy industries. He also started CSIR labs and atomic energy activities.

But the credit goes to Mrs. Indira Gandhi who initiated developments in many fronts- green revolution, electronics, science and technology, environment, renewable energy, space, defence, etc. 

We continued developments on many issues affecting us- poverty, malnutrition, child mortality,school education, health , IT, AI and small scale industries.

So development should the important topic for a philosopher. But we got only a narrow social focus. I am giving it a technical focus here.

              8.Why do developments fail to achieve their objectives?

As we said before, development is a complex process dependent on many known, unknown, uncertain factors impacting humans, economy, health, education environment, culture and industry and commerce sectors. So Murphy’s laws will play everywhere. There are several reasons for poor progress of a development program. Let us see them:

The goals may be wrong.This is due to the manner of goal selection. There are two approaches normally chosen. The first identifies a problem and tries to solve it. Examples are: observation of starvation led to the food self-sufficiency goal; scarcity of steel led to increasing steel production; malnutrition led to mid day meals scheme. The second approach to goals is based on our futuristic beliefs on needs and growth. Madam Indira Gandhi focused on this.Examples are nuclear capability development- that was due to Homi Bhabha convincing Nehru and developing a holistic vision, space capability development, electronics and computers development etc. Environment goals and climate goals are the necessities of sustainable living standards.

Poor understanding, awareness and requirements needed to achieve the goals. This is the most common reason for failures. While electronics development was a commendable goal in the seventies, we didn’t achieve it and there are many reasons. i) we didn’t understand the sector. It was a diffused sector. ii) we didn’t go with the rapid developments from tubes to transistors to ICs to VLSI.iii) we didn’t invest in foundries.iv) we didn’t have right policies for development particularly on imports and collaboration. v) there were delays in talent development and deployment of new technologies in the telecom sector.vi) poor policies in computer deployment.

Hurdles due to the egos, habits, culture,beliefs and fear of the people. Many programs got torpedoed due to this. The mid day meals scheme keeps changing with time due to beliefs and culture. Swatch bharat - garbageless city- is not happening. Child mortality elimination program is struggling in villages.

Poor implementation due to disinterest, misinformation, disbelief, wrong implementation methodologies. Family planning is one example here.

Complex nature of the plan. Take climate change. It is an international problem. Agreements are not happening. Directions are not accepted. Power plays are the big hurdles. Science is not able to convince people. Priorities are different.

               9.Levels of Hurdles 

Hurdles occur in different ways. Let us classify them.

1.Ideology - capitalist vs socialist

2.Beliefs known vs unknown, tradition vs modern

3.Constraints. Costs and affordability,subsidies or none, skills, management practices, ease of use, ease of maintenance

4.People oriented - fear,beliefs, egos, principles, wrong or narrow focus, missing essentials, interest, poor understanding, single track mindset, ignorance and misunderstanding, awareness and discovery, trust, etc. This is the biggest hurdle.

5.Culture related- traditional wood stove vs solar cookers, biogas for cooking,etc.

6.Implementation- well planned or poorly planned, unanticipated challenges and handling them, delays, management support, resources mobilization

7. Awareness and education

8. Understanding technology requirements and the process of absorption. Closed mind is one of the important causes here. Ignoring this aspect by planners is another reason.

I want to look at one example to illustrate the complexities, hurdles, and nuances of development.

            10.Computer development in India

It is not directed by the government fully. It is a diffused people initiative. 

Let me start with the initial state.

Initial state: policies restricted computer purchases to premier research institutions.

Computers used for scientific work, dealing with compute intensive jobs like monsoon forecasting, aerospace designs etc. 

History of computer absorption in India

 Period-1970s

The focus was on

Training of thousands on programming

Setting up regional computer centres by the government.

Manufacture of minis by ECIL.

Use of minis by universities and industries.

Most IITs, IISc,TIFR- NCST- got their mainframes- Dec 1090 or IBM370.

Microprocessor applications by PSI, Bangalore

Period- 1980s

Training institutes set up in thousands in different cities.

Thousands of computer engineers produced.

Manufacturing of PCs 

Client server architecture

Application software development

Global software services- dominance

But we missed Apple Mac computers.

When compared with the Intel PCs, these Macs were decades ahead. MSDOS operating system used by our PC was torture. It took many minutes of typing to get into the system. Fortunately, we used the PC only as a front end and were working on the server using Unix in IISc. We, in the 1985-86 period, were living in an inflection point in India. We had to move from main frames to PCs, from specialized usage to general usage and from system analysts to application users. While PCs were used by many organizations in India, they were used in the LAN mode and people used the server mostly, the PCs being front end. Client server model needed to transition to presentation, application and database model fully. PC alone use was not popular.That was a show case activity. PCs were becoming powerful but usage of that PC power was minimal. It was not a happy situation.But MAC operating system changed the scene in the US. It became a great presentation engine. Menus, touch screen, color display, file systems and easy to learn and use commands pushed the usage up and users were thrilled with the machine. These were part of high cost graphics machines and were now available at affordable costs. There was a lesser need for graphics machines. And fear of computing disappeared.

The MAC apple computer design taught me a great lesson.

' Design things for the users. User friendliness is an important requirement for success. So focus on users always.'

Apple MAC brought PCs towards the people. Microsoft quickly understood the impact of MAC on Intel PCs. It also brought Windows OS into Intel PCs. But it brought out Microsoft Office in 1990 for Apple PC first followed by Intel PC and that changed the PC scene. PCs have become useful in all offices, big or small. That was a great transition. PCs have moved into hundreds of thousands of organizations, schools, industries. Usage by typists, accountants, teachers, speakers became common- real personal machines. 

Computers have transitioned from programmer centric devices to user centric devices. That was a big transformation. A new profession of independent software developers developing generic applications came up and they started producing thousands of useful applications.This created thousands of entrepreneurs. But the app explosion has to wait for smart mobile innovation and popularity.

Period -1990s

Most government operations are computerized.

Microsoft Office is used everywhere.

Hundreds of companies came up 

Schools got computer education- example mahithi sindhu program.

Hundreds of engineering colleges start computer science programs.

ERP was set up by many large organizations and industries.

Most industries moved to microsoft ERP.

Y2k helps Indian software services to become world leaders.

Period- 2000 plus.

India moves into IT very fast. Internet and web absorptions happened very fast.

India became the global IT services leader.

Governments introduce IT services. 

Digital transformation and internet use grows rapidly.

India produces several hundred thousand engineers through a large number of new engineering colleges approved by AICTE.

Email, social networks, whatsapp and smartmobiles reach millions of people.

Ecommerce ,Mcommerce and quick commerce became very popular. 

People adapt to a digital lifestyle.

500 million use whatsapp.

Fintech brought in social revolutions. UPI is a gamechanger.

Mobile apps , mobile payments, mobile transactions, netbanking, became popular. Most people got bank accounts. Direct beneficiary transfer helped poor, rural people and minimised corruption.

         11. What are the hurdles?

Computerization is not a simple or technical task. It needs handholding, education, awareness, removal of ignorance and misunderstandings, understanding human behaviors, open mind, participation, user centric policies and design, good vendor support, tech skills in abundance, organizational restructuring like TAP in karnataka, acceptance of outsourcing etc.

Let me look at the systemic hurdles first.

        12.Systemic problems

I had seen that most universities in the west had a good communications network- land lines and many newsletters even in the eighties. The library would house most reports of the university. So transparency was good. I saw it at the University of Manchester. ICTP, Trieste, and later in AIT, Bangkok. But here in USC, I saw that most faculty and students communicated using email. The general emails came later. But they used the Unix email feature.All faculty and students had a computer and they were connected to the central server. They used computers for calculations and preparing technical papers. This concept of campus connectivity impressed me.

It took more than 15 years for this connected institution concept to percolate into a few Indian institutions connected by ERNET and campus networks. It was initially telephone lines and dialup , a poor system. The main hurdle was our slow movement towards building a strong fibre network. We were yet to get a dial up modem. That came up only by the mid 1990s. We couldn't get dialup connections in most high schools by 2000 and our Mahithisindu program suffered a lot due to the students not being able to access the internet.

Broadband came in small steps only by 2000. Fortunately, the telecom department and BSNL took the high bandwidth copper and optical network interconnecting most cities and towns seriously and implemented it by 2004.

But we completely missed the bus and miss it even now- what is that? We never thought that telecom is a bigger and more important infrastructure than roads. Telecom moved beyond voice communication to information and data transfers.Information access is more beneficial than physical movement to cities.We missed the Telecom highway and Radio highway. We didn't modernize them for several decades depending on the old technology of ITI and a small digital exchange of CDOT. Fortunately, the opening of the country in 1991 brought in new players. Our electronics exchanges became modern and reliable and inexpensive. But our network was with BSNL. Even air tel, Tata couldn't do anything to improve the infrastructure. All private companies believed that infrastructure is the government business. Only reliance jio changed that attitude.

Communications was going through a lot of multidimensional changes like computers in the eighties and nineties. The US had high bandwidth networks, digital networks, VSATs and satellite communications , optical fibres, and mobile networks. But our efforts were minimal during this period. Only by 2000, we picked up speed to introduce digital networks, fibre networks, and mobile communications. 

Fibre was planned well. Bangalore had been far ahead compared to other cities - whether copper, optical, digital, satellite, or VSAT or data and control centers. We had data and internet centers of BSNL by 2000.I had visited them. Similarly many data centres came up in Bangalore - BSNL, Wipro, Tata, Reliance etc- came up by 2000.

        13.Organization challenges

Organization heads have a fixed mindset, a rigid approach.They resist changes. So we needed a new structure. In Karnataka, an advisory panel ran the computer absorption.

While I didn't get many opportunities to observe the tech scene in Tokyo, I realized in 1986 that they were far ahead- most devices produced here, banks automated, communications great, most commerce used computers. Industries used computers effectively for control and data generation. Utilities were advanced in computer usage. But I didn't see much software work and PC based uses. Terminals were used everywhere. So it was a very good and efficient connected system which we can see, use and experience in Tokyo. I saw a holistic approach in development, manufacture and use, a good aspect we should learn. There were no silo usage patterns, no egos preventing tech absorption. Tech is accepted by all in Japan. Their approach is very different from ours- very planned, thought about, organized and holistic. Ours - unorganized , un planned, chaotic, uneven, egotistic.

            14. Challenges from engineers

An incident illustrating engineers' attitude to computers happened in 1990 or 91 after PCs had established their market and were selling in the hundreds of thousands to hundreds of organizations, schools and colleges. IETE, Bangalore chapter, an electronics and communications engineers professional organization, organized a panel discussion on PCs. The panel members were mostly famous communications engineers except me. I was the only computer scientist there. Prof Sonde was in the panel and Mr Rangarajan from BEL- known popularly as Sujatha ,a writer of Tamil fiction- was another panelist. 

I talked about the current trends happening then for taking PCs to common people and common uses, but I didn't understand the mood of the engineers there. I also talked about the possibilities of uses in the communications industry. Digital exchanges were not known to many by then. A large number of engineers from BEL, ITI and R and D labs had by then attended my computer courses in Proficience.

But there was a huge uproar and other panelists said that computers should not be used for trivial purposes like typing. Most were critical of computer use for commercial purposes. They had a dog in the manger policy- I don't want you to use it and I won't use it. Finally, Rangarajan made an attempt to support me by saying , ' I type all my novels using a PC and a software. I find it useful and easy to use.' But the anti computer general use concept was set and accepted by all there. I felt humiliated.

This shows the attitude of engineers- 'better should stand in the way of good.' The usual statement was

" a wise Italian says that the better is the enemy of the good”

Voltaire in his poem La Bégueule (1772).

Similar quotes

"For better to come, good must stand aside" is a quote by psychologist Carl Jung.

"Good is the enemy of great" Jim Collins.

What it means is:

"chasing perfection (the "best" or "better") can prevent the completion or acceptance of a functional, "good" solution. "

"Let us continue with all types of actions that benefit society, not only those that give maximum benefits at minimum costs." But the engineers' attitude was the opposite. They ridiculed clerical and accounting use, saying that computers should be used for a higher purpose like design or manufacturing. 

This attitude of power and actions flowing from the top to the working people will destroy harmony and development. But in an open economy, the market doesn't listen to ideologies. It defines its own path which may differ from the government's path.

That was a tragedy of delaying the use of computers by decades in utilities. Power and water don't use it for engineering even now. Telecom also didn't pick up computer technology till 2000. BSNL is still limping. But, Commercial use picked up very fast in India. Private industries- small, medium and large- took to computers for back office, audit, accounting and regulatory actions without urging. 

But most didn't get into process automation- instrumentation, data collection, estimation, forecasts, alerts,and control.Both Germany and Japan moved into Industry 4.0 and were planning to move into Industry 5.0. Japan looked at even Society 5.0. That is futuristic vision and synergy-based, holistic development. I didn't see that kind of holistic approach.

 Against the engineers' resistance, I was happy that we could put in place a full fledged control system integrated with ERP in Jindal Steels in the nineties.Most other process industries didn't have integrated and fully connected computer operations and control systems then.

          15.Complexities of tech absorption

So it is clear that tech absorption is a complex social and behavioral phenomenon. Attitudes of people- policy makers like DOT, implementers like BSNL, regulators, tech manufacturers, services people and end users - play a significant role in accepting or rejecting a tech, identifying its uses, speeding up or delaying the absorption.

Incidentally, tech absorption was not predicted by companies in that field as expected. Most minicomputer companies like Digital, data general etc didn't anticipate the changes PCs and client server architecture brought about in the users' world. So they died. Sun saw the potential first.HP, on the other hand, moved into the server market like Sun and IBM and all three survived. So understanding tech absorption is a complex mystery of people,business, and tech landscape. Only some succeed here. Even giants falter here.

    16.Design and innovation focus

Most computer designers designed for the present in the seventies and eighties. Use was secondary. Steve Jobs changed that attitude.

My design learnings:

1.Don't design for today. Design for tomorrow's growth and requirements. 

2.Design should be flexible, upgradable, modifiable and extendable through modular extensions. "

3.Design determines success. 

Simple rules, but missed by many. Initial micro processor designs looked at technology limitations and ignored the users. Later upgrades over a decade didn't make PCs usable. Microsoft learnt from Apple and when they upgraded to Windows, PC usage picked up. 

1990 was a watershed year with a stable windows 3 operating system and an office suite introduced by Microsoft for PCs. Until then, the PC was a blind box. Now it started getting tools for office use like word, ppts and spreadsheets. We used other word tools before. Unix had good writing and editing tools. But it took a decade for PCs to get similar tools.

Intel 8085 design was for yesterday. So Intel went to 8086. It was a very complicated design. It couldn't address the entire memory. But the Motorola 68000 was designed for tomorrow.

Data general design was not upgradable and modifiable whereas PDP/11 had an elegant design. So the upgrade to Vax was smooth but Vax had a complex design and died soon.

But the most general principle that I got out of these experiences is:

Innovation should focus on people and their requirements and the market and its requirements.

Innovation should not ignore the fundamentals of design, engineering, business and market. 

Innovation needs multidimensional and multi directional views.

         17.Some people based challenges faced by me

Let me list some that I faced.

My biggest challenge is: Removal of misunderstandings and partial wrong knowledge as well as educating people.

My second challenge was to handle the egos of IAS officers, senior government officers, vendors, and politicians including ministers.

That means, It is difficult to handle half knowledge, arrogance and ego.

My third was fighting vested interests everywhere including CSA,IISc, KSCST, and many organizations.It was less in the government but more in government organizations where people wanted to show their power or favor someone. But I had the support of the heads of these organizations.

My fourth was establishing the trust of vendors. Most hardware vendors were good. Many software vendors ditched my trust. Mistrust is a big problem, not easy to judge. I needed the trust of many parties- managements, computer guys in the organization- these are difficult to handle-, vendors and users. My difficult situation here was my involvement in the purchase of a computer for Ullas Karanth. He gave the job to a consultant and that guy gave him a wrong machine. Ullas casually mentioned it to me and after inspecting the specs and knowing the tasks Ullas wanted to do, I said the machine chosen won't work. We needed the coprocessor 287. He took me to the consultant and that guy panicked and started abusing me. Afterwards,Ullas canceled the order. I took him to Wipro factory and got him maximum discount. He bought a proper computer there.

My fifth was people behaviors- niggardliness, high expectations,etc.

I had more problems with vendors. Most vendors were ignorant of many things, but won't reveal it and usually bluff their way. Finding facts from their statements is not easy. One incident that hurt me was the hiding of violations. One of the conditions I had put in most tenders was ,' no subcontracting.' But Tata Burroughs , called Tata Infotech then,subcontracted the data base work and the project failed. Similarly, Aptech subcontracted school computer management to someone and hence gave us poor service. They got into lots of trouble later. Almost the company was wound up.

My other problem comes from ignorance of the people who buy computers. In my department, faculty believed they could buy computers. A professor advised by his lab assistant bought an uptron computer and it didn't work. He argued with me on that purchase. I had similar run-ins with our purchase officer and stores officer. They saw that the specs were matching and ordered from L1.

I had major issues with ERP purchases. My success was Jindal steels. I think the Karle infrastructure ERP, selected by me, worked. I had no idea. But I found many small units selling ERP and many offices buying them. They found it not useful. This happened due to poor designs and total ignorance of the requirements of user participation.

My worst experience was in a bank. The small vendor running the core banking software was almost holding the IT department to ransom. Even the GM was upset. Most were afraid of him, I don't know the reasons. 

      18. Conclusions

Development is complex, needs lots of insight and understanding, has many impediments requiring constant alerts and directional changes and it is people centric, people focused, people directed, people influenced process. Several examples and incidents are given.

We discuss computer adoption in India in detail.