If old records can help re-look present-day controversies, here is one. In 1980, India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi witnessed the first ‘demo’ of an “electronic voting instrument” along with opposition party leaders. She operated it first as a voter and then as the presiding officer. She “tallied the results with the notes she took for over 40 minutes.” All wanted to ensure that nobody was ‘fooled’.
Made in response to the ‘challenge’ thrown in 1977 by Chief Election Commissioner S L Shakdher was this forerunner of the present-day electronic voting machine (EVM), the result of a painstaking effort by the public sector Electronic Corporation of India Limited. The ECIL was called “the national champion of electronics” by the scientific community in those times, a new book says.
Everyone present was keen to end electoral malpractices rampant in that era like “booth capturing” and frequent acrimonies over the counting process. After over four decades, however, the EVM is viewed with suspicion, especially by those who lose an election.
The voting machine is among the numerous success stories of India post-independence and the pushing of science and technology frontiers, of research laboratories, colleges and universities. An emerging nation was denied access to the latest technology and components for “political reasons,” Dr Dinesh C. Sharma, veteran science journalist and author, says. Albeit slow, it was backed by the few visionaries among the erstwhile princes, Jawaharlal Nehru who spent on knowledge-hungry men like C V Raman, Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai and many more.
Sharma focuses on one of the world’s most remarkable modern-day evolutions in Hyderabad, the city and the erstwhile state. Ironically, it had briefly opposed joining the Indian Union. The first to be created for the Telugu-speaking people, Andhra Pradesh underwent further changes – more than any other Indian state (province) when economic disparities caused the separation of Telangana. This did not stop the journey of science and enterprise, though. The present-day change to the technology hub, from a feudal polity helmed by the Nizams, then assessed as the world’s richest, who spent their riches liberally to promote knowledge is itself a story worth telling.
Sharma tells his story spanning over four centuries under a delectably misleading title, Beyond Biryani. Used to great effect is the stereotype about the “City of Nawabs” and the “enticing aroma of the rice-and-meat dish”. Hyderabadi Biryani has crossed frontiers globally and was rated India’s most-ordered dish on online food delivery platforms last year.
The science writer switches from the Biryani discourse with “The Making of a Globalised Hyderabad”, but not before linking the two: “The pan-India popularity of Hyderabadi biryani is intertwined with the economic liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian economy.” For, the city of “Char Minar and Biryani”, gathering some of the best talent and enterprise during Nizam’s rule, has become a cosmopolitan city and is the hub of numerous science and institutions, both in the public and private sectors.
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Long before that happened, Sharma records, numerous exciting but less-known narratives had placed Hyderabad under the global gaze. Chloroform became the doctor’s ultimate medium for anaesthesia before surgery after being tested in a Hyderabad lab. Ronald Ross, a Briton, found his vaccine against malaria while working in Hyderabad.
All this did not grow overnight. Hyderabad was responding to demands, like the locally grown Mahua flower becoming the source of cheaper industrial alcohol. The forward-looking Nizams were allies of the British and benefitted by making and providing much that went into the two World Wars. Post-independence, the large state gelled well with New Delhi, both ruled by the same Congress party. The location on the relatively safe eastern flank of the peninsula, “north of South India and south of North India,” remains its USP from the security angle.
Sharma recounts how India met challenges during the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict and again, with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. India became acutely conscious of the need for self-reliance in electronics. Nehru appointed a committee under Bhabha, with Sarabhai on it to make “a blueprint for planning an indigenous industry for electronics, computers, communications and components based on R&D, design, training and limited foreign inputs.”
india was able to surmount the West-imposed restrictions after each conflict. From 1960-1980s, many units of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) units dealing with missiles and other defence-related technology were located in and around Hyderabad, where training and industrial infrastructure existed. The departure of the multinational IBM provided yet another challenge-cum-opportunity.
At the turn of the century, Hyderabad triggered the “Telugu boom” pushing its people across the world. In the United States alone, their presence has grown from 320,000 in 2016 to 1.23 million this year. Telugu is the third-most spoken Indian language.
Sharma says: “From missiles and satellites to affordable HIV drugs and Covid-19 vaccines, Hyderabad delivers everything that today’s India is known for. These successes are a result of a long journey of building key institutions over the decades.”
Nara Chandrababu Naidu ‘happened’ to Hyderabad when much of India was in political turmoil and in the throes of economic reforms. He was the only chief minister at the turn of the century who understood high-tech and talked through PowerPoint presentations (PPP). To make this point, Sharma quotes Bihar’s Lalu Prasad who wondered what “IT-wayti” was all about. That Naidu was an ally of the central government helped immensely in reaching out to Indian and foreign entrepreneurs and technocrats. He is back in that position today, although heading a truncated Andhra Pradesh. This places him in a position of advantage.
Sharma records Naidu’s audacious efforts to get Microsoft chief Bill Gates to Hyderabad when he unveiled plans that build Cyerabad. He was sure other investors would follow, and they did. So did US President Bill Clinton.
Naidu is ambitious and wants to cover the distance with Bengaluru which has been ahead, and he may well achieve that. Taking the larger picture, Sharma says, the two cities have succeeded because they have the right ecosystem that is tech-friendly and conducive to enterprise where high-end technological innovations can be pursued. They have left behind socially and politically sensitive Ahmedabad and Vadodara and a congested Mumbai-Pune belt.
The book’s blurb sums it all up: “Every time you key in a word to search on Google, launch a Microsoft product on your laptop or mobile phone, click on Amazon to buy a product, post a picture on Facebook, book an airline ticket on a travel website, use a map to navigate through the city traffic, take a taxi ride using Uber or Ola, make a financial transaction on an app, or through a leading bank, scan a QR code to make a micropayment through UPI, watch an animation film on your favourite OTT platform, pop a pill or vaccinate your child, you are most likely either using a technology developed partly or fully in Hyderabad, getting connected with a data centre, or a business processing office located there or using a medical product manufactured there.”
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