This question may seem absurd. What could be there in technology to
understand ? You need only to know the technology, not understand it.
After all, the related term is know-how, not know-what. And even if it is
argued that there is something to be understoodabout "technology", surely
India will understand it. Are there not Indian satellites ? Have we not
mastered the nuclear science ? And we have our own super computers,
you know.

Still there is something about technology that we did not understand.
Surely our achievements are insignificant compared with what we could have
achieved and what our capacity is.It may spring to the mind that we are a
poor country, half illiterate and backward and that we have missed the first
phase of industrialisation due to the colonial rule. Let us see how these
factors need have prevented us from becoming a technological society.

The most crucial thing that we didn't understand about technology is that
it is dynamic and not static. There is nothing wrong about not developing a
particular technology and importing it.No country could develop all the
technologies it needs. Importing a technology is not new to us.The art of silk
weaving was imported from China and so was the technique of paper making,
block and screen printing, fire works and gun powder. The idea of currency
was developed by the Hydians,and that of paper currency by the Chinese.

Steel making was developed by the Indians. All the people, at sometime
or other in their historyhave imported technology. The British acquired the
technique of making rockets (for war) from Tipu ! So there is nothing wrong
about our technology imports during the fifties and eighties.

What was wrong about it was our failure or inability to develop it further.
This is a result of treating technology as a static method of manufacturing.
When one learns a particular method of making chains, one doesn't master
the technology. To elaborate on this example, there are two ways of learning
technologies. The first is mechanical repetition of some movements. If we
watch a carpenter making a chair, we can learn making chains, by simply
imitating him. But we will get only the copied of the original,may be with slight
changes, fortuitous or deliberate. The second way is understanding what a
chair is : that a chair has a seat, a reclining plane, handrests and legs; that
a chair can havefour legs or simply the same tube bent all around the bottom;
that the reclining surface can be moldedwith the seat ; that the handrests can
be integral with the legs. Now we can make chairs for various designs - two
long plates for legs,the seat aesthetically shaped, the curves flowing, etc.Now
we have truly mastered the technique of making chairs.

It need not be rubbed in that we learnt technology the first way.We imported
not technology, but only assembly lines. Only someone who understands
technology can make technology our of assembly lines. To others, it is a
mere repetitive assembly line. To further handicap is, we had put on the
blinkers of import substitution. To us, mastering a technology meant 100 %
indigenisation and nothing more.To quote a solid example, we bought the
phone technology for ITI and started production here. We took it apart and
found that this spring was imported ; so let's make it. That diaphragm was
imported ; so let us make that. Thus we indegenised it 100% and thought
that we have mastered the technology of making phones. By that time, others
have moved on from dial to push button type. Now we bought that technology.
By that time we mastered that the cordless technology appeared !

The Hindustan Motors started manufacturing cars sometime in the fifties.
Its Ambassador line is still continuing. But the changes made in its are few.
And, if at all there are any changes, they are : i) imported or ii) much behind
the contemporary technology. Hyundai imported an assembly line from Suzuki
in 1969. Now they are designing cars all by themselves. 100 % indigenisation
in manufacturing may not be possible. What is necessary is 100 %
indegenisation in design - the concepts.

Why are we incapable of understanding technologies ? The main reason
is that in India, there is a huge gap between theory and practice. The engineers,
who are supposed to master the technology, don't have first hand experience
with the machines. Ferrari, the famous car designer, has no formal qualifications.
Yet no Indian automobile engineer can match him. Forget Ferrari, most Indian
automobile engineers cannot even repair their own car ! How can we expect them
to design a new carburretor or spark plug or engine ? In medieval Europe, surgery
was done by the local barber, while the doctors supervised it from a distance !
In our country, the labours handle the machine, right from erection, and the
engineers supervise it ! You can very well imagine the results. When some Indian
engineers joined Hyundai plant near Chennai, they wereasked to take a personal
role on erection, and they promptly fled ! No technological improvement is possible
till one "understands" a machine and has hands on experience. In India, the
mechanic who"understands" an engine lacks the theoretical background and the
engineer with the theoretical background has no hand on experience.

An even bigger stumbling block is there in developing new technologies. The
next stage in a technology can come from a totally unexpected field.
Understanding a camera and film developing will not enable you to design a
Polaroid camera ! For example the dot matrix printer was an improved form
of typewriter. There is the ribbon and there is the printing head. The
improvement was that instead of individual letters there is a small hammer.
Now, however much you "understand" the dot matrix printer, you cannot
develop the laser printer out of it, which is the next stage. It came from a
totally unexpected area ; laser combined with xerography ! The only way out
is to encourage basic research which may (or may not) yield unexpected
benefits. India is handicapped here also.

The second most crucial thing about technology development is that a
commercially driven development is cheaper, quicker and more practical
than an institutional/ bureaucratic technology development. It is true that more
new technologies came out of institutional and / or government labs than
commercial labs. But once a technology is marketed, it is developed further
only by the commercially motivated. There is no use in developing technologies
if they are not commercially used. To cite an instance, the erstwhile USSR
successfully competed with the US in space technology. It launched the first
satellite, the first cosmonaut, the first probe to the moon,etc .Still, the US was
successful in one sense.The first satellites of both countries went up in 1957.
Yet, as early as 1964, US found commercial use for the satellite, when it
telecast the 19694 Olympics ! Soon private companies began to build
satellites, and our first Insats were built for us by a private concern, Ford
Aerospatiale. In that aspect, i.e. making practical use of technology, US
was ahead of USSR, only due to its commercial instincts.Our technologies
are notoriously unviable, precisely because our motto is "self reliance at any
cost"- and you cannot afford "any cost indefinitely. That's why, in spite of our
successful Insat system,till 1998 (when the rules were changed) our own
private channels used foreign satellites - because ISRO never cared about
making money. And if you cannot make money out of a technology sooner
or later, that technology will fail to take root.

All our "technological achievements" suffer from the same defect - they are
just showpieces and not commercially viable. Take C-DAC. It has developed
a few software packages - a word processor, a spreadsheet, etc. There are
free packages of exactly the same kind, developed by individuals. Yet we
boast this was"achievement" - because the ministers are technology-illiterates.
Two years ago, INSDOC listed as its"achievement" the bringing out of two
databases in CD. Yet there are scores of libraries bringing out dozens of
databases every year. If this is pointed out the stock reply is that ours is a
resource poor country, that we cannot afford to imitate the rich. But precisely
that is what must be noted : we spend unrealistically huge amounts to bring
out these two CDs - because of "Science at any cost" - slogan. A foreign
company couldhave been contracted to do the same thing cheaply. Year after
year we repeat and confirm the results of experiments undertaken by some
foreigner. Cryogenics, where we had a little lead a few years ago, is now
never talked about. Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam once pointed out that ISRO scientists
had made a light weight caliper for a handicapped child. But it was not
commercialised, nor the technology transferred to some company that
makes calipers. What is the use of that technology ? One showpiece of
caliper ?

Whenever somebody points out that the cost of space research is exorbitant,
the reply is that the spin-offs will benefit everyone. But where are the spin-offs ?
Surely 30 years of research would have left a few spin-offs. Where are the
companies using that technology, and what are the products commercially
available ?

We are not importing technologies, we are simply importing assembly lines.
The HAL is the best example. Right from MiG - 21, every few years, a new kind
of aircraft would be acquired from USSR and its technology "transferred". Yet
HAL never developed so much as tarpaulin covers for these aircrafts. The ICF,
Chennai acquired the technology of railway coaches in the sixties. Now (2000)
it is again shopping for technology. The private sector is no better. Ashok
Leyland, Hindustan Motors and chemical factories shop for "new technologies"
every few years. The least we could have done is abolishing the R & D in all
these organisations and save a few rupees.

Compare this, let us say, with a market dominated by small manufacturers.
The motors and pumps of Coimbatore are of world class - at least in quality,
since they also imitate the foreigners and do not have in house R& D. May
be only cut throat competition will force the companies to care about its
products.

Reverse engineering is almost unheard of in India - except among the
manufacturers of fake "foreign goods". High rates of taxation and bureaucratic
stranglehold ensured that these manufacturers will never improve their quality.
History shows that Japan and Taiwan and Korea, all started their manufacturing
history with shoddy goods and then moved up. The quality of Japanese goods
before World War II was horrible. Yet they improved. Our "cheap manufacturers",
on the other hand, find that they are better off remaining where they are - when
they make a fake citizen watch their profit is high - because they just bribe their
way - but when they try to market it under their own brand name, they attract
may be 15% sales tax, in addition to the bribe. So it is better to make fake
foreign goods than cheap but genuine Indian goods. Thanks to the "quality" of
the Indian goods during the era of "protection", foreign goods enjoy a high
reputation among our people. Our people are willing to pay Rs.500/- for a "citizen"
watch, even when they know it is a fake, but won't pay Rs.300/- for the same
product if it is marketed under an Indian name !

When we are coining slogans for the public consumption, care should be
taken about their subtle psychological effects. During the British rule, we
chanted "Good government is no substitute for self government" there by subtly
implying that self government won't be good ! And in the fifties, we proclaimed
"Indian goods - self reliance - even if it is costly and inferior". This attitude
certainly ensured that Indian goods will be costly and inferior - because we
have decided to buy them, so the manufacturer has no incentive to improve
them !

The third important aspect of technology is its cost. Here also, our myopic
ignorance led us to spoil our progress.Every product or service will be costly
when introduced. But further technological improvements will bring down its
cost, making it affordable to many. X-Rays, Photography, radio, T.V., Computer,
all were much costlier when they were introduced. And so were pens, paper,
aluminum (Napoleon had an aluminum plate ! ), tea, Xerox, bicycles, etc. Yet
in a few years time, technology will make them within the reach of many. Ford
sade the automobile cheaper. Sony made the transistor radio. There are
numerous examples. Yet all these examples staring in the face, our policy
makers divided things into two categories - those used by the rich and those
used by the poor ! The things that the rich use today will reach the poor
tomorrow. If one is really socialistic, one must ensure that even the poor has
access to these goods today itself. But our logic was inverted and perverted.
If the poor can't afford it,the rich shouldn't get it. We implemented this policy
through our tax system - the "costly" things are taxed more - because only
the rich use them thus ensuring that only the rich could afford them forever.
We taxed air travel so heavily that even today it is prohibitively costly to the
majority. During the same period, around the world, air fares progressively
became cheaper and more people traveled by air because it became cheaper
and vice versa. But in India, in the year 2000, thousands of people are forced
to spend two days - 36 hours atleast, to travel from Tamil Nadu to New Delhi.
And we are going to compete eith Japan and Germany ! Show me one
developed country where people are forced to loose man hours. Yet it is
certainly possible to offer air travel for the same sector for Rs.1500/- per
person compared with Rs.500/- for the train. This is solely due to the addled
policy makers. Air travel is for the rich - tax it, tax it - till only the rich can
afford it. Let the others crowd into trains and spend days on end. Who
cares ?

Nationalisation of Air India and Indian airlways in the fifties and preventing
the private sector from running efficient air services(until recently) was the final
straw. Indian airlines became highly inefficient and costly. Same "foresight"
was shown in taxing electronic goods. In 1971, the government slapped a 40%
tax on the fledgling electronics industry. The industry promptly died.(Remember
G.D.Naidu of Coimbatore and cheap transistors he mass produced) Companies
that started to manufacture calculators folded up - leaving the field wide open
for the smuggled Casio calculators. Today over 95% of all calculators in India
are Casio - duty paid or smuggled. IBM went out of India in 1975 - just when
the computers were within the reach of big companies. As a result our
computerisation drive was postponed by 20 years. Let us not forget that
Computers became [popular in India because of a lucky accident - Rajiv Gandhi
encouraged it. Otherwise the rusty Devilal or the communists would have banned
them indefinitely and dragged us backward.

Thus, taxation should take a long term perspective. Since this is very difficult,
(who could have predicted the reach of Internet today ?) the best course is to
tax hi-tech items and services at an ad valoreum and low rate uniformly applied
- sales tax of 3% and service tax of 2%.

It is never too late for a people to catch up with the rest of the world, and more
importantly, to gain a lead in technology and research. Japan, Korea and China
are good examples. But this rapid development cannot be achieved merely by
"allotting" 2% of GDP to "research"(of which 1.5% would be taken by
"administrative expenses") or by similar stunts. Only an open, fair and free internal
competition could have achieved it, but now it seems too late. The next best
alternative is to encourage foreign manufacturers to start their production in India.
By this, in the next 15 years we could achieve state-of-art design capacities.

Therefore it is fair to conclude that our policy makers never understood what
technology means. It is not proving your abilities to the world, but using them
to improve your standard of living. Designing and making a better truck or
telephone network or pylons is certainly better than launching satellites but
importing paper. The sooner we get rid of our inferiority complex that drives us
to merely imitate the developed countries at enormous costs, the better.
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