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WORK TITLE: The Technological Indian
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://history.ncsu.edu/people/faculty_staff/ross * http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504714
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: nr 98000439
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/nr98000439
HEADING: Bassett, Ross Knox, 1959-
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670 __ |a New technology, new people, new organizations, 1998: |b v. 1, t.p. (Ross Knox Bassett)
670 __ |a Info. from Princeton University Archives, Dec. 15, 1997 |b (Bassett, Ross K., b. Apr. 11, 1959)
670 __ |a The technological Indian, 2015: |b E-CIP t.p. (Ross Bassett) data view (publisher change request to clarify date: b. April 11, 1959)
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PERSONAL
Born April 11, 1959.
EDUCATION:University of Pennsylvania, B.S.E.E.; Cornell University, M.A.; Princeton University, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
IBM Corp., Fishkill, NY, designer of semiconductor memory systems for eight years; North Carolina State University, Raleigh, began as assistant professor, became professor of history and director of Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program.
MEMBER:Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (life member).
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals.
SIDELIGHTS
Ross K. Bassett began his career with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania. For eight year,s he worked for IBM as a designer of semiconductor memory systems for the large predecessors of the modern personal computer. By then, the metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistor was by the dominant transistor of the digital electronics industry, but it was not the first design to be used widely. Although the basic principle behind MOS had been patented in 1925 and the first MOS transistor was demonstrated successfully in 1959, it was the bipolar transistor that had dominated the market for several years. Bassett commented in his faculty profile at the History Department, North Carolina State University Website that he was pondering questions that “could only be answered by a historical perspective.”
Eventually Bassett returned to college for graduate studies in history, which culminated in a doctorate from Princeton University. He joined the faculty at North Carolina State University, where he became a specialist in the history of technology. He is also the director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program that, according to his faculty profile, “allows engineering students to simultaneously pursue a degree in humanities or social sciences.” Bassett maintains a dual interest in both semiconductor technology and history.
Prologue to the Digital Age
Bassett is the author of To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-Up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology. According to his faculty profile, the book explores how the MOS transistor “moved from East Coast research labs to Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Intel, and subsequently entered every area of American life.” The volume is thus also a foray into corporate history.
Many of Bassett’s former colleagues at IBM were natives of India, and he began to wonder about the abundance of engineers from a country that seemed more attuned to an agrarian nontechnological economic model. He was surprised to learn that, for Indians, the college of choice was more likely to be Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) than Harvard or Stanford. His curiosity became the core of a research project that occupied his attention for more than ten years.
The Technological Indian
The Technological Indian is the story of a phenomenon that was many years in the making on both sides of the globe. There was a perception among forward-looking Indian business leaders that technology was the key to India’s future, but there was also a perception, left over from British colonial days, that the Indian people were only suited for agrarian or low-level industrial work. This attitude was reinforced from within by the teachings of influential Indians such as independence activist Mahatma Gandhi, whose vision for his country has been described as distinctly pro-agrarian and antitechnological. Young Indians in search of higher education in technology would not find opportunities at home.
It was not surprising that Indian students would choose the United States over the United Kingdom after independence from British rule in 1947, but Bassett expresses surprise that the pilgrimage to MIT began as early as 1882. Of the 850 engineering students in his study, according to Vikram Doctor’s review in the Economic Times, “at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947.” The move to the United States was not easy in those early years, in the face of racism and cultural differences, but Indians continued to come, and engineering students from the most prominent families chose MIT over other prestigious American institutions. Bassett’s personal focus on MIT was aided by the university-held archive of detailed student records going back as far as 1861.
In an interview with Vaishnavi Chandrashek at Gadgets Now, Bassett explained that the American model offered “more emphasis on scientific culture, on abstractions, than in the British or German system.” In particular, he said, after the turn of the twentieth century MIT introduced a very scientific approach to engineering, an approach that is entrepreneurial and competitive.” Additionally, after World War II the university gained substantial government funding for technological research, which enabled an increased international outreach for qualified candidates.
Many Indian-born graduates went on to stellar careers in engineering, industry, and business. Unfortunately for India, many of them settled permanently in the United States or elsewhere in the West, instead of transferring their newly acquired knowledge to their native country. Bassett profiles a few who did. The first Indian woman engineer with an MIT degree returned home to develop solutions to the serious issue of solid waste disposal. Another graduate applied his expertise in engineering to the social sciences, where he worked to combat poverty and improve nutrition. Rohini Nair observed at FirstPost: “The story of how these Indians went on to study at MIT is as interesting as what they managed to accomplish when they returned home,” especially “in an era when they got little or no recognition for their efforts, and certainly didn’t have as much opportunity for financial reward.” According to Vikram Doctor, The Technological Indian shows “how the old dream of the technological Indian, now clearly achieved, might not just remain an accomplishment only in itself, but could really change India.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Bookwatch, October, 2007, review of To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-Up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology.
ONLINE
Computer History Museum Website, http://www.computerhistory.org/ (August 25, 2017), author profile.
Economic Times Online, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ (April 3, 2-16), Vikram Doctor, review of The Technological Indian.
FirstPost, http://www.firstpost.com/ (March 12, 2016), Rohini Nair, “India and MIT: How We Became a Technological Force to Reckon With.”
Gadgets Now, http://www.gadgetsnow.com/ (March 13, 2016), Vaishnavi Chandrashek, author interview.
History Department, North Carolina State University Website, https://history.ncsu.edu/ (August 17, 2017), author profile.
Ross K Bassett
Picture of Ross K Bassett
Professor
Email: ross@ncsu.edu Phone: 919-513-2231
Biography
I received my undergraduate education from the University of Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. I then worked at IBM, designing semiconductor memory systems for large computers. I eventually found myself interested in a number of questions about the technologies I was working on which <
I am currently the director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars at NC State, which <
US oriented IIT systems has given India TCS & Banglore: Ross Bassett
Updated: Mar 13, 2016, 01.38PM IST
MIT introduced a very scientific approach to engineering.
MIT introduced a very scientific approach to engineering.
When American engineer turned-historian Ross Bassett visits India, he sees connections to the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) everywhere -buildings like Kanchenjunga and Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, in companies like TCS and Datamatics, and even in everyday brands like Bisleri. All of these were created with the involvement of MIT alumni.
Bassett, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, has spent the past 13 years looking at some of the 850 Indians who studied engineering -including 305 doctorates -at MIT over a century. Bassett traces their stories in his new book, The Technological Indian.
His study throws up some nuggets: the first Indian went to MIT as far back as 1882; most Indians who went before Independence were from Mumbai, Pune and Gujarat; and a number of industrial families as well as government officials sent their sons to MIT in the mid-20th century in a break from humanities focused Oxbridge. Bassett spoke to Vaishnavi Chandrashek the influence of American technical education
Why did you look at MIT?
It hosted only a fraction of Indian students who went to the US. I sampled Indians who had gone to Stanford and Berkley, and I came to the conclusion that MIT was more interesting; more prominent Indians went there. Even if a relatively small number of people attended MIT, the effect of that has been multiplied by who they were. So when you have someone like Adi Godrej or Aditya Birla, they would be successful no matter what, but it says something that they had their choice to go anywhere and they chose MIT. You show that in the late 19th century, Bal Gangadhar Tilak's newspapers Kesari and Mahratta helped Indians look to American education.
It's consistent with what we know of Tilak that the Mahratta had this global perspective... The Mahratta saw the source of India's problems as the failure to compete in technology. The textile industry was developing at that time in western India, and Tilak and his compatriots made the intellectual case on the need for worldclass education.
How did MIT influence the IITs considering that it was involved with only two institutions -IIT Kanpur and BITS, Pilani? Other IITs were set up with other countries.
It seems to me that the IITs made a decision to unify their system of education and converged on the American better or worse, the American system had a more powerful hold over Indian engineering educators than the Russian, British or German system, especially post-war. Even in simple things like using American, or MIT, textbooks.
Why for worse?
The American-oriented IIT system has given India TCS and Bangalore, and people who are able to successfully work in an American environment. The negative side is that it's led a number of Indians to come to the US. What is known as brain drain is testimony that people who'd had this kind of American education found it easier to use in the US than in India. A form of engineering education that was not so American-oriented could have led to different results.
What was different about the MIT American model?
In the early 20th century, <
There's also <
Recently, we've seen IITians who studied in the US rise to run global companies. Is their success an Indian or American triumph?
Both. It's a triumph of Indian individuals but it's a little questionable whether India as a country triumphs. That's why I use the term "technological Indian" not "technological India" because, especially in the last 20-30 years, technological Indians have developed and been able to achieve great things but exactly how India has benefited is a little less clear.
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Any recent trends in MIT's Indian graduates?
This year, MIT had 843 applications from Indian citizens, the largest of any country ... I did a little study to find out where Indian graduates of MIT end up now -there are two major poles, one is Wall Street and the other Silicon Valley. I guess you could say (Indian graduates) have a good sense of where the action is and where the best places for returns on their ability are, though I don't know if that's necessarily the optimal position for society.
For the latest news, tech news, breaking news headlines and live updates checkout Gadgetsnow.com
Ross Bassett, PhD, is an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University and is the director of the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program there. He spent eight years as an engineer in IBM’s semiconductor facility in East Fishkill, New York, before leaving to pursue graduate studies in the history of technology. Professor Bassett is the author of books and articles, and he speaks frequently on a variety of topics related to the intersections of history and technology.
His book, To the Digital Age, combines his two of his interests—semiconductor technology and history—to tell the story of how the MOS transistor came to be the dominant semiconductor technology of our time. For his research on MOS technology, Professor Bassett scoured archives at Bell Labs, RCA, IBM, Fairchild, Intel, and other companies and conducted dozens of interviews with key participants.
Currently Professor Bassett is working on a history of Indian graduates of MIT, how they helped create the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and modern technological India, as well as the important role they play in the American technology industry. He has recently had two articles published on the topic, “Aligning India in the Cold War Era: Indian Technical Elites, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and Computing in India and the United States,” and “MIT-Trained Swadeshi: MIT and Indian Nationalism, 1880–1947.
He received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in history at Cornell, and a PhD in history from Princeton. His work on the MOS transistor was supported by the IEEE’s Life Member History Fellowship.
India and MIT: How we became a technological force to reckon with
LivingRohini NairMar, 12 2016 10:16:27 IST
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The year was 1882 and a young man from Pune, Keshav Malhar Bhat, was on his way to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America. He studied there for a year, before returning home. It would be 20 years before the next Indian student would be enrolled at MIT.
When they did, however, the floodgates opened. Over the course of a century (and a few decades more), several prominent Indians would study at the prestigious institute. Among the early pioneers, most would return and play an important part in making India a force to reckon with in the world of technology. Among these were Lalit Kanodia and FC Kohli (of TCS fame). Other MIT alumni like Anant Pandya (who spearheaded the Vaitarna Project; to double the water supply to the city of Mumbai), architect Charles Correa, Durga Bajpai (who designed the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai), and the heirs of prominent business families, like Adi Godrej and Aditya Birla, made their own contributions.
Nehru visited MIT in 1949. Image courtesy Prof Bassett
Nehru visited MIT in 1949. Image courtesy Prof Bassett
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Bassett was in Mumbai this week, giving a talk at the Godrej India Culture Lab, and he describes how he got started on this quest to trace how MIT helped shape the “technological Indian”. It was about 13 years ago, when Indian software firms, Indian technologies and technocrats were making news that Bassett (who has always had a deep interest in India) began to wonder: How did a people of whom the Britishers said in the 19th century, “The Hindoos are not a mechanical race” change that perception so completely over the next century?
Bassett’s research (which took over 13 years) began with the IITs. In a visit to the library at MIT, however, he came upon the commencement announcements of students. It listed their names, the places where they came from — and there were quite a few Indians among them. Barrett describes it as finding “1300 mini-biographies” and asking himself, “Would these tell us something about India?”
Aditya Birla (R) setting off for MIT
Aditya Birla (R) setting off for MIT
That Keshav Malhar Bhat had been at MIT all the way back in 1882 was an interesting finding, but Bassett wondered, “Was it just an outlier?” Or was there a back story that would provide some context to Bhat’s being at MIT a whole 20 years before his other countrymen got there?
In the hope of answering that question, Bassett focused on Bhat’s hometown Pune, and found that a prominent resident of that city — Bal Gangadhar Tilak — might have had something to do with the student’s decision to go to MIT. Going through over 30 years’ worth of Tilak’s newspapers — the Mahratta in English, and the Kesari in Marathi (Bassett jokes that his task was made a little easier because “these were weekly publications”) — the professor found that MIT had been praised highly within their pages.
Nineteenth century globalisation — characterised by steamships, thetelegraph, steam printing press etc — brought news from all parts of the world to India, and the Mahratta was avidly covering the technological developments of the day (in addition to its criticisms of the British, of course). There was perhaps a sense that India was being left behind, Bassett believes, which might have reflected in an editorial in the Kesari on the “need for an industrial school which would teach (Indian) students western skills”. That editorial would end by asking permission to “introduce readers to the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology”. Another three-part series in the Mahratta would also focus on MIT, and call it “the best-conducted institute in the world”.
During World War II, as large numbers of American soldiers poured into India, an American library was set up in Mumbai. Among the titles here was a catalogue on MIT. Bassett says that the trained librarians deputed here reported that “Indians had a lot of interest in learning about America, and about technical education in America”.
If Tilak was a fan of MIT, there was another national leader who also had close ties to those studying at the Institute. Bassett tells us that right from the late 1920s to the early 1940s, a cluster of students enrolled at MIT had connections to Gandhi.
Among these were Trikamal Shah — the registrar of the Gujarat Vidyapeeth and a Gandhian who went to MIT in 1926 to study electrical engineering. “He was the leader of the Quit India strike at Tata Iron and Steel in 1942 and was imprisoned for 18 months,” says Bassett.
The other was Bal Kalekar, the son of Kaka Kalekar. Bal was raised at the Stayagraha Ashram, and walked alongside Gandhi during the Salt March. When he wanted to study at MIT, he wrote to GD Birla asking for his support — Bassett reveals that Gandhi himself edited Bal’s letter.
Life wasn’t easy for these early students at MIT.
Indian students at MIT, 1940
Indian students at MIT, 1940
“For Trikamal Shah, his time at MIT was rather difficult. He was married and had a young child back in India. He was much older than the other students — in his late 20s — and an introvert. He didn’t know much about American culture. He was a vegetarian and there were no Indian restaurants in Boston or Cambridge. He was also getting into debt by going to MIT. It was a challenging time, but he continued,” says Bassett.
Others, like Anant Pandya, had a somewhat smoother time. “By the late 1930s there was a larger group of Indian students who had an active social life with one another,” explains Bassett. When Pandya returned to India, he held a string of important positions: He was the first Indian principal of Bengal Engineering College in 1939, headed Hindustan Aircraft. Unfortunately, Pandya was killed in an automobile accident in 1951.
In later years, the Indian graduates of MIT would go on to play a leading role in setting up IT companies that would do business on a global scale – TCS, Datamatics, Patni, and Bassett believes, Infosys as well (in an indirect way, since it was set up by those who had previously worked at Patni).
Tracing how that came to be, Bassett says, “The modern computer was created to a large extent at MIT between 1945-70. Lalit Kanodia was among the students who were here during this time. In 1965, when Kanodia came back to India from MIT, he did a short stint with the Tatas and then convinced the company to let him start a computer operation. He hired two other MIT grads and set up TCS.”
Another MIT alumnus would take on Kanodia’s mantle at TCS, in 1969 — FC Kohli. “Kohli played a crucial role in developing the IT industry as one that could win business from the United States,” says Bassett, before highlighting another prominent MIT graduate’s achievements: “During the 1950s and 1960s, SL Kirloskar worked to develop a business that could sell products globally. He also helped to make Pune the center of the mechanical engineering and automotive industry.”
By 1977, TCS’ reputation had grown so strong that European computer professionals came down to India to “train with the best”. It was quite the morale booster for a country that had lived through the Emergency just two years ago.
Prof Ross Bassett spent 13 years tracing the Indian students at MIT between the years 1882-2000
Prof Ross Bassett spent 13 years tracing the Indian students at MIT between the years 1882-2000
The tide, however, was turning. By 1965, America had changed its visa regulations, and under less discriminatory laws, more Indians were able to stay back in the US. They did — setting off the phenomenon that has been called the “brain drain”.
But from those years when the MIT-trained students were still returning home, Bassett has an interesting anecdote: A luncheon at which Jawaharlal Nehru had American ambassador John K. Galbraith as his guest. This was in 1961, when IIT-Kanpur had recently been set up, and Nehru was talking about the influence he hoped MIT would have in shaping it (Nehru had visited MIT back in 1949 with his sister. Incidentally, the “Corridor of Infinity” at IIT-Bombay is a replica of the one at MIT. And when GD Birla wanted to set up his Birla Institute of Technology and Science, he also had MIT in mind). Indira Gandhi was present as well at the luncheon, and mentioned that MIT was among the colleges her son Rajiv hoped to attend. Obviously, he never did.
Published Date: Mar 12, 2016 10:16 am | Updated Date: Mar 12, 2016
To the Digital Age
The Bookwatch.
(Oct. 2007):
COPYRIGHT 2007 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bw/index.htm
Full Text:
To the Digital Age
Ross Knox Bassett
Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363
0801886392, $25.00 www.press.jhu.edu
TO THE DIGITAL AGE: RESEARCH LABS, START-UP COMPANIES, AND THE RISE OF MOS
TECHNOLOGY provides college-level collections strong in science history with a survey of the rise of the
transistor and its affects on both business and scientific pursuits. The achievements and discoveries of
individual scientists and the participation of private industries in breakthrough discoveries alike are charted
in a survey which is perfect for both business and science libraries at the college level, offering students an
excellent opportunity to understand and discuss how technological advancements both affect and are
fostered by business pursuits.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"To the Digital Age." The Bookwatch, Oct. 2007. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA169635028&it=r&asid=030d1abc373944b2633c6d53743de26f.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A169635028
HALF OF THIS IS GRATUITOUS GOBBLEDY GOOK
How Gandhi's India created Indian techie & how at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947
By Vikram Doctor, ET Bureau|Updated: Apr 03, 2016, 11.23 AM IST
How Gandhi’s India created the Indian techie, and how <
How Gandhi’s India created the Indian techie, and how at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947.
Wearing turbans in the more paranoid parts of the US today could get you into trouble, so it is ironic to read a US State Department memo from 1945 about how "every Indian" coming to the country should wear a turban, even if he didn't regularly wear one, during the first weeks of "his stay in any community".
This was to show he was Indian, not African-American, and hence should not suffer the discriminations that the latter group had to endure.
The combination of helpful hint, easy use of stereotype and acceptance of racial discrimination is a telling glimpse into the attitudes of that era — and that's not even getting into the assumption that, as Ross Bassett notes, "only men would be coming".
The Tech-savvy Indian This is just one of many fascinating details in Bassett's new book The Technological Indian, which could be described as a study of how the image of the Indian techie was created. Bassett is an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University and a specialist in the history of technology.
But he first trained and worked as an engineer, alongside many colleagues of Indian origin. This is now so common as to have become a cliche, with television shows like The Big Bang Theory showing techsavvy Indians. But in high school, Bassett had been interested in Gandhi and read his writings and knew how he was usually shown as deeply opposed to modern technology.
How did Gandhi's India also create the Indian techie? This is a question India often ignores, as when prime ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi have simultaneously praised Gandhian values while promoting an anti-Gandhian vision of industrialised India. Or, it is used opportunistically by the emigration-minded as a justification for leaving a country they argue is eternally bound to Gandhi's agrarian, anti-modern mindset.
Bassett found that the issue was more complex. He focused his research on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has a rich database of student information, thanks to its early founding in 1861, and high reputation, which made it a magnet for technology seekers from around the world. He expected to find many Indian students from the post-Independence era, but what surprised him was to find at least 100 who received MIT degrees before 1947.
Even more surprising, many had links to Gandhi. A disproportionate number came from Saurashtra, like Gandhi, and many were inspired by or received assistance from a close friend of Gandhi's, a man sometimes seen as his representative in the area. This was Devchand Parekh, born two years after Gandhi, whose father was a minister in a local state, just as Gandhi's father had been.
Like Gandhi, Parekh went to the UK to become a lawyer, though at Cambridge rather than London. And it was at Cambridge in 1893 that he had a formative encounter with the economist Alfred Marshall, who told him frankly that young Indians like him should not be coming to the UK to become lawyers; "instead they should go to America — specifically to MIT — to study engineering and then return to India to set up industries that would improve the Indian standard of living".
This was something several Indian leaders, specifically in western India, were also advocating. Bassett starts his book with an account of a meeting held in Pune in 1884 where MM Kunte, headmaster of the Poona High School, had called on Indians to learn "the art of mechanisation" which "has become a Kalpavriksha", the wish-granting tree that would help India progress from its current sad state. It is an appeal that sounds much like PM Modi's recent call to Make in India.
As with the PM's regular evocations of India's past glories, 19th century advocates of progress pointed to the subcontinent's past mastery of technologies like weaving which had first brought foreigners to India to trade, but then unfortunately to conquer and control the means of production. Worse, with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the West, foreign rulers actively destroyed India's abilities to keep the country in a passive, exploitable agrarian condition. Learning technology was a nationalist imperative.
How Gandhi's India created Indian techie & how at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947
MIT Connect
But the British didn't encourage this. At best, they allowed learning low-level skills to help implement projects that benefitted the colonial state, but even this was not a priority. The viceroy, Lord Curzon, could sanction major funds for the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, but disparaged plans to set up an institute of technical education in her memory. India's economic problem, he declared "is not to be solved by a batch of Institutes or a cluster of Polytechnics".
The answer then was to go outside the British Empire, to new technological powers like Germany and Japan but, above all, America where inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were developing new technologies and, practically, English was spoken.
Bassett records how Indian journals like Bal Gangadhar Tilak's Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English) gave extensive coverage to technological developments in the West, often mentioning them in the context of MIT, which was a hub for innovation and learning.
MIT assiduously developed this image, not least as part of its long struggle to avoid being taken over by Harvard, the academic superpower next door. As part of this effort, it was keen to take international students, even appointing an alumnus, Jasper Whiting, in 1910 to extend MIT's international influence.
Whiting focused on China and although he visited India, there is no record of what he did here. But other links were developing. MIT had already had its first Indian student by then in Keshav Bhat, who took courses there, in 1882-84 and again in 1890. His example helped advocates of technology overcome one of the biggest hurdles to Indians studying abroad — the caste censures against those who crossed the seas. Technological imperatives overruled caste concerns, though the travellers often had to go to great lengths to avoid problems like eating meat.
How Gandhi's India created Indian techie & how at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947
Devchand Parekh did visit the US and became a fervent advocate of US education. This was probably helped by the problems he faced getting a job in British India, which saw him returning to Kathiawar.
Native states could use their limited independence to support young Indians and with the help of Prabhashankar Pattani, dewan of Bhavnagar, Parekh was able to start a chemical industry (though his actual first venture was canning mango juice!).
Parekh used his position, and the monetary support of Bhavnagar, to help many young men study in the US, specifically at MIT. One example was Anant Pandya, who on returning to India had the usual problems getting work with British companies. He moved to London, where ironically he had better opportunities, and used the experience gained there to become a principal of the Bengal Engineering College in Sibpur.
When World War II forced the British to develop Indian industry to support the war effort, Pandya became deputy director of munitions production. In 1948 he became the first Indian general manager of Hindustan Aircraft, before returning to private practice. Tragically, he died in 1951 in a car accident, but his career showed a clear path for technocrats who embraced industrial development.
Parekh's son-in-law TM Shah had a very different experience. He was a committed Gandhian who, after returning from MIT, took up a job with Tata Iron and Steel in Jamshedpur, only to run foul of the management when he organised a strike in support of the Congress' Quit India resolution. Shah ended up in Hazaribagh jail for 18 months.
How Gandhi's India created Indian techie & how at least 100 of them received degrees from MIT before 1947
An extract of a letter from Bal Kalelkar to GD Birla (the edits were made by Gandhi)
The Westward Shift
Post Independence the prospects for MIT-trained engineers seemed great, especially with the launch of the massive infrastructure development of the Five-Year Plans. Yet the experience of those who got involved with these projects, like Minu Dastur, was mixed. Time and again, they found themselves sidelined by the international engineers brought in by the foreign governments sponsoring these projects. Even when Nehru advocated engineers like Dastur, bureaucracy would put up barriers.
This would be the repeated experience of others who tried working in India, so it comes as no surprise that many who went to MIT decided to stay in the US. Initially this was tough due to racist laws designed to keep out "Oriental" immigration to the US. Immediately after World War II, Indian students on American ships were attacked for taking the place of American soldiers who wanted to get home. And, as Bassett notes, MIT itself went through a period of privileging international students from Europe over Asia after World War II.
However, by the 1960s these policies started changing and other factors encouraged the Westward shift. One of the most basic was the American libraries originally set up in India in Calcutta (1943), Bombay (1944) and Delhi (1946) during World War II. These became sources of information about US college programmes and helped students make their way to the US. Another successful initiative that Bassett notes was a programme to get the children of senior Indian bureaucrats and business families to colleges like MIT.
MIT was also changing by then. Its earlier focus on manufacturing technology was giving way to the new world of information technology, and Indian students were eager to learn. But they couldn't do this in India. In 1961, IIT-Bombay turned down a Soviet offer of a computer, "believing that the money could be better spent elsewhere". When Calcutta Electric Supply bought a computer, workers gheraoed and forced it to be sold. TCS happily snapped it up, but it was the rare exception of an Indian company to believe in the potential of computers. For young Indians intent on being part of this revolution, the only way was West.
Gandhian Tech
Where was Gandhi in all this? Most would see him abandoned in the rush for a technological future. But Bassett takes a cue from Bal Kalelkar, a young man who, remarkably, would go from walking with Gandhi on his Dandi March to studying in MIT and later working at Birla's Texmaco company. Kalelkar never quite managed to match his Gandhian beliefs with the technological world he came to work in, yet he seems to have believed that Gandhi himself might have found a way.
Kalelkar wrote a memoir in which, Bassett writes, he "creates an image of Gandhi as an engineer of human souls". More prosaically, Bassett notes Gandhi's insistence on punctuality, enforced by the watch he carried all his life, and his fervour for quantification — of skeins of yarn spun, of exact amounts of food eaten, of his exact weight, all beliefs in the value of numbers to help govern and improve the world. This was the hallmark of an engineer and a suggestion that Gandhi was not as technophobic as he might seem.
Perhaps Gandhi was simply sceptical of technology pursued as an end in itself, but not of technology that really tried to find real solutions to the problems of India.
Towards the end of his book, Bassett notes the world of a few Indian MIT graduates like Almitra Patel, the first Indian woman to gain an engineering degree from MIT, who has now become a "garbage activist", helping Indian cities find answers to solid waste disposal.
Or there is Deep Joshi who went to MIT on a scholarship, but got more interested in social issues like nutrition and poverty alleviation. In 2009 he won the Magsaysay Prize for his work. It is stories like theirs that show <
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How PM Narendra Modi, Amit Shah charted plans to unite AIADMK
By Akhilesh Singh, TNN|Updated: Aug 22, 2017, 08.32 AM IST
It is believed the BJP leadership layed a crucial role in the merger as it comes with the opportunity for the saffron party to consolidate itself in the southern state.
It is believed the BJP leadership layed a crucial role in the merger as it comes with the opportunity for the saffron party to consolidate itself in the southern state.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the merger of AIADMK's two factions on Monday and said the Centre would provide all support to chief minister E Palaniswami and deputy CM O Panneerselvam for Tamil Nadu's growth.
"I congratulate Thiru O Panneerselvam and others who took oath today. I hope Tamil Nadu scales newer heights of progress in the years to come," Modi tweeted.
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It is believed the BJP leadership, including Modi and party chief Amit Shah, played a crucial role in the merger as it comes with the opportunity for the saffron party to consolidate itself in the southern state.
There is also the possibility of the merged entity joining the NDA at the Centre, which will consolidate the ruling dispensation further following Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) coming on board. There is speculation BJP will use the opportunity to forge a pre-poll alliance with ADMK with V K Sasikala's sympathisers sidelined.
ADMK has 50 members in Parliament, including 37 in Lok Sabha and 13 in Rajya Sabha and their presence on the treasury benches will be a boost to NDA. Soon after Sasikala was jailed after her conviction on corruption charges, BJP began taking keen interest in Tamil Nadu politics, striving for unity among ADMK rival factions. As a weakened AIADMK could have seen rival DMK making gains and subsequently helping Congress, BJP leaders left no stone unturned to unite the two factions. Modi held several rounds of separate meetings with Panneerselvam and Palaniswami
Both leaders were invited to the oath-taking ceremony of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, making it clear that the BJP brass wanted to keep both factions in good humour.
After Jayalalitha's death, BJP kept away as Sasikala took over as general secretary. BJP members were not ready to join hands with someone facing graft charges. The BJP leadership was equally apprehensive when Sasikala imposed her nephew TTV Dinkaran on the party. However, after Dinakaran was held for misuse of money in the assembly bypolls, BJP found it easier to convince the two factions to merge.
(This article was originally published in The Times of India)