The three challenges: disparity, demography and development 

At the time of independence our founding fathers had a collective and shared vision of India which was rooted in Gandhian values: truth, trust, equality, freedom of choice, rights to education and health, respect for diversity, concern for the poor

and minorities, unconditional love for everybody, focus on rural communities and basic needs of our people. At the same time, there was great concern for the Indian way of life – concern for the family, neighbourhood and the community.

We got our independence through peaceful means and the Gandhi-led movement essentially decolonised the entire world. Though we didn’t get much respect or recognition for it, but the entire world got decolonised mainly because of the momentum that India led by Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel brought in.

Our leaders were seen then as servants of the people; they had character, mortal fabric and were all very intelligent – highly educated, successful in their own rights and sacrificed their lives for the people. They were not in politics for personal gains, not for propaganda, not to promote lies. They held no animosity, they never criticised anybody, not even the British Raj.

There was very little private capital, so the Government had to create a lot of public sectors because private capital was just not available. These ideas were planted like seeds which started bearing fruits after 40-50 years in terms of talent.

We are here only because of the wisdom of our founding fathers. I got my Masters in Physics in India for $10. Where, in this world, will you get education almost free? And how can I say India hasn’t given me anything?

War machine fuelling economy

The interesting part is that at around the same time, the world was staring at World War II; while India was fighting for independence, the world was also being redesigned. That design had democracy, human rights along with capitalism and consumption as part of the design. Then the world became bipolar, India was busy with its own problems and challenges. But the design also had war as a part of the strategy, because the war machine was going to fuel the economy.

Our founding fathers focused on democracy so heavily that India with the diversity, size and population remained intact. The biggest accomplishment of the post-independence leaders has been to hold this country together.

So, Congress hasn’t done anything? When I worked with Rajiv Gandhi, we focussed on technology missions for literacy, immunisation, edible oil, telecom, milk production and water. Our idea was to take technology to the people. When people say, ‘Congress hasn’t done anything’, look at what we have done.

We have created atomic energy, agricultural research so that we can feed 1.2 billion people, space programmes. We are the largest producer of milk, we are a nation of a connected billion, we are recognised for IT and technology. Congress did all this. One can’t go around promoting lies.

India Today

In India, the talk I hear today is all rubbish. Everyone talks about corruption, but they themselves are corrupt. People are judged based on the money they have. If you are rich, you are smart; if you are smart, how come you are not rich?

A lot of these things must change. People have lost patience; they get irritated easily. They have lost love for their neighbour. Everybody is waiting to get hurt.

Students these days are not well informed and well read. They are more into sound-bites, gossip and not into depth. Modern media has also created this culture of sound bites. People hear four words and they believe they ‘know it all’. They don’t read well. Our founding fathers were well-read and well-educated. Look at our leaders now, very little education.

There is a problem with both politics and education. There’s too much emphasis to turn out engineers and doctors, and not enough of psychology, anthropology, economics, philosophy or history.

You go and become a civil engineer and come out without an understanding of the society, how it works or what its needs are. In a country of such diversity, you need a much more broader understanding of people and culture. Ultimately you have to work in the society. Without understanding people, you can’t work.

India Tomorrow

The future, fortunately, looks bright for everybody because technology today offers some unique solutions to mankind, whether it is genetics, biotech, longevity or telecom.

I see a day, in the next 50 years, where food will be almost free because we will grow so much food because of technology, so much that the cost will be very little. Transportation will be free, because no one will own a car. We will be able to order a car, an automatic driverless car, which will drop us wherever we would want to go. There will not be parking lots, garages like now and energy will be cheap too.

The advantages that we have is that we have a younger population. We can hope that they will adapt to these changes faster and better. They will not have the excess baggage of the past. So, those are the advantages.

Hopefully, our population, at some point, will settle at 1.5 billion and start going down. If the female to male ratio increases and infant mortality goes down, the population will stabilise and go down. May be in 100 years, India will have less than a billion people.

If India has to progress, there has to be redesigning of sorts. India has to begin to focus on inclusion — inclusive in terms of caste, gender, education, income quality. That is a very big challenge. And economic development of those at the bottom of the pyramid. We need a bottom-up approach and not a top-down approach. The top-down approach doesn’t work in the long run.

I think, the world over, the jobs as we understand today will not exist in the future. The jobs of today are from the manufacturing era — forty hours a week, pension plan, retirement benefit. In knowledge era, that will not exist.

Today telecom is almost free that is why the poorest of the poor also have a telephone. Pretty soon poorest of the poor will also have enough food, free transportation. That is the world we want to build.

We need to educate people to take responsibility for their lives. We can’t say everybody should get educated for a job. Everybody should get educated so that they can find meaning to their lives. There is a big difference. Today we are not creating self-learners. We are creating people to whom we say ‘you are done learning, now go earn’.  The earning can start but the learning should not stop.

With each passing day, I realise how little I know about everything. I have to keep learning every day; I’m in a field where if I don’t keep up, I’ll get obsolete. We need citizens who are enquiring, people who are curious and joy comes out of curiosity; exploring new frontiers. We have to change mind-sets.

For most of India, schooling is still seen as a problem mostly because of lack of teachers and lack of facilities. But, I can see this as an advantage. Why do we need teachers anymore? What does the teacher do? They come to the classroom and deliver a lecture. If I’m motivated, I can go online and find courses to learn. It is necessary to have a teacher until you are 10 years old, but after you 10-15 years old, you are on your own. You need mentors – it could be your neighbour, your uncle, a priest or a friend anywhere in the world.

I believe, in India, we need to stop propaganda. We need to promote truth. There’s a difference between propaganda on social media versus truth on social media. We have to learn to distinguish.  So, you can’t have leaders who have 500 people tweeting for you. That’s a misuse of social media. People start all kinds of rumours, false information.

We should also ensure that the social network providers, Facebook and Twitter, also take responsibility for the content posted on their platforms. We have to file court cases, write to them about propaganda. If you were to look at the customer base, we are the largest customers. Look at their market caps, almost $ 400 billion; at least one-third of that is from India. India has got nothing from this.

Challenges ahead

India has three fundamental challenges. The first is disparity — the rich and poor, educated and uneducated and the rural and urban divide. The second is demography – 750 million people below the age of 25. And, finally the development model.  Everyone is not a part of development.

Then we need to worry about three things – expansion, excellence and equity. We need an expansion of everything – more schools, roads, hospitals, colleges and football fields. Then there’s a need to ensure excellence in all we do. We need to improve quality of everything – from the houses we build to the education we provide.  Then the third and most important one is equity. The poorest of the poor must have access to technology.

We must realise that the world needs India and Indian values of non-violence, simple living and equity more than ever.

The author, former technical advisor to the Prime Minister of India and former chairman of Knowledge Commission, is acknowledged as the father of India’s telecom revolution