http://www.hindu.com/nic/itindia.htm
I.T. AND INDIA [1]
Amartya Sen
1
Some admirations come from near, others from very far. My respect
and reverence for the IT industry in general and the
extraordinarily dynamic and triumphant Indian IT industry in
particular have come, by necessity, from some distance, since I am
a dabbler in things far away from IT services and software. When
the invitation came to attend this year's NASSCOM meeting and the
leadership forum, I thought that this either indicated some mixing
up of my identity ("wake up, wake up," I wanted to say, "I teach
non-IT subjects at a university!"), or alternatively, it reflected
generous interest of NASSCOM leaders to reach out (or as my
students say, "hang out") beyond their principality.
Of the two possibilities, identity confusion is the more exciting.
My late friend Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, recounted to me his
exciting experiences when he was invited to a musical gathering
under the mistaken impression that he was Irving Berlin, the
musical composer, rather than Isaiah Berlin, the political
philosopher. Apparently, the assembled gathering was somewhat
disappointed by Isaiah Berlin's inability to respond to repeated
requests to provide some insights into the melodies from Annie Get
Your Gun or Call Me Madam. And, of course, Sen is a more common
name than Berlin , offering more opportunity of identity
confounding. Indeed, I was once asked in a gathering of very
energetic and very globally minded Ugandan students - this happened
at the Makerere College in Kampala - whether I, Amartya Sen, was
any relation of Sun Yat Sen. I had to tell my interlocutor, "No,
but we are trying hard."
It is, however, the second possibility - not identity confusion -
on which I want to speak this afternoon, that is about the
possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its
principality. I want to talk not, of course, about my being here
at this NASSCOM meeting, but about the case for the IT industry to
bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its
traditional domain.
Of course, the idea of what counts as "traditional" is hard to
articulate in the case of a field of enterprise as new as
information technology. Indeed, a little over a century ago, in
1885, when the Indian National Congress had its first meeting in
Bombay, which was attended by among others Jamsetji Tata (he would
establish his new "Swadeshi mills" next year), Jamsetji would have
been, I imagine, a little puzzled if he were told that the
enterprise he was pioneering would soon include a huge operation in
software and IT - indeed the largest in the country (my friend
Ramadorai, who heads it, is here). The importance of information
has, of course, been acknowledged over many millennia, but the
ideas of IT technology and software are quintessential
contributions of contemporary modernity - not something with any
ageless recognition. Indeed, the entire idea of a National
Association of Software and Service Companies (that is, NASSCOM)
would have appeared quite mysterious to the pioneering industrial
leader of India. As it happens, the domain of IT is still
evolving, and I would like to argue for taking an even broader view
than has already got established.
My point is not that the IT industry should do something for the
country at large, for that it does anyway. It already makes
enormous contributions: it generates significant incomes for a
great many Indians; it has encouraged attention to technical
excellence as a general requirement across the board; it has
established exacting standards of economic success in the country;
it has encouraged many bright students to go technical rather than
merely contemplative; and it has inspired Indian industrialists to
face the world economy as a potentially big participant, not a tiny
little bit-player. My point, rather, is that it can do even more,
indeed in some ways, much more. This is partly because the reach
of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the
prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists
give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian
economic and social development.
2
Let me begin by asking a question that no one here will, I think,
ask (because everyone I meet here seems so polite and
well-behaved): why should the Indian IT industry have any sense of
obligation to do things - more things - for India, more than what
happens automatically from its normal operations (as a by-product
of business success, rather than as a deliberated goal to be
advanced, among other demands and necessities)? Why assume there
is any obligation at all for IT to do anything other than minding
its own business?
I think part of the answer lies in reciprocity. The country has
made huge contributions, even though they are not often clearly
recognised, to help the development and flowering of the IT
industry in India, and it is not silly to ask what in return the IT
might do for India .
But how has the country helped? Perhaps most immediately, the IT
sector has benefitted from the visionary move, originally
championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to develop centres of excellent
technical education in India, such as the IITs, to be followed by
the Institutes of Management and other initiatives, aimed at
enhancing the quality and reach of Indian professional and
specialized education. Despite Nehru's moving rhetoric in favour
of literacy for all (which was plentifully present even in his
celebrated speech on the eve of independence on 14th August 1947 -
the speech on India 's "tryst with destiny"), he in fact did
shockingly little for literacy. I would suggest that Jawaharlal
Nehru did not really think through how to ensure the practical
realization of his goal of literacy for all, in which he did
believe with sincerity and conviction, but not with any sense of
practicality. It was, however, entirely different as far as
technical education is concerned - here Nehru's sense of ways and
means nicely supplemented his fervent passion. India was not only
the first poor country in the world to choose a robustly democratic
from of governance, it also was the first country with grinding
poverty to give priority to the development of technical skill and
the state-of-art education in technology. And from this the IT
sector has benefited a lot, since the entire industry is so
dependent on the availability, quality and reach of technical
education.
However, IT's links with India 's past goes back much further than
that. The nature of Indian society and traditions have tended to
support the pursuit of specialized excellence in general and the
development of IT in particular. There has been a historic
respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social
contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which
has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has
tended greatly to rely on - and exploit - the traditional reverence
for specialized skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used
to add to the barriers of societal stratification. There is a
tradition here that can be taken in many different directions, and
it is a matter of much satisfaction that the IT industry's use of
the same respect is remarkably positive and potentially open and
inclusive. I will come back to that question of inclusiveness
later on (it is an important subject on which there is a case for
more deliberation and action), but before that let me comment on a
few other connections, since they are often missed, between the
success of IT in India and some particular features of India's
past.
Going well beyond respect for specialized skill, there is also a
general attitude of openness in India to influences from far and
near - of admiring excellence no matter where it is produced. This
is particularly important since the IT success of India did draw
initially, as indeed was inevitable, on what was going on with much
accomplishment abroad. The experiences of the Silicon valley, in
particular, was very important for the yearning of skilled and
discerning Indians to learn from others - and then to make good use
of it. While many Indians have a deep preference for what we can
see as total local immersion and even succumb to evidently strong
temptations to denigrate things happening abroad (and this attitude
rears its ugly head from time to time in contemporary Indian
politics as well), there has also been for thousand of years a very
robust tradition here of admiring, using and learning from
excellence anywhere in the world.
The IT technical experts may not readily perceive that there is a
remarkable similarity between (1) their own valuational commitment
to learn what they can from anywhere which has good ideas to offer,
and (2) the open and welcoming attitude to departures originating
elsewhere which Rabindranath Tagore articulated with compelling
clarity in a letter to a friend (in a letter to Charlie Andrews in
fact) in the 1920s, at the height of our struggle of for national
independence:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly
becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud
of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of
other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness
that the all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it
hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the
West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only
injure us.
It is, of course, to the credit of Western centres of excellence in
education and practice that they were so welcoming to learners from
abroad (I think America and Europe do not always get enough
recognition for its liberal priorities in this field, despite their
narrow-minded national and local priorities in other areas), but it
is also important to see that the interest and initiative of bright
Indians to learn from abroad for domestic use was strongly founded
on an open-minded willingness to comprehend, as Tagore put it, that
"whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly
becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin."
I want to point to one further connection between the development
and achievements of Indian IT and the Indian intellectual
traditions on which Indian IT draws. I don't refer here only to
the love of mathematics that has inspired so many young Indians
throughout history, and which is important in many different ways,
for the efficacy IT operations. The general maths-friendliness of
Indian intellectuals is relevant here: according to some accounts,
the mathematician Bhaskara even tried to convince his daughter
Lilavati that if she came to master mathematical puzzles then she
would be highly popular when she went to parties, which seems to me
be, to say the least, a little doubtful. But aside from being
fascinated by maths, Indian intellectuals have also typically been
very excited about arguments in general: it is a subject on which I
have even indulged in writing a book (incidentally, in my last trip
to Mumbai I was very impressed to be offered a cut-price pirated
edition of my book, The Argumentative Indian, by a street vendor
near the airport, who also had the exquisite taste of explaining to
me that this book was "quite good" - and from him, also "very
cheap").
IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has
depended on what we can call TI, that is, "talkative Indians." It
is not hard to see how a tradition of being thrilled by
intellectual altercations tend to do a lot to prepare someone to
the challenges of IT interactions.
3
Given what the country has done for Indian IT, it is not silly to
ask: what specially can the IT industry do for India (other than
what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of
non-business ends)? This seems to me to be right, but I would also
like to emphasize that historical reciprocity is not the only -
perhaps not even the most important - reason for being interested
in the social obligations of the IT industry. Many considerations
arise there.
There is, of course, the elementary issue of the obligation of
those who "make it" vis-a-vis those who do not manage quite so
well, which is a very basic ethical demand that, it can be argued,
society places upon us. This raises immediately the question what
any prosperous group may owe to others not so well placed. This is
not only a reflective demand for social deliberation - part of what
Immanuel Kant called a "categorical imperative" - but it is also a
part of enlightened business operation. There is, as it happens,
a very well established tradition in a part of Indian business to
do just that, particularly well exemplified by the Tatas for
example, through various socially valuable activities such as
building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions
of high distinction. I am impressed to see that many of the major
IT leaders seem to be very seized of this challenge.
If that possible role is obvious enough, there is some need to
understand better other roles in which the IT industry can make a
very big difference in India. As it happens the key to the success
of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information
is also very central to social evaluation and societal change.
There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between
information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course
the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on
our knowledge and information about them.
Indeed, already in the 1770s (more than two hundred years ago),
that remarkable Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had noted the
importance of increased intercourse in expanding the reach of our
sense of justice. He had put the issue thus (in his chapter "Of
Justice," in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals):
....again suppose that several distinct societies maintain a kind
of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries
of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of
men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History,
experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural
progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our
regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the
extensive utility of that virtue.
Negligence of suffering of others is sustainable, given human interest
in justice and equity, only when we know little about that suffering.
More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of
apathy and indifference.
This foundational connection also gives the information industry a
huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution
to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse
clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs
of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting
basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional
entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class
and gender. This can also be said about problems of
underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads,
etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad
mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal
connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the
excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly
does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to
Indian education in general.
I do not know enough about the IT operations to see whether all
this can be turned into a business proposition as well. But my
point is that even if it cannot be so transformed, it is something
that the IT sector has good reason to consider doing. Can there
be a group initiative in any of these fields? Can NASSCOM itself
play a catalytic role here? Informational issues are thoroughly
rampant in morality and politics, and in many direct and indirect
ways, the preoccupation of the IT enterprise links closely with the
foundations of political and moral assessment and adjudication.
Even though in this presentation I am mainly concentrating on
domestic issues, I should mention in passing that the role of
information and informed understanding can also be very large in
the pursuit of global peace and in defeating ill-reasoned violence.
When we consider how many of the brutalities in the world today
are linked with ignorant hostility to cultures and practices
abroad, we can appreciate the contribution of informational
limitation, among other causal factors, in cross-border
belligerence. I could have talked about that too, in developing
some ideas presented in my last book (Identity and Violence), but
given my time limits I will resist that temptation.
4
I return now to the domestic scene. In emphasizing the role of the
moral domain for the IT sector to feel some responsibility towards
making India a more equitable country, I do not want to give the
impression that there is not also a prudential case for going in
that direction. One of the huge obstacles to the domestic
development of the IT sector is the size of the local market, which
is still quite small, despite all the recent expansions. Indian
IT has done very well in making excellent use of the global market,
but competition there is likely to be increasingly fierce. Other
countries are trying to learn from the experience not only of
America and Europe but also from India , and while India has some
peculiar advantages in the IT field (which I have already
discussed), the barriers may well be gradually removed in many
countries - indeed even in many poor countries - in the world.
China, which has a much larger domestic market already and will
continue to expand that market very fast, is not as vulnerable as
we may be, in this particular respect.
As it happens, one of the reasons for the larger domestic reach of
IT in China is its much wider base of good basic schooling. So,
what is an issue of equity, on one side, is also a matter of
central importance for prudential reasoning about domestic economic
expansion, on the other. The same goes for a much wider base of
elementary health care in China, though this, as it happens, has
been going through some turmoil since the Chinese economic reforms
of 1979 which effectively abolished free health care for all,
through insisting on privately purchased health insurance. It is
a subject on which I have written elsewhere, so I will not go
further into it here, other than noting that the Chinese
authorities are quite receptive now of critical scrutiny of the
present system of health care that China has ended up having.
This, in fact, is in sharp contrast with the past when we had made
similar criticisms earlier, and I do know that very serious
critical scrutiny is currently going on in Beijing on this, in a
very constructive way. I expect major changes to happen in China
in a more inclusive direction before long.
Excessive reliance on private health care in India for the most
elementary problems of ill-health and disease (resulting mostly
from the limited size, reach and operational efficiency of public
health facilities) is similarly a barrier to the availability and
entitlement to health care for all Indians, and this obstacle
urgently needs removing. These are all subjects on which the IT
sector is well placed to provide considerable enlightenment and
guidance. As it happens, the IT sector itself will indirectly
benefit (for reasons I have already outlined) from playing a
constructive and deliberated role in widening the base of social
and physical infrastructure. But the more immediate - and also
the more foundational - reason relates, I think, to demands from
the moral domain to which the IT sector has reasons to respond.
This is so, I have argued, for a variety of reasons, varying from
Indian IT's unequal current success and its debt to India's
traditions and priorities, on one side, to - and this is often
unrecognised but happens to be extremely important - the central
role of information in moral reasoning, on the other. There is
indeed, I would argue, something of a socially connected obligation
here, the recognition of which could make a huge difference to the
future of India.
[1] Keynote Address at the NASSCOM 2007 India Leadership Forum in
Mumbai on 7 February 2007 .
