The Technological Indian

by Ross Bassett

In the late 1800s, Indians seemed to be a people left behind by the Industrial Revolution, dismissed as “not a mechanical race.” Today Indians are among the world’s leaders in engineering and technology. In this international history spanning nearly 150 years, Ross Bassett―drawing on a unique database of every Indian to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between its founding and 2000―charts their ascent to the pinnacle of high-tech professions.

As a group of Indians sought a way forward for their country, they saw a future in technology. Bassett examines the tensions and surprising congruences between this technological vision and Mahatma Gandhi’s nonindustrial modernity. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, sought to use MIT-trained engineers to build an India where the government controlled technology for the benefit of the people. In the private sector, Indian business families sent their sons to MIT, while MIT graduates established India’s information technology industry.

By the 1960s, students from the Indian Institutes of Technology (modeled on MIT) were drawn to the United States for graduate training, and many of them stayed, as prominent industrialists, academics, and entrepreneurs. The MIT-educated Indian engineer became an integral part of a global system of technology-based capitalism and focused less on India and its problems―a technological Indian created at the expense of a technological India.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2016

Reviews

[Ashutosh Mehndiratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lesser-known title, The Technological Indian is a very well researched account of India's tryst with technology and industrial progress. Though the author has focused his narrative on Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the earliest Indian students who went there since the late nineteenth century, it doesn't take away from the overall story.

Highly recommended.

[bhavya kapoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started as a study of IIT Kanpur and later transformed into 150 years of India’s tryst with technology and specifically MIT.
 
The first Indian to attend MIT was in 1882 and ~1,300 Indians have earned degrees from MIT between 1861 (founding year) and 2000. The amount of research that has been undertaken for the book is incredible. The author spent years finding out who those people were, how they managed to get into MIT and what they made of it afterwards.
 
The author has stitched individual stories with the struggle of independence, Gandhi and various Industrialists at that time. He brought out the challenge faced by early graduates due to the paradox of pursuing a MIT education career or joining the freedom struggle. Post-independence, the struggle seemed to have subsided with a large contingent choosing to commit themselves towards the technological American system.
 
Overall, recommended for readers who don’t shy away from reading a very long book covering aspects of history and pre-independence India. 

[Rohit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a fantastic book that looks at the development of Indian engagement with science and technology over the course of ~150 years, primarily (but not exclusively) by analyzing the relationship between Indians and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first half the book was phenomenal, the analysis of "technological India" weaved between stories of individuals and the larger socio-political and economic context in a very compelling way. The chapter on Gandhi and his philosophy of technology and industry was especially fascinating.

The last few chapters were a bit more boring, as they focused more on the exploits of a few exceptional individuals who went to MIT in the latter decades of the 20th-century and started businesses and stuff, as opposed to analyzing larger societal trends. But they were still interesting and insightful.

[Prajwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book perhaps because I am a student at MIT, and there were a few things I could personally relate to. The author has done a great deal of research, and helps us understand the evolution of modern India. I believe the scope has been little limited because its focus on just MIT in particular.

[Ram · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and well researched book that traces the history of engineering education in India from the 19th century to today where India has become synonymous with IT expertise. It is remarkable to learn that in 1884, a mere 23 years after MIT was founded, the Mahratta newspaper in Pune, founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a leader of the Indian independence movement, was calling Indians to emulate MIT as the "best conducted institute in the world." The author has extensively catalogued the pioneering efforts by luminaries like Prof. P.K. Kelkar and F.C. Kohli In founding the IITs and companies like TCS which established India on the global stage.

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