This book on India's IT industry is a very good attempt considering its usefulness for journalists, academics, analysts, consultants and policy makers. Dinesh C. Sharma has attempted to write the IT story from the origins to the present. There are very few books available in this area of study and to count few similar books are: (i) India and the Computers, (ii) Perspective on Electronics in India, (iii) Electronics in India and (iv) Computerization in Government, etc. But all these books are written before 1990. The Long Revolution is the latest sketch on the development of IT industry in India.
Title: The Long Revolution - The Birth And Growth of India's IT Industry (2009) Author: Dinesh C. Sharma Publisher: Harper Collins
The Long Revolution is a comprehensive catalogue of the country's struggles, gradual discovery and eventual emergence as a global IT giant. Sharma's narrative begins in the 1920s and '30s, P.C. Mahalanobis used predecessors of computing machines to analyse data from the National Sample Survey, and Bhabha for designing and running nuclear reactors are acknowledged.
The book has ten chapters including Chapter 3 on The Rise, Fall and Rise of IBM, Chapter 5 on Building Human Capital, and Chapter 8 on The Transition to Offshore.
The book focuses on the history and narrates the use of IT in India, and also the software, hardware, semiconductor and design industries. A detailed and meticulously researched account of the computing and information technology industry, the book discusses the genesis of computers in India; how the initial IBM monopoly was broken; how the innovative use of communication technologies turned pigmy software firms into billion dollar companies; the role of liberalisation in the IT revolution; and finally, whether this miracle can be sustained in the future.
The IT story is believed to have started after the liberalisation in 1991, when a progressive software policy was created. The book dives below the tip of the 1991 iceberg to emerge with a lot of relatively unknown data and interesting anecdotes. Some of these stories from the pre-1991 era are either not well known or are otherwise untold.
As Sharma's research on Indian IT journey notes that between the 1940s and the 1970s, India's emphasis on indigenous technology and self-reliance took entry as global IT giants, when IBM was setting up manufacturing units and selling computers. He states the role of institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Indian Statistical Institute in promoting computing.
The book works well as a reference, especially for those who want to know the facts, turning points and cull interesting anecdotes from the early days of Indian IT. Key policy decisions are highlighted. The role of the state in pushing the IT agenda further, such as the 1984 computer policy and then the 1990s when the software technology parks were set up.
However some more coverage could have been given on the clustering of IT industry in a few cities such as Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. More focus is required as on how Bangalore edged out Mumbai in becoming India's Silicon Valley, and also the role of state governments.