How did Indian IT sector devalop?
What were thier policies?
What can governments do especially the English speaking countries like we have in SA?
Innovation comes with time you have to do dumb work and learn from it - but also devalop your higher education so when you're doing dumb work in parallel you're devaloping for high level stuff too
For the future
- I am ignorant to Hindu civilization that's why I am asking
Aren't brahmins like top caste so why can't they do business? (According to stereotype)
TLDR alert.
There are various theories on how the Indian IT sector developed and all of them carry some truth. According to me these are the reasons:
- India has had a concentration of technology establishments in Bangalore since post Independence. These include ISRO, HAL, NAL, BEML, HMT etc. These attracted top talent from all over India, but particularly the south Indian Brahmins. Referring my previous post, Brahmins have had a head start in education, especially south Indian Brahmins. Yes, all Brahmins are not highly educated. The regions which were colonised by the British first - Bengal and Chennai region, got access to British style education earlier and held on to that advantage till almost late 1990s, until colleges started mushrooming all over the country.
- Bangalore became a sort of hub of people with scientific temper, just like Silicon Valley did for Americans. Why did Detroit become an automobile hub? Or Wichita, Kansas an aviation hub? Because the supply chain developed in these regions. It just needs that initial spark. In software you need a supply chain of people instead of parts. Bangalore had that supply chain.
- There are other factors that worked in Bangalore's favour:
- Bangalore has arguably the most liveable climate in the world
- Apart from the technology establishments I mentioned earlier, Bangalore has always had a huge military presence. Bangalore as a city thrived because it served as a British military base against nearby Mysore, which was Tipu Sultan's capital. All this lead to influx of a heterogenous population and a certain lowering of the language barrier. People could understand Hindi better than in Chennai or in cities of the Malabar coast. Thus more influx of talent, and not just south Indian.
- Infosys (brahmin founders), Wipro (Muslim founders), HCL (Hindu Nadars, supposedly backward caste), TCS (Parsi founders), Patni Computers (Jains) were the companies that created that spark, which led to the creation of ancillary service providers. Many employees from these companies went on to start their own companies and the ball had been set rolling. Note that the religion of founders is of little consequence and these companies resemble each other closely in their employee mix.
- This growth could not have happened in isolation. India had set up IITs and Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) all over the country and these had been producing a reliable supply of talent. Graduates from these colleges dominated the initial IT companies, however as new private colleges came up, the supply became more diverse. Indians started getting overseas contracts, mainly from Banking and Financial Services companies in US and Europe. The USP was lower cost, same quality and very importantly a readily available 'bench' workforce, which meant that teams could scale horizontally and vertically very quickly and there was no downtime. With time Indians developed Design, Architecture, Project and Program Management capabilities too as they started getting increasingly larger and more complex projects. The rest is history.
Interestingly these 4-5 founding companies are no longer the most sought after for employment any more. New graduates want to work in new age startups (which are to be found literally in every building in India) and for them the old IT giants are practically ancient.
I am not one to stereotype, but there is something about
south Indian ethos which were a contributing factor. These are:
- A certain seriousness and rejection of over-the-top flashy behaviour
- More focused and methodical
- Prioritization of skills over personality
- Frugal mindset, which helps in controlling cost
Hence
all southern Indian states now have their IT hubs. Andhra Pradesh has Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu has Chennai, Kerala has Kochi and Trivandrum. Maharashtra though not south India has Pune and Mumbai. Bangalore is only the most famous, the other cities give it tough competition. In north India apart from the Delhi region (which includes Gurgaon and Noida), there is no true IT hub.
On its part what the government did was disappear from the picture altogether. It announced tax holidays and gave big technology parks the status of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which came with its own benefits. Setting up a company was easier and businessmen in this sector had to deal with virtually zero regulation and government interference. For Indians this was a huge relief and everyone wanted to work in this sector. That is it.
All the government had to do was get out of the way. The
healthy competition between cities led to state governments giving more and more incentives to set up IT parks. It would however be premature to conclude that the government had purely good intentions at heart. One of the reasons is that it did not understand the industry well at all and did not know how to regulate it.
Having a large pool of English speaking people helped. However, this is more important in client facing roles, and spoken English is not a major deterrent. Many software engineers come from tier 2 and tier 3 cities and do not speak English very well. Good comprehension of English helped India in BPO industry, which exploded in the late 90s and created its own set of IT needs like call management systems, ticketing systems, document management systems etc. It all snowballs ultimately. The
huge population is a magnet for smart people who want to build consumer facing apps like shopping, taxi riding, tourism, food delivery, movie tickets etc. Few countries in the world can boast of such a market. Pakistan and BD are very well placed in this regard too and it is only a matter of when, not if the
snowball effect happens.
Regarding Brahmins, there are a lot of misconceptions. A large number of brahmins, especially in northern and eastern India are economically backward. This is why they have opposed caste based reservations and are in favour of reservations based on economic status. They are top caste only in name. In a world increasingly dominated by business, they are having to adapt. Having said that, the Brahmins in south India have traditionally been entrepreneurial and own some of the biggest companies. The brahmins of Bengal turned landlords / zamindars / businessmen after they tasted economic success under British rule. In western and northern India Brahmins continue to favour employment rather than starting a business, but as startups grow this is more of a simplification and I cannot back this up with data.
In PDF India is regularly trolled for its
baniya mindset, but some amount of baniya mindset is necessary (regardless of what your caste is as a founder or visionary). Without the constant pursuit of more business, lowering costs and finding solutions to new problems you will not create that initial spark. Hunger is necessary for growth. It is the hunger of some baniya which will create a company, a factory and jobs for thousands of others.
