If the phone is ubiquitous in India today, it is largely due to the amazing journey of one man — Satyanarayan (abbreviated to ‘Sam’ by an HR clerk who couldn’t get her tongue around the name) Pitroda (a Gujarati community of metal-workers who traditionally used pitr or brass), the son of an unschooled labourer. Pitroda’s drive and vision not only earned him a 100 patents and millions of dollars in America, but the role of a change agent and path-breaker in his home country.
Pitroda believes his destiny was shaped by his parents’ decision to send him away, at the age of eight, from their meagre home in Orissa to a school in Gujarat. The Gandhian values instilled there, followed by a Baroda college, which honed his interest in physics and revealed his entrepreneurial instincts, provided the platform for a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and entry into the field of telecommunications.
“Most of my personal work,” Pitroda says, “is about disruptive innovations.” Engaging with digital switching technologies that would change communications systems across the world, he went on to patent an electronic diary that he claims was the first electronic handheld device, and a mobile wallet that pioneered mobile payment systems. In his 70s now, he says: “I still keep inventing, filing more patents, and seeking new opportunities to design products and change the world.”
Working in America gave Pitroda domain expertise, management skills and unbounded confidence in his capacity to get things done. Having been the chief executive officer of an influential firm and earned his first million well before the age of 40, he was ready to take up bigger challenges: to make a difference in the country of his birth. The possibility arose when he witnessed the plight of telephone services in India.
With an arrogance born partly out of ignorance, he saw himself as the one to fix it. “Connecting India” became his big dream. Realising political will was crucial, he spared no efforts in bringing on board those he considered important to his plans. They included Rajiv Gandhi who he came to regard as his “most important friend”. Shuttling tirelessly between Chicago and Delhi for three years, Pitroda networked to set up the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) in 1984. Thus began the transformation of India’s telecommunications system.
Pitroda’s narration of how he wheedled the political establishment and negotiated the bureaucratic labyrinth, won over sceptics and overcame resistance to his interloper status, altered mindsets and built a young team to implement his vision, is enthralling. C-DOT set about developing a completely indigenous sophisticated telephone technology, coordinating production and managing installation of a network of rural telephone exchanges (RAX), all in a 36-month time-frame. ‘A RAX a day’ was their slogan. The result: more than two million yellow public phones across the country connecting India like never before, flagging off the telecom revolution.
In the light of the success in utilising technology to effect deep-seated change, with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s encouragement, Pitroda turned his attention to other developmental issues leading to establishment of National Technology Missions in areas of concern such as drinking water, literacy and immunisation. Pitroda himself accepted the position of adviser to the prime minister with ministerial rank.
This reviewer remembers the frisson that his mission-mode approach created in government circles and the infectious enthusiasm that Pitroda conveyed during interactions. But the dream unravelled following Gandhi’s defeat at the polls in 1989, the recriminations arising from the Bofors arms purchase — about which Gandhi is reported to have confided plaintively: “Sam, I have not taken a penny, and neither has my family” — the new government’s accusations of misappropriation against Pitroda himself, a massive heart attack he suffered and a multiple bypass surgery and, the last straw, the assassination of his friend. Pitroda found himself not just broken but broke; having taken no salary for over 10 years, his financial resources were exhausted.
Returning to America, not only did Pitroda’s indomitable energy soon refurbish his personal finances, but the restoration of Congress rule saw him back in India as head of a newly-formed National Knowledge Commission and, later, as adviser to the Prime Minister on his pet subject of innovation. This book is about a self-made man who let nothing come in the way of his goals, who claimed that work was his spirituality and who, more than anything else, wished to see India transformed into a modern nation. Pitroda comes across as remarkably free of prejudice and ideological baggage, with inclusiveness at the core of his belief system and a deep empathy for the disadvantaged.
Presented in straight-talking prose with a touch of wry humour, peppered with moving personal anecdotes, Pitroda’s autobiography will inspire many.
Disappointingly, the later chapters about his second stint in government deteriorate into a turgid compendium of his official activities. But that does not detract from the value of this book, which will be a beacon for today’s youth.
Govindan Nair is a retired civil servant.
