by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Congress supporters go after
India is being avidly watched in Silicon Valley, the global Mecca of technology, not only because it sends waves of techies and managers into the US but because it is close to the tipping point to becoming an innovating country. From "make in India" it will be a journey to deliver things "Made in India" . According to a study by Thomson Retuers, reproduced in The Economist, India is among the top five countries being the US (270 of a maximum of 300 points), South Koera (230), China (150), Brazil (100) and India (90). By opening production centres in India, top US companies like Microsoft or Apple, can boost patent filing, which in its turn enhances innovation. Also important on Modi's agenda is to invite venture capitalists to fund the domestic start-ups, which are rising at an astonishing pace.
Weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, including Silicon Valley on its west coast, the sharp cleavage among US academics of Indian origin has brought into focus the depth of conflict within the intellectual class about India's current political leadership. A letter signed by over 120 Indian-American academics and addressed to IT industry leaders in the Bay Area and elsewhere brims with hatred and fear-mongering against Modi. It condemns the "uncritical fanfare" being generated for his visit to Silicon Valley to campaign for his Digital India project, and gives dark hints about its allegedly sinister features. The dons grouch about Digital India's "lack of safeguards about privacy of information, and thus its potential for abuse." The letter's refrain is that the digital system will be used to "enhance surveillance". The letter does not end here. In fact it is a laundry list of charges against the Prime Minister that are common between the Congress and left parties. It exceeds norms of civility as it rakes up the past record of US visa being denied to Modi in the 2005-14 period and the "powerful reasons" underlying the denial.
What is indeed comical about the letter is its appeal to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to beware of Modi for his "disregard for human rights and civil liberties", and that too in the light of their own "codes of corporate responsibility". The observation makes mockery of the history of Silicon Valley and its development of optical fibre broadband network by the efforts of the US Armed Forces, not to speak of its crucial contribution to developing the iron fist with which the US Administration today often prises open the contents of every individual internet ID at the drop of a hat, and that too not only in America but anywhere in the world. Many of the signatories to the anti-Modi letter are recipients of the Congress governments' largesse in the past, from the Eighties onwards.
Interestingly, the name of Nobel Prize winning-economist Amartya Sen, who is a traditional Modi-baiter, does not figure in the list of the signatories, though the government "interfering" with Nalanda University, his pet project, is a part of the litany of charges against Modi. While Sen is accused of nepotism in mentoring Nalanda, his links with the Gandhi family runs deep. It is not only that he was Master of Trinity when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi managed to find admission, but he reportedly played a role in the Gandhi scion obtaining an M.Phil in "development studies", a subject that surprisingly did not feature in the subject options on offer at the university at that time. Besides, among the signatories, there are quite a few who are politically connected. Like Arjun Appadurai and his colleagues from New York University, who have long been working on a China-India project for which Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had reportedly arranged for government funds.
While it is quite likely that there are invisible political hands behind the anti-Modi campaign of US-Indian academics, what is alarming is the disconnect between this bunch of literature and social science professors and the radically changing trends in higher education in India. In 2014, there was a 32 per cent jump in the number of students obtaining admission in US colleges, and 84 per cent of the new students belong to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines. The anti-Modi campaigners are 'India scholars' of the past, and generally steeped in the Marxist version of Indian history which enjoyed government patronage in the Congress era.
However, defying the US East Coast's greying band of Indian teachers of history, sociology and literature, over 150 academics, mostly from science streams, have circulated a letter welcoming Modi's "support for the Digital India initiative that heralds a new age of participatory democracy". Signatories include holders of prestigious endowed professorships, deans of schools and educators in engineering, medicine, business and the humanities. Their enthusiasm captures the buzz that Modi's visit to Silicon Valley. It will commence with a 'Digital Event' on September 26 in San Jose. It will be an event studded with CEOs, venture capitalists and successful IT entrepreneurs. Those who will speak before Modi are Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google's CEO designate Sundar Pichai, Cisco Chairman John Chambers, Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen and Qualcomm Chairman Paul Jacobs. Next day Modi will visit the Facebook headquarters for a town hall event and take questions from the audience. He will also address a start-up conclave. In the evening he will address a community reception at the SAP Centre. It can seat 18,500 but over 45,000 people are already registered.
Congress supporters go after
Modi in the USA to torpedo his visit
India is being avidly watched in Silicon Valley, the global Mecca of technology, not only because it sends waves of techies and managers into the US but because it is close to the tipping point to becoming an innovating country. From "make in India" it will be a journey to deliver things "Made in India" . According to a study by Thomson Retuers, reproduced in The Economist, India is among the top five countries being the US (270 of a maximum of 300 points), South Koera (230), China (150), Brazil (100) and India (90). By opening production centres in India, top US companies like Microsoft or Apple, can boost patent filing, which in its turn enhances innovation. Also important on Modi's agenda is to invite venture capitalists to fund the domestic start-ups, which are rising at an astonishing pace.
Modi's record as Prime Minister is certainly not unblemished, but it is a fact that he is struggling to push India out of the rut of a medieval peasant economy in which is which it got mired. His visit to the Bay area is a part of his effort to make India a modern nation that can solve its problems by its own efforts. The enthusiasm over Modi on the west coast is naturally worri-some to the Indian Political sponsors of Indian liberal arts scholars of a bygone era.
