From 1947-84, India was probably in the Dark Ages when it came to technology. Sure there were professionals and companies doing cutting edge work, but the common citizen and government offices didn't have much to do with the "latest". The low point was when the 1977 Janata Party government used FERA rules to practically throw out multinationals like IBM and Pepsi. This followed the Emergency of 1975-77.
It was only the 1984 National Computer Policy that kick started the computer business in India. Sure there were still a lot of regulatory and foreign exchange issues, but the early pioneers made the most of it and laid the foundations of tech India. That time tech entrepreneurship was much tougher than the startup of today. entrepreneurship
THE TECH BOOM POST 1984
The computer flourished in India and entered the well-off homes and big company offices. It slowly and steadily started entering the banks and government offices also.
But more importantly it set off the tech aspirations for everyone in India. The 1982 Asiad Games popularised the TV and a screen was already entering every urban household.
More than that were the industries that flourished around it. Computers had to be connected in the offices and that led to the networking industry. The printer powered the DTP or Desktop Publishing revolution. While the printer shop is still alive and kicking today, at that time it revolutionised the entire media industry. Newspapers, magazines, films, TV, advertising, art... it all changed with DTP and computer graphics. India got its first software policy in 1986.
The private Internet came to India in 1988 and that was a boon for academia and government bodies. That is also when the hacking culture was born in India and in a few years we had the first primitive Internet chats called the Bulletin Board System (BBS).
THE LIBERALIZATION ERA
This story is from the April 2023 edition of DataQuest.
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