Sen argues for ''Inclusion''

Rajneesh De

MUMBAI: The ‘argumentative Indian’ was quite equivocal that it is actually the intellectual altercation prowess of Indians that have made them a global force to reckon with in IT.

“IT owes its growth a lot to TI or the Talkative Indian,” quipped Amartya Sen, eminent political economist and Noble Laureate while delivering the keynote session at the Nasscom Leadership Summit here today. This was one of the humorous gems Sen pulled out of his bag during the session: it all started with his initial quip whether Nasscom calling an economist to deliver the keynote address in an IT conference is a case of serious “identity confusion”.

On a more serious note, Sen’s broad theme of “inclusion” was interspersed with quotes from the likes of Tagore, Kant and Hume. Sen argued that while it would be presumptuous to assume any social obligation on part of the Indian IT industry, the country can very well expect something from the sector, especially on the principle of ‘reciprocity’.

“After all that the country has done for the IT industry, it can very well expect something in return,” he said. To support his assertion, Sen listed down a host of contributions the nation has made to foster the growth of IT.

First and foremost, he remembered the visionary move of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru to set up the IITs and IIMs that tremendously enhanced technical education in the country and in a backhanded manner fostered the growth of IT in the country. Though Nehru might have failed to instill a high literacy level in the country, at least as far as technical education is concerned, Nehru’s sense of ways and means nicely supplemented his fervent passion.

“India was not just the first poor country in the world to adopt democracy, but also the first with grinding poverty to prioritize development of technical skill and state-of-art education in technology,” Sen stated.

It’s just not post-Independence, IT’s link with India’s past dates back to historical times from which the Indian society and traditions have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence; and IT has just been another corollary of this specialized skill sets. Beyond specialized skills, Indians do have a general openness to influences from far and near—the first phase of Indian IT success drew lot of inspiration from the Silicon Valley.

So what can the IT industry do for India (other than what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of non-business ends)? And it’s not just a question of ‘historical reciprocity”, there is the elementary issue of the obligation of those who “make it” vis-à-vis those who do not manage quite so well. Besides the key to the successes of IT, namely accessibility, systemization and use of information are also very central to social evaluation and societal changes, Sen added.

He further stated that this foundational connection gives the IT industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systemization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the underdogs of society. An example could be how technology could help foster the growth of microfinance, especially the initiatives by the likes of Yunus in Bangladesh.

Read full text of Amartya Sen's keynote session at the Nasscom Leadership Summit

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