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Book Details
Abstract
'India Shining' has become the brand name for a new India presented in Bollywood films, adverts and books. A key part of this image is the software industry, held up as the symbol of prosperity and post-modernity.
Dot.compradors reveals the darker reality behind 'India Shining', providing a history of the industry from the 1970s to the present. Jyoti Saraswati punctures the myth of a free-market industry by revealing the role of state intervention and how vested interests and elite corruption have shaped, and continue to shape, one of the world’s most dynamic sectors.
Saraswati argues that the interests attached to the software industry and the policies they are pursuing are both an impediment to the growth of local software firms and to a broader-based, more egalitarian form of development in India.
'A very important intervention. Saraswati's book fills a very important gap in the existing literature'
Chirashree Das Gupta, Associate Professor, Ambedkar University Delhi
'Provides a more nuanced understanding of the IT sector in India while also placing the evolution of that sector in the broader context of the country's political economy. Original in its scope, well written, and engaging'
Alessandra Mezzadri, Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
'This important book blasts open the myths about what is seen as the Indian economy's most successful sector'
Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| Contents | vii | ||
| Preface | xi | ||
| Acknowledgements | xiv | ||
| A Note on the Terminology | xvi | ||
| Glossary | xviii | ||
| A Primer: The Seven Leading Myths about the Indian Software Industry | xxiv | ||
| 1. Introduction | 1 | ||
| 1.1 BACKGROUND | 1 | ||
| 1.2 AIMS | 3 | ||
| 1.3 STRUCTURE | 4 | ||
| Part 1: The Context | 7 | ||
| 2. The Global Software Services Industry: An Overview | 9 | ||
| 2.1 INTRODUCTION | 9 | ||
| 2.2 BENEATH THE TIP OF THE IT ICEBERG: THE SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE HIDDEN INDUSTRY | 9 | ||
| 2.3 THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: INTRODUCING THE GLOBAL GIANTS AND THE INDIAN MAJORS | 11 | ||
| 2.4 CREATIVE DESTRUCTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRY, 1950–85 | 13 | ||
| 2.5 CONVERGENCE AND CATCH-UP IN THE INDUSTRY, 1985–2010 | 15 | ||
| 2.6 CONCLUSIONS | 17 | ||
| 3. The Development of the Software Industry in India: Existing Explanationsand their Shortcomings | 18 | ||
| 3.1 INTRODUCTION | 18 | ||
| 3.2 TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES | 18 | ||
| 3.3 INTELLECTUAL APTITUDE | 19 | ||
| 3.4 NEO-LIBERALISM | 21 | ||
| 3.5 THE DEVELOPMENTAL DEPARTMENT | 23 | ||
| 3.6 CONCLUSIONS | 24 | ||
| 4. The Political Economy Approach to State Intervention and Industrial Transformation: An Analytical Framework | 27 | ||
| 4.1 INTRODUCTION | 27 | ||
| 4.2 THE WHO AND WHY OF POLICY: THE INTERESTS BEHIND STATE INTERVENTION | 27 | ||
| 4.3 THE EFFECT OF POLICY: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS | 30 | ||
| 4.4 CONCLUSIONS | 32 | ||
| Part 2: The Development of the Indian IT Industry | 33 | ||
| 5. IT Started with a War: The Establishment of the Indian IT Industry, 1970–78 | 35 | ||
| 5.1 INTRODUCTION | 35 | ||
| 5.2 THE WIDER CONTEXT: THE STATE OF INDEPENDENCE | 35 | ||
| 5.3 INTERESTS AND INTERVENTIONS: THE BOMBAY IT PARTY | 39 | ||
| 5.4 WHAT HAPPENED? INDIAN COMPUTERS AND SOFTWARE EXPORTS | 43 | ||
| 5.5 CONCLUSIONS | 47 | ||
| 6. Catalytic Corruption: The Domestic Software Services Boom, 1978–86 | 49 | ||
| 6.1 INTRODUCTION | 49 | ||
| 6.2 THE WIDER CONTEXT: BACK TO BUSINESS – THE EMERGENCY AND THE RETURN OF THE OLD GUARD | 49 | ||
| 6.3 INTERESTS AND INTERVENTIONS: ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR | 51 | ||
| 6.4 WHAT HAPPENED? A POSITIVE CASE OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES | 55 | ||
| 6.5 CONCLUSIONS | 57 | ||
| 7. Manna from Heaven: Satellites, Optic Fibres and the Export Thrust, 1986–2000 | 59 | ||
| 7.1 INTRODUCTION | 59 | ||
| 7.2 THE WIDER CONTEXT: WHITE GOODS, BROWN SAHIBS –THE RISE OF INDIA’S CONSUMER SOCIETY | 59 | ||
| 7.3 INTERESTS AND INTERVENTIONS: THE AMERICAN DREAM | 61 | ||
| 7.4 WHAT HAPPENED? THE EMERGENCE OF THE MAJORS | 63 | ||
| 7.5 CONCLUSIONS | 65 | ||
| 8. Passage to India: The Giants in the Land of the Majors, 2000–10 | 67 | ||
| 8.1 INTRODUCTION | 67 | ||
| 8.2 THE WIDER CONTEXT: AMONGST THE BELIEVERS – THE CAPITALIST CONVERSION OF INDIA | 67 | ||
| 8.3 INTERESTS AND INTERVENTIONS: SOFTWARE AS SOFT POWER – THE RISE OF NASSCOM | 70 | ||
| 8.4 WHAT HAPPENED? FROM BIG DREAM TO MAJOR NIGHTMARE | 72 | ||
| 8.5 CONCLUSIONS | 75 | ||
| Part 3: The Analysis | 77 | ||
| 9. The Indian Mutiny: From Potential IT Superpower to Back Office of the World | 79 | ||
| 9.1 INTRODUCTION | 79 | ||
| 9.2 IN INDIA BUT NOT OF INDIA: THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY IN 2020 | 79 | ||
| 9.3 POACHER AS GAMEKEEPER: EXPLAINING THE STATE’S INACTION | 82 | ||
| 9.4 NEVER MIND THE BUZZWORDS: A NEW AGENDA | 83 | ||
| 9.5 CONCLUSIONS | 86 | ||
| 10. Lessons and Warnings: What Does IT Mean? | 87 | ||
| 10.1 INTRODUCTION | 87 | ||
| 10.2 DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE: THE ROLE OF IT IN DEVELOPMENT | 87 | ||
| 10.3 BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL: THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN DEVELOPMENT | 91 | ||
| 10.4 GOLDEN CALF OR TROJAN HORSE? THE ROLE OF THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY IN THE INDIAN ECONOMY | 93 | ||
| 11. Conclusion: Of Compradors and Useful Idiots | 95 | ||
| Notes | 99 | ||
| Appendices | 131 | ||
| Appendix A: The Software Industry in India, by Type of Firm | 131 | ||
| Appendix B: IT Policy Formulation According to the Developmental Department Literature | 132 | ||
| Appendix C: The Internal Power Structure of NASSCOM | 133 | ||
| Appendix D: NASSCOM Executive Council, 2011–13 | 134 | ||
| Appendix E: NASSCOM and the Indian State Apparatus, 2010 | 135 | ||
| Appendix F: Priority Issues for Firms, NASSCOM and the State | 136 | ||
| Appendix G | 137 | ||
| Index | 137 |