Gharwapsi (Home-coming)
Few days back, I saw a viral video of a India-born US-based engineer who was fired because his job was moved to India-based engineers! While job loss is definitely tough, but he is not a standout.. This is a trend being seen across industries and across business functions. In fact over the past 3–4 years, I have been working closely with the Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India — the in-house offshoring units of global multi-national corporates. While the offshoring was driven by lower labour costs earlier in 2000s when the BPO/KPOs sprung up across India, now these entities have metamorphosed into much larger/meatier roles such as technology development, R&D, Innovation labs etc. Availability of good talent in India along with the work-from-anywhere culture brought about by Coronavirus pandemic has led to the sudden spurt in this sector in India.
Long story short, there is enough motivation now for the newly qualified Indian engineer /professional to stay back in India. They don’t have to uproot themselves from their families to start in a new unknown country and can instead work for the MNC’s India unit. It’s certainly good for the Indian economy though some key problems remain which I would try to touch upon later.
But the reason I started thinking on this topic now is a web series which I saw recently — Rocket Boys, based on the lives of Dr Homi Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai.
Born into aristocratic families and educated abroad in the early 1900s, these two scientists had every opportunity to settle in the developed free worlds. Instead they chose to return and stay back in a country which had just gained independence and where the priority of the political leaders was (& rightly so) to find solutions for poverty and hunger. Sending man to Moon/ Mars may not even feature in their Top 200 agenda. In this backdrop, Dr Homi Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai kept up their fight for science and created famed institutions like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Atomic Energy Commission, BARC. The resultant benefits to India (and in turn the world at large) is being reaped even now. Former Indian President Late Shri APJ Abdul Kalam and many other scientists started their work at these institutions.
As I saw the two seasons of the web series, I couldn’t help but wonder — Why did they chose to stay back here in a poor, agrarian, newly independent nation? While the World War 2 played a role in them deciding to come back home from UK/ Europe, but what made them stay put in India even after the war? Could it be patriotism — love for the motherland? Perhaps yes, that could have been a motivation.
But I think it was much simpler than that. They were scientists to the core and passionate about the things they believed in.
Dr Bhabha believed that nuclear energy has to be harnessed for a nation to progress, including to have indigenous nuclear arsenal built. He identified the lack of research facilities in the country and founded Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (with financial backing from Sir Dorbaji Tata Trust) in 1945. TIFR became the birthplace of India’s atomic energy programme with the setup of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), subsequently renamed as Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
Similar to Dr Bhabha, Dr Sarabhai also studied in UK and relocated to India in 1945. His fascination with space led to creation of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He was also the founder of the now-prestigious Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
India as we know it today owes a lot to these 2 geniuses for staying back and working in India to create an interest to pursue engineering as a profession.
Now cut back to today, India produces around 1.5 million engineers annually. We also hear about the success stories of several engineers who have made it big globally, however unfortunately they seem to be in the significant minority. Dig deeper into the count and ask views from the corporate world, the feedback is the technical expertise and knowledge of these new engineers are not up to the mark. There are large numbers of unaccredited colleges where the quality of education is sub-par and these qualified engineers often end up entering the corporate world and doing menial repetitive jobs. The reason for the growth of the global captives/ GCCs also may have been because of this, as the larger nature of work at these units continue to be low-cost process outsourcing.
As the country progresses and envisions a Viksit Bharat (Developed India) by 2047, it’s time that the policy-makers, teachers, institutions, parents & students all contribute to improving the quality of education in the country as ultimately we need more and more of such geniuses like Dr Sarabhai and Dr Bhabha to create a new-age India… and hopefully this time around, more of these geniuses would be home-grown & studied in India. We would then start seeing more of global talent coming to India to study in India and work for Indian conglomerates instead of other way around.
Jai Hind !