Engineering India’s Engineers
Engineering India’s Engineers Absorbed in unrivalled decadence and internecine warfare, medieval Indian elites slept through the Newtonian dawn of science. Bypassed by the industrial revolution, India became easy prey for western colonial masters. It soon lost the entirety of its traditional industry, in return gaining the dubious title of the crown jewel of British Empire. Founders of the modern Indian republic therefore, saw technological pursuit as an essential tool preserving independence and asserting self-respect. This resulted in an early emphasis on establishing federal technical universities such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (modeled after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), vast network of scientific research and nuclear laboratories, and a state led industrial development model based on mathematically conceived Soviet style five-year plans. The stage was all set for India to “step out from the old to the new,” led by the ‘bridge builders’ and...