Awakening Vishwakarma: reinvigorating craftmanship in India
Awakening
Vishwakarma: reinvigorating craftmanship in India
Not
long ago ‘land of Snake Charmers’ was a widely used epithet for India. By the
turn of the millennia, it had a new sobriquet – land of IT engineers. By any
metric of progress, this was a tremendous advance. Many economists, column writers and business
leaders considered this achievement so unique, so path breaking and so mesmerizing
that they came up with new developmental paradigms around this alleged Indian
exceptionalism. Aided by a ‘flat earth’ [1], India was supposed to ‘leapfrog’
into a developed economy without investing in craftsmanship and manufacturing.
An average 21st century Indian engineer would, much like the ancient
snake charmer, travel the world, mastering and executing complex codified
protocols using a pungi [2] made by someone else.
As
an unprecedented global boom followed the dot com crash, the dying public
sector engineering firms and derelict factories were soon forgotten as fossils
of a bygone era. In those heady days, missionary wisdom dictated that while
China will remain the world’s factory, India, by unwittingly ignoring
manufacturing, transition into a global software and e-commerce superpower.
Within
a decade, this smug dream was shattered. Today, Chinese firms like Alibaba,
Baidu and Tencent are among the world’s biggest internet companies. More
alarmingly, China is now competing with the US in the highly sophisticated domain
of cyber technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and
data analytics. Chinese scientific output in these areas along with myriad
other high-tech specializations now dwarfs even western counterparts. In the meantime,
Indian services led dreams have leapfrogged out of limelight.
China,
like its peers earlier and most conspicuously US, have followed the usual track
of mastering manufacturing and craftsmanship before propelling towards more sophisticated
technologies. In hindsight, by not investing in manufacturing and craftsmanship
during the boom era of last decade India is now at an unenviable position – a
monochromatic e-commerce dominated tech landscape and a steady cannibalization
of low-end manufacturing by technologies like 3D printing and advanced
robotics.
The
urgency of this problem is not hard to miss. Not surprisingly, the current
political leadership announced the ‘Make in India’ initiative as a signature
move. But now when India desperately requires skilled workers, it is facing a
severe shortage of expert personnel. What makes this a tragic conundrum is that
India is one of the largest mass-producers of engineers in the world [3]. A
culture that once deified toolmanship (shilpkala)
with Vishwakarma is now tragically suffering from an acute lack of skill [4,5].
India’s
deemphasizing of craftsmanship is a recent affliction. Not long ago, the
thriving Indian manufacturing industry was razed to the ground by the East
India Company. Among the horror stories of the Raj are how the British soldiers
wrecked the looms of Bengali weavers and broke their thumbs. Everything was
done to systematically destroy India’s thriving textile manufacturing and
export [6].
Indian
manufacturing was the victim of a premeditated murder; it now needs to
reincarnate.
The ability to create
tangible objects from formless raw materials is one of the singular
achievements of humanity. The ability to carve out wooden wheels which helped
us roll out of forests, to crafting tools to aid agriculture, to forging blades
to slay tyrants, to finally constructing the jet engine – toolmanship is the
hallmark of man’s ability to be the undisputed leader of this ‘pale blue dot’.
As India’s economy shifts toward middle-income group, the need for skilled
workers is evident in almost every aspect of Indian life. The massive consumer
classes of Indian mega-cities and the fledgling manufacturing industry are
creating significant opportunities for skilled workers, but there is no
workforce to fill of these opportunities [7]. The shortage of skilled workers manifests
in our everyday lives as we witness the deficient quality and finish of everyday
items of indigenous make.
From poor bathroom fittings, to chalta hai repairs, to annoying call
drops, the lack of quality shows up in the life of
an ordinary Indian in both subtle and overt ways. Apart from day to day
inconvenience, the lack of skilled workers also imposes severe financial
constraints on the Indian population. For example, many large-scale projects in
India never seem to end! In the defence sector India is at the receiving end of
cartelization by other superpowers who achieved nuclear and military
technologies much earlier. This forces our government to invest billions of
dollars purchasing the cast-off obsolete equipment of more technologically
advanced countries. Such severe and often punitive economic and geopolitical
costs are direct consequences of the cynical neglect of skills development,
which should be entrenched in the DNA of our proud land of Viswakarma.
But,
how to explain the dichotomy of lack of skilled workers in a country which is the
largest producer of engineering graduates in the world? The exponential growth
of technology over the last century has led to the creation of multiple domains
of technical excellence. Alongside the discipline of engineering exists a
technology-specific discipline, often referred to as engineering technology, polytechnic
or industrial technology. Take for example the mathematical precision with which rockets routinely place satellites on
predetermined trajectories. For the common man, such feats of conspicuous
accuracy would seem otherworldly. However, technological marvels – rockets,
modern computers and humanoid robots hide more than they reveal. The
engineering aspect of rocket science concerns itself with the meticulous
calculation of forces on the rocket, and computing the effect of hydrodynamic
forces on the rocket’s trajectory. However, hidden in plain sight is the
intricate craftsmanship, fabrication and assembly of the object itself. The
near perfect alignment of thermal tiles, PCB boards that govern the function of
the aircraft, showcase the melding of specifically related aspects of
technology. These proficiencies, although clubbed under the umbrella of engineering,
are not the same as traditional engineering. More importantly, they cannot be
interchanged and therefore, training and education requirements in these areas are
distinct. This distinction is critical and failing to address the distinction can
lead to disastrous policy prescriptions.
The
traditional engineering education is not meant to be a substitute for
vocational training. Modern
engineering education typically consists of gaining fundamental knowledge of
mathematics and sciences before moving on to specific engineering components.
This system is critical to producing practitioners who can understand the ‘why’
and not just the ‘how’. Engineers seldom have a good knowledge of the very
specifics of the systems they study in their classes. For instance, a typical electronics
engineering graduate would not be able to repair a modern LED TV. Similarly, in
all likelihood a mechanical engineer would not be able to fix every problem
plaguing a modern automobile. In spite of such contradictions, there is no
changing of this mode of engineering education. However, the problem comes from
viewing this type of education as the panacea to improve the technological
prowess of a country like India.
This
highly elite and prolonged process of imparting engineering education has
specific purposes, but over emphasis on these can lead to unintended
consequences. These include elevation of this mode as the only path to
integration into the technical economy. This has led to almost consistent calls
to expand the number of engineering colleges. However, the prescription for
success is simply the opposite - end India’s fetish with engineering degrees. India
is producing far too many shoddy engineers while completely neglecting
vocational training. We need polytechnic colleges where the toolmanship aspect
of engineering is stressed.
Vocational
training institutes, such as Industrial Training Institutes, in India are
plagued by reports of extremely poor-quality infrastructure along with serious
allegations such as undermining of the accreditation processes [8]. The result
is that individuals graduating from these institutions must be retrained by
employers [9]. This is not feasible for all industries nor is it desirable.
More
importantly, vocational institutes like ITIs are not aspirational, nor have
they been able to set a benchmark for quality education. Therefore, the
standalone ITI model should not be scaled up. To redress the educational
shortcomings plaguing Indian technical training, India’s elite institutions
must admit an academic bifurcation within their engineering setup. They should
lead this educational revolution by creating, under its aegis, Shilpalayas. Shilpalayas, affiliated with and managed by eminent engineering
colleges, can cater to the demand for industry-ready training by offering
engineering technology related short term courses and degrees. The curriculum
of such integrated Shilpalayas, would
be set with proper supervision from expert faculty and industrial partners
which will have ready acceptability in related industries. The benefits of Shilpalayas will be manifold. As India’s
engineering colleges themselves transition from teaching-centric to
research-centric institutions, they will create ideal training grounds, and
possible employment opportunities, for skilled workers. This will a be shot in
the arm for experimental R&D facilities in elite academic institutes and
will create a trickle-down effect. A separate faculty ladder and facilities
would have to be created for the functioning of Shilpalayas. This process itself will trigger a massive employment
opportunity.
At
the societal level we must develop a consciousness which allows us to
appreciate craftsmanship as an important and necessary skill and as a window to
economic liberation for the masses. We must develop an appreciation for toolmen
– the electrician, the mechanic and others. For millennia we have worshipped
both devi Saraswati and Viswakarma. Somewhere as a society, we have forgotten
the critical role of Viswakarma. Time has come to awaken him.
References and Notes:
1.
Thomas
L. Friedman, “The World is flat: The globalized world in the Twenty-first
century”, Penguin (2007)
6.
Shashi
Tharoor, “An Era of Darkness – The British Empire in India”, Aleph Book Company
(2016)
8.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/industrial-training-institutes-iti-certification-skill-development-qci-5600710/
Disclaimer: The article expresses the personal
opinion of the authors.
About
the authors: Dr.
Ranajay Ghosh is currently an Assistant Professor at University of Central
Florida (USA). He tweets at @ranajayghosh
Dr.
Aloke Kumar is currently an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore. He tweets at @aalokelab
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