Popular science and technology writing in India, particularly for students, is, unfortunately, a rarity. Science writing has become even more challenging, as the two great transformations—Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the work of Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others in quantum mechanics—have eroded the certainties of our world. They have also removed space, time and even matter from what we thought we understood, even if not very well. Both space and matter have now dissolved from what we had earlier taken for granted, into something that only the specialists can now understand, that too in the language of mathematics, not the language of our everyday world.
While figures like JD Bernal, CV Raman, and Satyen Bose, who were at the cutting edge of this physics, would never have agreed with science being removed from people’s understanding of the world, today’s world focuses much more on advances in technology. The excitement focuses on space travel, rockets reaching the moon or beyond, the world of microchips, intelligent machines, or artificial intelligence. While popularizations of science had scientists in various countries writing about science, we technologists have not done a good enough job.
Popular writing on technology occupies a more barren space. Without such writing, we cannot meet the curiosity of both young and old—those who want to know more about the world we live in, in which science and technology are of critical importance.
Meghaa Gupta’s book, Uncoded: A Technological History of India, which is targeted at young readers who may take the current world for granted, is a welcome initiative. It covers a large area, from electricity—hydro to atomic energy, rockets, both its military and civilian uses, to electronics, and also its role in our democracy, apart from the cell phone, such as the electronic voting machine.
In travelling this ground, we also need to understand the relationship between science and technology. The most advanced technological products we use are also the products of science. Significant advances, for example, in electronics, utilize ultraviolet (UV) or extra-UV lasers to produce chips, in which the transistor size is measured in nanometres. These advances in lithography, or the transfer of patterns using light or lasers, create the nanometre-level circuits on the chips. They are also used in our everyday lives, such as the laser printer in our offices or at home. The same laser technology is also being considered for use against missiles or as an anti-missile defence system. This was Ronald Reagan’s dream of a Star Wars-like missile shield, reborn again in Donald Trump’s vision of a Golden Dome (his name) over the US.
Gupta takes us on India’s post-Independence journey, which involved not only expanding the existing few science and technology institutions we had at the time, but also creating the new ones we needed. Although the British had established administrative and police structures to govern the country, they had left us with a very poor infrastructure in science and technology. There were only four technology institutions that I can think of, in Roorkee, Guindy (Chennai), Pune, and Shibpur (Howrah). The urgent task for an independent India was not only to expand our infrastructure, but also to build a cadre of scientists and engineers who would lay the foundations of this new India. Gupta, therefore, focuses not just on what we then did but also on who the key figures in this journey were. She also covers some of the key areas that were of strategic importance and foundational to India’s development, including rockets and electronics. These technologies were not only critical in developing the economy but also helped our democracy, for example, through the use of electronic voting machines.
Rockets have always captured India’s imagination as our entry to the new age dominated by big players. The TV series The Rocket Boys is a testament to people’s interest in the history of India’s humble beginnings in the space programme, from its early stages to its current advanced state. The nascent space programme involved borrowing rockets, instruments, and computers from the US, France, and Russia. From this to developing Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan are giant leaps, catapulting India into a select group of countries that can even carry out commercial launches for other countries’ satellites. From what had appeared to many as a vanity venture, it has become critical not only for military reasons but also crucial for telecommunications, agriculture, and ecology. This journey involved three essential elements: building indigenous satellites, rockets—both liquid and solid fuelled—and communications systems to track and control the satellite.
I will not go further into the details of how India also developed rockets, not just for the satellite programme but also for military purposes. The US had always viewed India’s space programme with considerable suspicion, regarding it as a cover for developing its independent military and strategic capabilities. India’s vision of strategic autonomy was integral not only to its politics but also to its science and technology policy. For the US, then and still today, the phrase ‘you are either with us or against us’ holds true. India’s nonalignment, its vision of playing an independent role in global politics, was anathema to the US and its allies.
In this journey of developing strategic autonomy, we tend to focus more on the landmarks, such as rockets, satellites, and nuclear bombs, but often forget the people who built these programmes and their vision. Bhabha, Sarabhai, and UR Rao, along with Kalam, are key figures in the development of India’s space and nuclear programme. They shared not only the vision of India becoming a developed economy but also the desire for strategic autonomy in the bipolar world of that time. And that strategic autonomy required a scientific and technological base in the country. It is also crucial to plan for a successful strategy, not only for indigenizing the technology but also to build the institutions, from BARC to ISRO.
The second key area that Gupta’s book covers is the development of Electronic Voting Machines, or EVMs. EVMs have become a sensitive topic, as many believe that they can be hacked and, therefore, should not be used in elections. The problem is that the earlier paper-based voting system was prone to booth capturing and thus not immune to ‘hacking’, either. In the earlier era, booths could be hacked; today, the voting machines are the target. The hacking of booths is both visible and can be prevented if parties get together and utilize their cadre to prevent hostile booth capturing. In the case of EVMs, people believe we are at the mercy of the invisible ‘algorithm’ within the machine, which, if hacked, can alter the outcome. It is not that earlier elections could not be hacked, but the perceived powerlessness that fuels the feeling today that elections are being hacked via the EVMs.
Gupta has provided us with a history of how the EVMs were developed, with two professors from IIT Mumbai, AG Rao and Ravi Poovaiah, creating the basic architecture and design, which was then implemented by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Central Electronics Ltd (CEL). The key feature in this design was that the machines were not programmable; even the mapping of the election symbol to the buttons we press for casting our vote is done via data, not through any programming change. The basic programme was burnt into the chip and could be altered only by changing the hardware. The Indian EVM, unlike many others in the world, runs in a stand-alone mode and without an operating system.
I, along with Bappaditya Sinha, have written about EVMs elsewhere (https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/revisiting-evm-hacking-story), so I will not get into this issue here. Gupta’s account, although it does not delve into the EVM hacking issue, provides an overview of some key features of the machine and its impact on Indian democracy. Do I hold that Indian EVMs are not hackable? No, any machine we create can also be hacked by us. However, this is only possible if the political parties and their polling agents understand what EVMs do and are vigilant against any such attempts. Instead of chasing the chimera of the bug in the machine, they should look—as many are now doing—at the mundane tasks of examining the correctness of the Election Commission’s voter lists, mobilizing their voter base to go and vote, and challenging bogus voters.
The other welcome feature of the book is the set of quick references that she provides for further reading. One minor criticism here is regarding the visualization of the data which Meghaa provides. This task is better performed not just with numbers and some graphics as she has done, but with better tools for data visualization, which, for example, what Visual Capitalist (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/) uses. Comprehending the data Gupta provides would have given the readers a better understanding of the magnitude of what we, as a nation, have accomplished after Independence. Though we would also do well to remember Robert Frost’s words of caution: that we still have ‘miles to go before I (we) sleep’.