Sam’s mantras

The following is from Dr.Sam Pitroda’s recent interview with Indian Express.

Some excerpts:

DHIRAJ NAYYAR: You were here in the early ’80s, when you worked with Rajiv Gandhi, and you are here again for the last six years. How do you think the Congress’s thought processes have changed?

I don’t think much has changed at the political level. In fact, to some extent, it was much more exciting then, in the Rajiv Gandhi era, because we had a huge mandate. We did not use it effectively, but that was a different issue. We were all young then, in our 40s. On the other hand, India is very different today. We have over a 100 billion dollars worth of foreign reserve. The IT success story has given us a lot of confidence. We have our own multinationals.

SHEKHAR GUPTA: Tell us some anecdotes from Rajiv Gandhi’s time.

I had never met Rajiv Gandhi until I went to Mrs Gandhi’s residence to give a presentation in November 1980 or ’81. I was all psyched up and prepared. We did not have PowerPoint and laptops and computers those days, so I was armed with my 35-mm slides. When I got there, I was told Mrs Gandhi was running late. While waiting, I saw four young men—Arun Nehru, Arun Singh, Vijay Dhar and Rajiv Gandhi. (Rajiv and I) were of the same age and we clicked. When I started talking about my idea of indigenous development—digitisation of networks, Indian talent, local production, rural communication, access and other things, he got it. While I was making my presentation in front of Mrs Gandhi, Rajiv was with her, constantly explaining things to her. After that, I hardly talked to Mrs Gandhi as I developed a bond with Rajiv Gandhi.

When the then President of the USSR Gorbachev came here, I told Rajiv I wanted to meet him. We prepared a presentation. Then Rajiv called and said he could not do it because the bureaucracy on both sides would not let us. Since Gorbachev was going to have dinner at Rajiv’s house, I asked him to arrange a tea meeting with him. After dinner, Rajiv asked Gorbachev to tea in the adjoining room—where we had already set up the projector—and mentioned our presentation. We gave him an hour-and-a-half-long presentation. In between, Gorbachev took some ilaichi by mistake and he did not know what hit him! Rahul and Priyanka were coming in and we told them to bring in more ilaichi. Those were interesting times.

Another anecdote I remember is about a meeting to celebrate India’s 40th Independence Day. Rajiv was on the podium and I was in the audience. He was looking very bored and I was really bored. So we started sending notes to each other through the security guys.

DHIRAJ NAYYAR: You have been an entrepreneur yourself, but largely in the US. Do you think India is still a difficult place to be an entrepreneur?

I have lived in the US for 45 years and I have never visited a government office there. I have only signed documents that my lawyer gave me and started tonnes of little companies. I will have a difficult time opening a business here. But that is just me.

DHIRAJ NAYYAR: Do you believe the new theory that the balance of economic power is shifting away from the US to India and China?

I don’t think so. I don’t think people realise the amount of assets that have been created in the US over the last 50 years in terms of roads, infrastructure, universities. We will take a long time to bridge that gap. Look at the think-tanks in the US. It will take a long time for China and India to catch up. We still have basic problems like lack of water and sanitation.

COOMI KAPOOR: Can you tell us about your journey from a very humble beginning in an Orissa town to an inventor and innovator in the US?

I was born in a little town in Orissa. My mother had eight children. We were Gujaratis settled in Orissa and the only connection we had with Gujarat was Gandhiji and Sardar Patel. When Sardar Patel died, my parents decided that my brother and I should go to Gujarat to study. There I got a degree in physics and later a Masters in the subject. A few days later, I read in the newspaper that President Kennedy had decided to send a man to the moon. It sounded romantic and I decided to go the US.

I got there, went to college, studied electrical engineering and went on to get a Ph.D. in physics and found out that it took seven years to get a Ph.D. I had a girlfriend then and I thought to myself, to hell with the Ph.D, let me just get married to her. After I got the engineering degree, she came to the US and we got married.

I started my business in 1974, built it up to 2,000 people in 1979 and sold it for $50 million. Then I came to Delhi because I had never seen Delhi before. From the Taj Mahal Hotel, I called my wife, but after a series of hellos, I could not get through. The arrogance and ignorance on my part made me decide that I was going to fix this. I got interested in ‘fixing telephones’, started commuting and sort of bumped into Mrs Gandhi.

Then I had a heart attack, ran out of money. I went back to the US and started another business, then realised the next big thing is knowledge. Knowledge is going to be the key to India’s growth, because for 8-10 per cent growth, you needed a lot more skills. I went to the PM and talked to him about the Knowledge Commission, which he liked. Having done that, the next big idea was Information Infrastructure Innovation. I am 68 years old; I have had two quadruple bypasses and cancer; I have limited time. It looks like the next nine-10 years will be very interesting in terms of doing this.