WHEN a group of eight-year-olds at a secondary school in Chennai (what was until recently Madras) were asked recently what they鈥檇 like to be when they grow up, most replied: 鈥淲ork with computers鈥� or 鈥渨ork with computers in America鈥�. Fifteen years ago, the smart ones would have picked medicine, engineering, the civil service or banking. A few adventurous ones would have dreamed of Bollywood or cricket. And the studious types would have chorused: 鈥渟cientist鈥�.
Those days are gone. India鈥檚 young鈥攁nd their parents鈥攌now that the domestic software industry was worth 178 billion rupees (拢2.5 billion) by 1999 and is growing fast. They know that popular websites such as Hotmail, the shopping site Junglee and the people search engine WhoWhere were created by Indians. They know that the world鈥檚 youngest Microsoft certified software engineer Govind Jajoo is a 14-year-old boy from Jaipur in northwest India. And they watch enviously as executives from the world鈥檚 leading IT companies queue at universities to snap up the brightest of their peers.
Most adult Indians don鈥檛 know it yet, but their country鈥檚 reputation as the world鈥檚 software engineering nursery is changing the society they live in. The pace of change is relatively slow and is so far confined to the 200 million-strong middle class. But it is having a discernible impact on young and old, male and female, and will soon spread to the urban poor.
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To begin with, programmers and analysts are on huge salaries compared with their peers in other professions. A doctor employed by the government starts on around 11 000 rupees a month. A scientist in the Department of Atomic Energy starts on 14 000 rupees per month. Computer professionals, by contrast, begin on around 22 000 per month and those with five or six years experience can expect to earn more than 80 000 rupees. What鈥檚 more, many software professionals move to much greener pastures abroad.
Consequently, IT professionals have leapfrogged the social ladder and are among the most preferred catches when it comes to arranged marriages. Anyone who fulfils the other standard requirements鈥斺�漷all, handsome/pretty with a fair/wheatish complexion鈥濃�攊s eagerly sought after. If on top of that you鈥檝e got a visa to work in the US, consider yourself hot property.
The brain drain is another way in which the software industry is changing India. Like any developing country, India has always lost clever and able people to the US and to some extent Europe. But the demand for Indian programmers鈥攑articularly in the US鈥攈as turned what used to be a trickle into a flood.
Coming to America
Every year, 100 000 hopefuls take the entrance exam for 3500 places at India鈥檚 six elite technology institutes. Virtually every one of the top 200 students opts to study computer sciences. No prizes for guessing which country each of those students is bound for once the graduation ceremony is over. Of the 22 000 graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, 6000 are working outside India鈥攎ostly in the US.
So far, India鈥檚 middle classes have reaped the most from the software revolution. Middle-class children form the majority of those who get into the institutes of technology and top universities as well as those who end up working in the US. Middle-class professionals also tend to dominate those who get the higher-paying jobs in software and website design and management鈥攁s opposed to routine coding and programming jobs. They are helped by the fact that they speak better English, come across as more confident and are better communicators than their peers from poorer or rural families.
But you鈥檇 be wrong to think that software is just a rich person鈥檚 game. The supply of middle-class graduates can鈥檛 keep pace with the demand for systems analysts and programmers. India鈥檚 13-billion-rupee software training industry is expanding by 30 per cent each year. Universities, colleges and polytechnics trained 68 000 people last year. And private sector institutes churned out an additional 100 000. Software training centres that were once confined to the big cities are now opening up in smaller towns. Some states are committed to providing computers to schools鈥攅ven village schools.
And not every talented Indian wants to leave the country, particularly those that don鈥檛 speak English well or those from more traditional backgrounds who would feel uncomfortable in a Western environment. The brain drain is good for them, because it opens up opportunities in India that they might otherwise miss out on.
And if some Indians feel uncomfortable about not being able to work in the West, they needn鈥檛 worry too much because the software revolution鈥攖ogether with cable television and fast food chains鈥攊s helping to Westernise urban India at a rate which Britain鈥檚 colonial administrators could only have dreamt of.
In fact, this revolution appears to be succeeding in an area where Britain tried and failed. Britain gave India its education system and its civil service. But its influence didn鈥檛 really penetrate India鈥檚 culture. The software industry is changing that.
In India, the older you are, the more power and authority you wield. At home, grandparents have the right to overrule decisions made by their grown-up children and grandchildren. And at work, senior jobs tend to be occupied by males closest to retirement, who tend to be addressed by their juniors as 鈥渟ir鈥�.
Not in the software industry. There India is much like any other country. IT employs young people: the median age is 27. So the work environment tends to be informal and merit counts for more than background or social connections. It also means that older employees have to get used to being managed by younger men鈥攁nd women鈥攚ho themselves are probably subordinate to parents and grandparents at home.
The fledgling IT industry is opening doors to women far wider than in any other industry. Other rules are also giving way. For example, junk food and soft drinks have replaced traditional foods for lunch. And the young pretenders even put their feet on desks, which in wider society is considered very disrespectful.
More middle-class kids are taking to computers and software, which will drive prices down to, hopefully, that of televisions. If this happens, computers could soon be within the reach of the urban poor.
But what about the majority of Indians, who live off the land? They鈥檙e a different matter. So far, it鈥檚 difficult to see how the benefits of IT can reach the rural poor. And until their lot is improved, Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay) and Kolkata (Calcutta) may become more Western, but India will still be a developing country.