THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 25 December 2019 (History, technology and the shackles of the present (The Hindu))

History, technology and the shackles of the present (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Electric vehicles
Mains level: Promotion of Electric vehicle in transport sector

Context:

• The Narendra Modi government’s ambitious push for electric vehicles (EVs) should ring a bell. After many decades, India is witnessing once again the unseemly fraternisation of high technology and authoritarian governance.
• On the one hand, the government has championed EV, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and packaged sundry technologies into neat acronyms.
• On the other, it has clipped Internet access to towns and villages when confronted with non-violent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Background:

• In 1976, as India sank deep into the recesses of the Emergency, a group of bureaucrats and scientists sat down to ponder the future of technology in the country.
• The irony of analysing technologies that would unshackle the Indian economy, when basic rights of its citizenry were suppressed, was lost on the establishment.
• In fact, while the Indira Gandhi government built a surveillance state, Silicon Valley saw the birth of “public key cryptography”, used in modern-day encryption.
• India, it seemed, had regressed into the darkest chapter of its political history, just as the world began to use technology to preserve human rights.

Batting for electric vehicles:

• This dissonance did not seem to bother the high-profile group that had been brought together by the National Committee on Science and Technology (NCST).
• Its mandate: “study the outlook for India in 2000 A.D.
• The group, set up in 1973, took seven years to submit their report, publishing an interim document during the Emergency.
• The Indian government’s commissioning a “futures study” was in step with the times. “Futurology” — the use of computer models for forecasting scenarios — became fashionable after the Club of Rome, a group of economists and planners, published its famous “Limits to Growth” report in 1972.
• The report painted a doomsday scenario of acute food and water scarcity in 2000. Unsurprisingly, this period also witnessed the “new wave” of science fiction, set in dystopic lands and featuring post-apocalyptic visions.
• Another kind of dystopia was unfolding in India’s present — while the civil liberties of Indians were cast aside, the government was busy discussing EVs and self-driving cars.
• The Committee on Futurology, as it was known, analysed long-term projections for many sectors, including transportation.
• This sector’s problems were two-fold. To begin with, there were just not enough vehicles for the larger public in India.
• Three decades after Independence, India had only 1,00,000 buses on its roads. (In other words, there was one bus for every 6,500 Indians).
• However, the number of cars and jeeps totalled nearly 750,000. In a still-impoverished country, the wealthy and powerful elite enjoyed vastly better mobility than the majority of the population.

The shadow of the oil crisis:

• The NCST deliberated in the shadow of the oil crisis of 1973, brought on by a crude embargo imposed by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
• Faced with the problem of scarcity and costs, the committee argued India was better served in the long run by developing renewable alternatives to petrol.
• Almost concurrently, western laboratories had begun exploring the development of lithium-ion batteries, critical to EVs.
• The NCST appears to have been mindful of such efforts: “it is imperative that some concentrated R&D is performed in the area of high energy-high power batteries”, it declared.
• The Committee even predicted EVs and self-driving cars - “adaptive, automobile autopilots”, as the report termed it — would be commercially available from the early 1980s.

Much politicking:

• Several autocratic regimes have tread down the same path, using technology as a totem to rally disaffected populations.
• But while the NCST made grand claims about the future, the government was actually clamping down on technology in the present.
• Indira Gandhi’s government, under pressure from labour unions, viewed computers with suspicion, and discouraged PSUs from adopting them.
• The Futurology Committee’s view too was jaundiced by the Emergency.
• Not all technologies were “neutral” and useful to society, the committee declared, citing the TV as an example.
• Meanwhile, Doordarshan had become an instrument of state propaganda.
• Faced with a financial crunch, the government also championed “appropriate technologies” that were small-scale — solar cookers and mechanised bullock carts — but did little to boost productivity.
• The left hand did not know what the right was doing: some sections of the government were trumpeting the arrival of self-driving cars, while others told the public to be wary of computers.

Way forward:

• As C.R. Subramanian has noted, the import of computers tripled during the Emergency.
• The number of automobiles plying on Indian roads in the 1980s increased by a staggering 400% over the previous decade.
• The seeding of doubt against big technology by the government in the minds of citizens did little to improve prospects for scientific breakthroughs.
• If only Indians had the political agency to form their own views of technology, India may well have had a shot at developing EVs.
• One cannot aspire to a ‘Digital India’ if technologies are wantonly used for mass surveillance, or cut off altogether when faced with non-violent, democratic protests.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), consider the following statements:
1. It pan-India maternity benefit programme promising ₹2,000 to new mothers.
2. A mother seeking benefits needs to provide proof of address of her marital home.

Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) None of the above

Ans: B
Mains Questions:
Q.1) A ‘Digital India’ will be out of reach if authoritarian governance decides the trajectory of technologies. Critically comment.