And find it odd (and saddening) that Acharya  J C Bose barely finds a small mention…(not to forget Sir C V Raman).  No photograph of Wing Cmdr Rakesh Sharma either. And no trace or mention of our own achievements in Science and Technology from ancient times…This is how an entire generation forgets history..

Thankfully, there is a good section on Chandrayaan and the space programme.

Related Posts: Does no one remember the Indian contribution to Technology?, Phototherapy in Ancient India and Forgetting History: Delhi’s “Iron Pillar”

Somewhat related: An unsung Hero – II and Need Help: Information on ancient Indian scientists

Next, read former Governor of J&K, Jagmohan’s account of  his trek to Amarnath…

…and finally, ponder over Chandan Mitra’s provocative piece on the purpose of history

Excerpts from all the three articles below, as always.

.

*** Excerpts from Ancient India’s Contribution in the areas of Shipbuilding and Navigation ***

by Sudheer Birdokar

…Sanskrit and Pali literature has innumerable references to the maritime activity of Indians in ancient times. There is also one treatise in Sanskrit, named Yukti Kalpa Taru which has been compiled by a person called Bhoja Narapati. (The Yukti Kalpa Taru (YKT) had been translated and published by Prof. Aufrecht in his ‘Catalogue of Sanskrit Manu scripts. An excellent study of the YKT had been undertaken by Dr. Radha Kumud Mookerji entitled ‘Indian Shipping’. Published by Orient Longman, Bombay in 1912.)

…This treatise gives a technocratic exposition on the technique of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes, the materials from which they were built…(it)gives sufficient information and date to prove that in ancient times, Indian shipbuilders had a good knowledge of the materials which were used in building ships. Apart from describing the qualities of the different types of wood and their suitablility in shipbuilding, the Yukti Kalpa Taru also gives an elaborate classification of ships based on their size.

…Interestingly there were Sanskrit terms for many parts of a ship. The ship’s anchor was known as Nava-Bandhan-Kilaha which literally means ‘A Nail to tie up a ship’ . The sail was called Vata Vastra a which means ‘wind-cloth’. The hull was termed StulaBhaga i.e. an’expanded area’. The rudder was called Keni-Pata, Pata means blade; the rudder was also known as Karna which literally means a ‘ear’ and was so called because it used to be a hollow curved blade, as is found today in exhaust fans. The ship’s keel was called Nava-Tala which means ‘bottom of a ship’. The mast was known as Kupadanda, in which danda means a pole.

…Even a sextant was used for navigation and was called Vruttashanga-Bhaga. But what is more surprising is that even a contrived mariner’s compass was used by Indian navigators nearly 1500 to 2000 years ago. This claim is not being made in an overzealous nationalistic spirit. This has in fact been the suggestion of an European expert, Mr. J.L. Reid, who was a member of the Institute of Naval Architects and Shipbuilders in England at around the beginning of the present century. This is what Mr. Reid has said in the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xiii., Part ii., Appendix A.

“The early Hindu astrologers are said to have used the magnet, in fixing the North and East, in laying foundations, and other religious ceremonies. The Hindu compass was an iron fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed to the North. The fact of this older Hindu compass seems placed beyond doubt by the Sanskrit word Maccha Yantra, or fish machine, which Molesworth gives as a name for the mariner’s compass”.

It is significant to note that these are the words of a foreign Naval Architect and Shipbuilding Expert. Is is thus quite possible that the Maccha Yantra (fish machine) was transmitted to the west by the Arabs to give us the mariner’s compass of today.

***

*** Excerpts from To feel India’s connect with Kashmir, go to Amarnath by Jagmohan ***

July.10 : Few of the present generation of Indians know that Swami Vivekananda, accompanied by a couple of his European disciples, undertook a yatra to the Amarnath shrine from July 28 to August 8, 1898. Sister Nivedita, an Anglo-Irish social worker and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda, has left a brief but beautiful account of the journey which shows how significant this yatra is from the point of view of culture and national integration.

…In August 1986, when I was the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, I travelled on foot, from Chandanwari to the cave, taking the same route as was taken by Swami Vivekananda and his party. It was a journey to remember. The route is certainly one of the most enchanting and enthralling routes in the world. It transmits a feeling of being “upward and divine”.

In a state of heightened sublimity and with his faith fully surcharged and the awe and majesty of the sights around him, the pilgrim perceives, with his mind’s eye, Lord Shiva, sitting calmly underneath an imperishable canopy provided by the “mount of immortality”, and conveying in hushed silence the message of inseparability of the processes of creation and destruction; of “every beginning having an end, and every end having a beginning”.

…The most captivating spot on the route is the lake of Seshnag. This lake symbolises the cosmic ocean in which Lord Vishnu, the preserver of this universe, moves, reclining on a seven-headed mythical snake. After getting refreshed with a bath of ice-cold water of Seshnag, the pilgrim takes a steep climb to the most difficult spot, Mahagunna (4,350 metres). Thereafter, a short descent begins to Poshpathan which is covered in wild flowers. From there, pilgrims move to Panchtarni, a confluence of five mythical streams, and then to the cave. A strange sense of fulfilment seizes the pilgrims, and all fatigue is forgotten. Even with temperatures touching zero, the pilgrims are driven by their faith to take bath in the almost-freezing rivulet of Amravati.

This is what Sister Nivedita has written about Swami Vivekananda’s experience:

“With a smile he knelt, first at one end of the semi-circle, then at the other. The place was vast, large enough to hold a cathedral, and the great ice-Shiva, in a niche of deepest shadow, seemed as if throned on its own base. To him, the heavens had opened. He had touched the feet of Shiva. He had to hold himself tight, he said afterwards, lest he “should swoon away”. But so great was his physical exhaustion, that a doctor said afterwards that his heart ought to have stopped beating, and had undergone a permanent enlargement instead. How strangely near fulfilment had been those words of his Master: “When he realises who and what he is, he will give up this body!” Afterwards he would often tell of the overwhelming vision that had seemed to draw him almost into its vertex. He always said that the grace of Amarnath had been granted to him there, not to die till he himself should give consent. And to me he said: “You do not now understand. But you have made the pilgrimage, and it will go on working. Causes must bring their effects. You will understand better afterwards. The effects will come”.

The significance of the pilgrimage, however, does not end at the personal level. It extends to the much larger issue of cultural unity and vision of India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Kathiawar to Kamrup. Its importance as an underlying integrating force needs to be recognised. When some people talk of Kashmir’s relationship with the rest of India only in terms of Article 1 and Article 370 of the Constitution, I am surprised at their ignorance. They do not know that this relationship goes much deeper. It is a relationship that has existed for thousands of years in the mind and soul of the people, a relationship that India’s intellect and emotions, its life and literature, its philosophy and poetry, its common urges and aspirations, have given birth to. It is this relationship which inspired Subrmania Bharati to perceive Kashmir as a crown of Mother India, and Kanyakumari as a lotus at her feet, and also made him sing that “She has 30 crore faces, but her heart is one”.

***

*** Excerpts from The purpose of history by Chandan Mitra ***

…In view of the flagrant abuse history is being subjected to, I believe the time has come for every thinking person to ask some fundamental questions about the way it should be taught.

The basic question is about the very purpose of teaching history. As some of my colleagues often point out, the only time most Indians learn any history is in school, pragmatically assuming that 99.9 persons do not choose history as their subject in college. In other words, their view of India’s past is conditioned by what they read in their formative years from say, six to 16. Even during this stage, history is usually not the preferred subject and only one among the array of disciplines they need to learn. That is why the teaching of history in our schools must not only be authentic, but also adhere to a purpose.

That purpose cannot be to run down the country’s civilisation, selectively black out facts, delete whatever is deemed “politically incorrect” and indoctrinate youngsters into believing that everything good that happened to India was the contribution of foreign invaders (pre-British) and all the bad was caused by indigenous forces or white imperialists. (Sorry, at a time when a Left-sponsored Congress leader of Caucasian origin was being extolled as goddess, I should be careful of using the now-sensitive term “white” negatively, lest I be accused of being racist and fascist).

The astonishing part of the proposed rewriting of history by the Marxists was that interpretations changed quite merrily with their contemporary political proclivities. In our time, the Congress was Enemy No 1; it was a bourgeois-landlord party that collaborated with the imperialists to deny the people their true political rights. This culminated, according to the Leftists, in a false freedom in 1947.

…With the rise of the BJP and the growing challenge of “communalism”, the focus shifted to the need to defend “secularism”. Howlers were, thus, perpetrated in history textbooks so that impressionable students believed that all Muslim rulers were adorable things viciously denigrated by trishul-wielding “RSS historians”. I believe the section on Nadir Shah’s sack of (largely Muslim) Delhi had been whitewashed in the SCERT textbook prescribed for Delhi Government schools.

Meanwhile, Shivaji was dismissed in a couple of paras, Sikh history was overlooked and both were clubbed as inevitable revolts by people in outlying regions caused by a weakened, post-Mughal Centre. An NCERT textbook altered by the NDA Government actually contained derogatory references to Guru Tegh Bahadur which described him as a bandit indulging in “rapine”!

The mindset of Marxist historiography is besotted with demolishing popular faiths and beliefs. In their arrogance, these historians assumed that people knew nothing; that all they believed from legends and tales was erroneous; and they must be rescued from blind faith and superstition. This zeal is comparable to that of the white missionaries who came to India and Africa convinced they had to deliver the ignorant inhabitants from the Dark Ages. Take Romila Thapar’s book on the Somnath temple that I reviewed in February 2004 for India Today. The entire exercise, albeit scholarly, was undertaken to exonerate Mahmud of Ghazni of his criminal offence in ransacking the splendid shrine. She takes pains to point out conflicting contemporary accounts to suggest nothing so traumatic happened.

She quoted foreign sources to say that Mahmud could have believed the temple contained the idol of the Arabic pagan goddess Manat whose worship Prophet Mohammad had initially permitted but later retracted claiming he was under Satan’s influence while approving this. Apparently, the reference to Manat is contained in the so-called Satanic Verses later deleted from the Quran. She said it’s also possible that Mahmud thought the name Somnath was derived from the Arabic su-manat, and thus connected to the pagan goddess.

I have no doubt that under the new dispensation, this is the kind of history that shall be prescribed in schools. Short of exhorting children to offer prayers to Mahmud of Ghazni, Mohammad Ghauri, Nadir Shah and Aurangzeb, our new textbooks will do everything to run down all indigenous achievements. Maharana Pratap, for example, finds just a one-line reference in the SCERT book and Aryabhata none!

The unstated purpose behind this savage attack on Indian history is not mere jobbery; it is a deliberate attempt to berate India, its civilisation, religion and culture. It is aimed at emaciating the people morally and psychologically so that instead of taking pride in the country we become ashamed of its past. Once that is accomplished, we shall no doubt be expected to quietly acquiesce in many “nation-building” projects such as reconstruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya!

***

Stay healthy, Stay safe…and have a refreshing weekend.

It had excerpts from the BJP’s manifesto and brief counter-points dismissing the claims and assertions. Curiously – in spite of being authored by “Eminent Historians” – it was surprisingly light on references and historical sources.

Dr. J. K. Bajaj and Dr. M. D. Srinivas of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai subsequently compiled a detailed rebuttal which was published on several sites on the web.

I am posting some excerpts from the original news-report as well as the rebuttal for the sake of record (and personal reference). If this is the first time you are hearing about this matter, please read on:

First, some excerpts from report in The Hindu. The excerpts from BJP’s manifesto are in italics. The comments by “Eminent Historians” are in blue.

Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom…Indians, particularly educated under the system of education imposed by the Britishers, have lost sight of not only the cultural and civilisational greatness of India, but also of its technological achievements and abounding natural resources.

India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally defined as having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Nor is it the only continuous culture since China has a continuous culture that is older.

According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early-19th Century speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjavur (900-1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramnathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per hectare production of paddy.

Agricultural abundance varied over time and space. There was no uniform abundance at all times. Joshi quotes inscriptions from Thanjavur but does not say which one. In AD 1054 (the period he speaks of as producing 20 tons per hectare of paddy) there is also a record that the area of Alangudi in Thanjavur Dt. suffered severe famine, so severe that even the state could not help the people and they finally went to the temple and sold their land to the temple treasury to get money to buy food from elsewhere. [M.E.A.R. 1899-1900, 20]

Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors. References are made to anavrishti and ativrishti and locusts as the cause. Famine is referred to in the Ramayana [1.8.12 ff] and the Mahabharata [12.139] and in the latter it led to people eating all kinds of unsavoury things. The frequency of references to the 12-year famine is found in many texts. Manu in his Dharma-shastra states that in times of famine social codes can be dispensed with. [102 ff] The Jatakas refer to famines. [1.75, etc;]

It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the 18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support provided from private and public sources.

Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls.

There were no schools or colleges as we know them today in ancient India. Upper caste children were educated in mathas, agraharas and sometimes monasteries. Children following a profession were apprentices in that profession. Lower castes and women were not educated generally. In Sanskrit plays they are the ones who speak the vernacular language Prakrit whilst the upper caste, educated persons speak Sanskrit.

India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basis of modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner.

India had no practice of plastic surgery until modern times. Nor did India know about vaccines.

Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health care system existed in India. According to him, the nobles and householders of this country had founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased may repair.

“They receive every kind of requisite help. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicines or decoctions, everything in fact that contributes to their ease. When cured they depart at their ease.”

The Chinese pilgrims visiting India — Fa Hien and Hsuan Tsang — make a brief mention of sick persons being treated by having to fast for seven days and being given some medicine. This was probably the treatment given to sick monks in monasteries. There were no hospitals.

*** End of Excerpts from The Hindu article ***

Next, some excerpts from the rebuttal

*Agricultural Productivity of India*

An easily available source on the productivity of Indian agriculture in pre-British south India is the article by L. B. Alaev, The System of Agricultural Production: South India, in the widely available *The Cambridge Economic History of India*, Vol. I, c.1200-c.1750, Cambridge 1982.

On the basis of epigraphic records, Alaev estimates productivity of 6.6 tons per hectare of paddy in the not so fertile region of Ramanad. This is almost certainly an underestimate…

Another fairly well-known source is Dr. Tennant’s, *Indian Recreations*, which mentions productivity of 7.5 tons of wheat per hectare in the region around Allahabad in 1803; …Similarly high productivity in several places in north India was repeatedly mentioned by several British administrators up to the middle of the nineteenth century.

…detailed references are available in Tapan Raychaudhuri’s, “The mid-Eighteenth century Background”, in *The Cambridge Economic History of India*, Vol. II, c.1757-c.1970, Cambridge 1982…Raychaudhuri observes “One striking fact about Indian agriculture in pre-colonial and early colonial days is the very high yield per acre – which cannot be explained away simply as errors of observation…”

*Public Health Care*

The ‘eminent historians’ dismiss the observations of Fa-Hien and Huan Tsang as brief references to the treatment of monks. However, the statements of both observers are far from brief or ambiguous; these are very explicit and detailed. What Fa Hien actually says in this context is:

“The nobles and householders of this country have founded hospitals within the city, to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, cripples and the diseased may repair. They receive every kind of requisite help gratuitously. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicine or decoctions, everything in fact that may contribute to their ease. When cured they depart at ease.”

The quote is from Fa Hien: *A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms*, English Translation by J. Legge, Oxford 1886, Delhi Reprint 1971, p.79.

…However, an even more eminent foreign scholar, Dominik Wujastyk, in his *The Roots of Ayurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings *(Penguin
Classics, London 2003), concludes the following on the basis of Fa-Hien’s observations:

“This description by Fa Hsien is one of the earliest accounts of a civic hospital system anywhere in the world and, coupled with Caraka’s description of how a clinic should be equipped… suggests that India may have been the first part of the world to have evolved an organized metropolitan system of institutionally-based medical provision.”

*Plastic Surgery and Inoculation*

The eminent historians dismiss the possibility of plastic surgery being practiced in pre-British India. But the operation is mentioned in great
detail in the Susruta Samhita and the reference is well-known to those interested in the history of plastic surgery. *

Such operations were being performed in India even in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is widely reported. Below is an account of the operation from J. C. Carpue, *An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the forehead …to which are prefixed Historical and Physiological Remarks on the Nasal Operation including Descriptions of the Indian and Italian Methods* (London, 1816):

“It was in this manner that the nasal operation had become forgotten or despised, in at least the west of Europe; when, at the close of the last century, it was once more heard of in England, from a quarter whence mankind will yet, perhaps, derive many lights, as well in science, as in learning and in arts. A periodical publication, for the year 1794, contains the following communication from a correspondent in India, which is accompanied by a portrait of the person mentioned, explanatory of the operation.
‘Cowasjee, a Mahratta, of the caste of husbandman, was a bullock-driver with the English army, in the war of 1792, and was made a prisoner by Tippoo, who cut off his nose, and one of his hands. In this state, he joined the Bombay army near Seringapatam, and is now a pensioner of the Honourable East India Company. For above twelve months, he was wholly without a nose; when he had a new one put on, by a Mahratta surgeon, a Kumar, near Pune. This operation is not uncommon in India, and has been practised from time immemorial. Two of the medical gentlemen, Mr. Thomas Cruse and Mr. James Findlay, of Bombay, have seen it performed as follows…

The above article has been reprinted in *Classics of Medicine Library*, Bethesda 1981.

Inoculation against small-pox through injection of material derived from the cow – the so-called ‘vaccination’ – was indeed not practised in India; but inoculation with attenuated human small-pox material obtained from previous outbreaks was widespread and is well-documented. One fairly easily available account is that of J. Z. Holwell, FRS, published in 1767.

*Public Education*

The eminent historians are most dismissive of the suggestion that there were public arrangements for school education in India. Instead of giving any data, they merely assert, on the authority of their imputed ‘eminence’, that there were no schools or colleges in India and that education was imited to upper castes. However, there is just too much of evidence available about a widespread system of education in India in the various surveys that the British undertook during the eighteenth century.

The evidence of these surveys cannot be dismissed by merely the shake of an eminent head. The details of the surveys have been painstakingly compiled and analysed in Dharampal: *The Beautiful Tree*, Biblia Impex, Delhi 1983. (also online here).

*** End of Excerpts from the rebuttal ***

Related Posts:

On Aurangzeb, Kashi Vishwanath, Lies and Half-Truths

Lies and half-truths in the name of national integration

Distorting history and getting paid for it

Economic Exploitation and the Drain of Wealth during British “Raj”

The “truth” about a “benevolent Empire”

India in the 1820s

Global warming, air pollution and other problems related to the emission of Co2 (carbon dioxide) may partially get solved as a group of five scientists from four institutes have discovered a low cost method of converting carbon dioxide into calcium carbonate (CaCo3), a useful building material.

…The scientists have discovered naturally occurring bacteria that can be used to convert Co2 into CaCo3, that can be used in cement or limestone aggregate for building roads. When used as an enzyme, biomolecules that speed up the chemical reaction, the bacteria converts carbon dioxide onto calcium carbonate.

…The chemical reaction can (also) be implemented in places such as inside a factory chimney.

Related Posts:

Saving the planet by going vegetarian… 

Eating less meat may help the planet…

500+ pages, densely packed with statistics, policy prescriptions and anecdotes do not make for easy bedtime reading…yet I found it highly engaging and written in a very readable style. If there was ever a book you wished that reflected a bird’s eye of what ails India, “Imagining India” would come pretty close to it.

On the very first page, in the preface, Nandan Nilekani recalls a conversation with a visitor in which he was asked:

“Why don’t people like you get into politics?”

Nilekani’s response to the question encapsulates India’s problem # 1:

“I was, I said, quite unelectable”

I turned the page…and spotted problem # 2:

“…our government, where the socialist ethos is still dominant”

…and problem # 3:

“…when it comes to policy, the urgent wins over the important, tactic triumphs over strategy and patronage over public good”

In some ways, “Imagining India” is Nilekani’s attempt at articulating policies and strategies that would prioritise the important over the urgent and public good over patronage.

Nilekani’s underlying belief is that the key to growth (and consequent progress and development) is in expanding access to resources and opportunity. Therefore “reforms that expand access are…most crucial for the disempowered” (Pg 23). This is the underlying theme that runs throughout the book…and it is one that strongly resonates with me.

I believe if we were to do nothing else except focus on creating an enabling environment for our students, entrepreneurs, farmers and professionals – and giving them access to opportunities – we would solve more than half of our problems. On the flip side of course, if we fail in providing sufficient opportunities for work or income for our incredibly young population, we will create conditions for enormous social upheaval.

The book is divided in four parts. The first deals with ideas on which there is now broad consensus – at least amongst the urban elite and the middle-class. Ideas for example, that see entrepreneurship as essential to development…and population as an asset rather than a liability.

The end of Part I is a chapter titled “The Deepening of our Democracy” and this is the chapter where Nilekani occasionally slips. For instance, when he mentions terrorism as being driven by the “tendency of our governments towards repression”. Or when he says that “secular principles were paramount across our laws…(since independence)” – as many of you would know, the phrase was actually inserted via an amendment in the constitution in 1976.

The second part deals with areas on which there is broad agreement but a lot of work needs to be done; literacy, managing our rapid urbanisation, connecting our towns and cities and creating a common market across India. Part III deals with topics on which there is still no consensus e.g. the role of state in higher education, labour-related issues and so on.

The final part is an attempt at identifying and articulating our medium-term challenges or ideas that are “largely missing from our public discourse” such as environment, social security and our energy needs (although the part to do with energy solutions probably belongs to Part II). I found this section the least stimulating – perhaps because it lacked the immediacy and the urgency of the other sections – and was devoid of the “heat” that is generated in a debate around some of the other ideas.

The one thing that I did find odd (and unsettling) was the almost conscious attempt, – throughout the narrative – at avoiding any mention of India’s ancient heritage, its civilizational continuity and the underlying cultural unity.

For instance, even though Nilekani talks of how every country is governed through some overarching themes and ideas (Pg 8), he does not mention what this might be in case of India – saying simply that, “India…is a country that is as much an idea as it is a nation” – which is odd considering that the word “India” does not occur in any of the languages spoken in India.

The absence of even a cursory nod to our roots and a sense of cultural unity is also evident in remarks such as the one mentioning India as a “region riven by factionalism, whose caste and religious divisions seemed to be written in stone” (Pg 151) and as a “disparate group of communities…knit together” (pg 290)

There are also some historical inaccuracies – largely due to (I guess) over-reliance on the kind of academic research led by leftist historians. E.g. he mentions “Sanskrit” as an “alien” tongue that entered the region with an “invading army” (Pg 101) – clearly an allusion to the Aryan Invasion Theory (which has now been widely refuted).

Overall though, I would strongly recommend the book to anyone with more than a passing interest in public policy and governance. It is a great overview of some of our most immediate challenges and a good compendium of ideas that will dominate public discussion in the years to come.

I sincerely hope that our legislators, politicians, policy-makers and opinion leaders take note of some of the policies and ideas it contains…It might help us get a step closer to a better India.

On the back cover, Thomas Friedman has called Nilekani a “great explainer”. Reading “Imagining India” may help you understand why he said that.

***

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book for this review. Sadly it did not have Shri Nilekani’s autograph. Perhaps next time!