Energy, industry, agriculture and higher education have been chosen as the priority areas in this endeavour. Side by side, negotiations have taken place to draw India into defence and strategic relationship with the USA and its NATO allies. Meanwhile, in eager anticipation of high trap imports materialising, the ongoing R& D for development of indigenous technology has been slowed down and, in many areas, given up.

The ignorance of the ruling elite in India about technology and its application is proverbial. The attitude of the bureaucracy on which the politicians in power depend for implementation of policies is indifferent and even malicious towards scientific and technological Research & Development (R&D). But there still have been shining achievements of Indian scientists and technologists in critical and challenging fields after India gained political independence. Development of atomic energy and its application, in civilian and military areas and achievements in space research are striking cases in point. This has been an entirely indigenous effort against heavy odds. The development of catalysts for petrochemicals and fertilizers has been similarly rewarding. There has also been good R&D work in metals and machine making. The disconcerting fact is that there has been a sharp decline in R&D for more than two decades of political instability. This has led to reversal in indigenous R&D.

The application of indigenous technologies for economic growth with equity and self-reliance in particular, therefore, has suffered gravely for want of understanding and the support of political leadership. Public funding of R&D in commercial and industrial undertakings in the public sector enterprises has been drastically curtailed. Private business has ended whatever sporadic and limited R&D activity it had been earlier promoting.

The hankering for import of the “latest” rather than development of appropriate technologies has led successive governments in India after the so-called economic reform process was initiated to recklessly open the Indian market for the inflow of foreign investment and technology as well as import of goods and services for consumption of the elite segment of the population. This has made Indian investment and business interests indifferent to even the absorption and adaptation of imported technology, let alone the development of Indian technology by suitable R&D and make it appropriate for India at the present stage of its economic and social environment and development priorities. Corporate business interests, not only in the private but also in the public sector industry have been induced, even ordered, to rely on “proven” technologies under invidious and costly collaboration arrangements with foreign suppliers.

These policy adjustments, which have gained ascendancy in the industrial sector, are being extended to Indian agriculture as well. Agricultural research organisations and extension services, which played a commendable role in improving production and productivity of wheat and rice crops in India in the seventies, have been crippled by cuts in funding by the government. Opportunities have been opened up for multinational corporations to enter Indian agribusiness and rely on their inputs for what is called corporate agriculture. The defence sector is the latest target for sidetracking indigenous R&D effort.

India made arrangements for massive import of technology as well as associated sophisticated capital goods and expert consultancy services to kick- start development of modern large-scale industry after gaining political independence. This was unavoidable, to begin with, because of the backward and extremely under-developed economy left behind by the colonial rule. But a determined effort was also initiated to absorb, and eventually, indigenise imported technology for application in capital and intermediate goods industry. India indeed had achieved a position by the end of the seventies to be very selective in respect of the import of technology for economic development, energy, security as well as to strengthen security interests of India.

There has been, however, a halt to the policy of selective application of imported technologies after the launching of the so-called economic reforms early in the nineties. The shift of emphasis away from import substitution and open door for foreign capital and liberalized imports provided opportunities to multinational corporations to disrupt and distort the external as well as domestic linkages and equilibrium of the existing production structure and technological capabilities of India. Application of capital-intensive technologies and large import content in industrial projects has resulted in shrinking employment opportunities for technical work force in the organised sectors of the economy.

The import of technology for application in strategic areas such as atomic energy, space and defence production poses ticklish problems. The foreign suppliers of technology are bound to go by not only the profit-maximisation motive but also strategic interests of their countries of origin. In the case of application of imported technology in strategic areas, political authorities of the developed countries, especially the USA, apply strict conditionalities. This has now become stark with the latest deals on high technology imports from USA. The end-use supervision of the arms supplies by USA are tending to be more stringent in case of India which is only a strategic partner of USA and not a long-term military and political ally that Pakistan, for instance, has been. In the case of even use of generation of nuclear electricity by US technology and equipment, reprocessing of nuclear fuel by India has been prohibited. The NATO allies and even Russia are likely to lay down similar conditions for the supply of uranium and reactors to India. This simply makes a mockery of the much-publicised special exemption and unconditional supplies of raw material as well as equipment for nuclear energy in India. (IPA Service)