Why India must focus on 4th Industrial revolution?

As per the studies, India’s GDP contribution to the world was 24% in 1750 which fell down to 2% in 1900. Even today, it is approximately 6%. No wonder why in good old days, India was called “The golden bird”.

Same goes for China too, whose contribution in 1750 was more than 30% of world GDP.

At that time when India & China were prospering, America was busy fighting independence war and Europe was going through a new reckoning due to French revolution. Fast forward to 21st century, entire story is turned upside down and now an average American and European is 23 times richer than an average Indian.

What went wrong?

The answer lies with the fact that we missed the bus of first industrial revolution.

Export has been the key component in prosperity of any country in the world; you name any developed country today and by default all will be export oriented countries. Ex. Germany, UK, China, Japan, UAE, South Korea etc. Before first industrial revolution, India & China dominated the world in terms of exports.

In the mid of 18^th century, the source of power was human labor and almost all industries were dependent on adept hands. Britain learned the art of harnessing flowing water, wind as well as steam for power generation. This gave big boost to their Industrial production which gave them massive advantage over other countries. Power looms outdid handlooms and thus India and China’s textile industry suffered heavily.

This was the first Industrial revolution. Europeans must get credit for this technological breakthrough which helped them become exporters of the world. Thus, this marked the beginning of European supremacy.

2^nd Industrial revolution was in 2^nd half of 19^th century when again Europeans and Americans focused on large scale production with the help of electric motors, IC engines and even moving assembly lines. India missed this bus again and paid heavily for being a laggard in adopting Science & technology. In a nutshell, R&D then, was the major differentiating factor between us and western countries.

3rd Industrial revolution started with advent of computers in 1959. This changed the way we used to manufacture, communicate and analyze.

Post this China and India’s per capita income became so low that manufacturing in these countries or outsourcing to these countries became really attractive for developed countries. China seized the opportunity by opening its economy in 1978 which helped her to become “Workshop of the World” (manufacturing hub).

Finally in India, after one of the worst economic crisis situation, government was forced to open its economy in 1991. This opening of economy helped us to grow in leaps & bounds as it infused the much needed money & technology in the market but by then China had advanced too much in production hence despite of low manpower cost, very little scope was left for India to produce and export.

Luckily the language English, though cursed by many so called nationalists, came to our rescue. English gave us an edge in Information Technology and soon India became the “back office” of the world and the hub of IT and ITES services. This contributed from nowhere to one third of India’s total exports by late 90s.

Currently we are growing @ 7% per annum as compared to the rest of the World (@2.5%) because of our USP of low manpower cost. But this growth story is likely to come to a grinding end, because of new machines.

Developed countries are at the cusp of embracing 4^th Industrial revolution which is an imminent threat. Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and mechanized workforce can easily defeat cheaper Indian manpower thus India’s biggest USP will be in danger. Already we are witnessing stagnation in IT sector because of algorithm based technology being used by importers of IT services. Thus, for us 4^th Industrial revolution is very important and this time India must not miss this bus.

But the moot question is, what is 4^th Industrial revolution, when will it start and from where will it begin?

Answer is simple, it has already started, it is everywhere and right now in your hand as well.

As per Prof Schwab, It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. It is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, IoT, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.

Siri by Apple and Alexa by Amazon are classic examples of machine learning. Now these devices talk to you and based on historic data, they even give suggestions. Autonomous driving is almost a reality now.

Last year in China more robots have been added than human.

So 4^th Industrial revolution might aggravate the problem of unemployment in India and at the same time,

Is there any choice for India to not to jump on the bandwagon?

The answer is a Big NO.

In this globalized world, India can’t stay unaffected by these technological disruptions. Only option for India is to embrace this and become the competitor, if not leader.

1^st & 2nd Industrial revolutions were mechanical while 3^rd & 4th are digital in nature. India has an added advantage in digital technology hence it is a golden opportunity for us to finally embrace the change. If we can channelize our energies towards the 4^th Industrial revolution, we can again become “The golden bird”.

Another question comes here, what is the single most important component in capturing the 4^th Industrial revolution?

Answer is Innovation and to innovate one need focus on research and development.

As per Economic survey of India 2017-18, India’s spending on R&D is just 0.6% of GDP vs that of Israel 4.3%, South Korea 4.2%, US 2.8% and China 2.1%. China’s absolute R&D spending is 20 times more than India.

Universities play a very important role in R&D but shockingly not even 1 Indian university is in top 300 universities of the world. At the same time, private sector plays a very important role in innovation but as per Forbes reports, there are only 26 Indian companies in the list of the top 2,500 global R&D spenders compared to 301 Chinese companies. This means the infrastructure for innovation is lacking in India at the grass-root level.

Currently, a bulk of R&D expenditure goes from Central Government followed by some private companies. State Government are least bothered about spending money on R&D.

These examples tell us what is our status of R&D in India.

With this kind efforts can we be the leader in technological space?

Few of the baby steps taken by Central Government will help us to make inroads into 4^th Industrial Revolution like Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) in which Government is committed to establish Tinkering labs with Robots, 3D printing, sensor technology, IoT etc in 2500 plus schools by end of 2018.Digital India, Startup India, Make in India, Stand up India and Ease of doing business are also welcome initiatives by Government. Niti Aayog is expected to release National Policy on Artificial Intelligence which will probably hold the key to the future. Some of bureaucrats like Niti Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant are doing their best to develop ecosystem of innovation. Few of state Governments are also taking steps in establishing incubation centers like Telangana Govt’s T-hub and Andhra Pradesh Govt’s Vizag Fintech hub. We must realize that we are miles behind developed countries in R&D hence these baby steps won’t be suffice in our endeavour.

We need to relook our education policy because currently it’s based on traditional way of gaining knowledge rather than experiential learning.

Currently, the Government is taking these steps by considering the 4^th Industrial revolution as one of the many planned projects while they must make this as “the most important project” of the country.

Luckily India’s young generation is not ready to compromise and is ready to take on the mightiest of the world. There are several India startups like Arya.ai, Artifacia, Nebulaa and Aindra system are working in the field of Machine learning.

Finally, how as a common man, can we contribute to India’s journey towards 4^th Industrial revolution?

Biggest weapon we have is the power of awareness about Government’s initiatives. Choice is with us as to whether we should debate on Mandir Masjid issue, BCCI working, Salman Khan’s marriage or check the status of AIM implementation, Startup funding by banks and State Government’s R&D budget. Until and unless we as citizens won’t push the Government why will our politicians look into the making of a conducive ecosystem for 4^th Industrial revolution?

The solution to most of the socio economic problems like poverty, casteism, reservation demands, corruption, unemployment, poor infrastructure, and poor healthcare can be addressed only if our country strengthens its economy and to do so, it needs to catch up with 4^th Industrial revolution.

Almost 400 years back Francis Bacon had said “Knowledge is power” and now it is evident that countries with latest technological knowhow are the most powerful and prosperous countries.

Let’s give big thumbs up to all Indian startup companies because they are our torchbearers for a prosperous India.

“Jai Hind”

Manoj Tripathi