The tech revolution that wasn’t

May 5, 2026 - 08:07

A new book by MIT Assistant Professor Dwai Banerjee challenges the popular narrative of India's rise as a global tech powerhouse. Titled "Computing in the Age of Decolonization," the work examines the historical path of the computing industry in the country, arguing that what many celebrate as a revolution was actually a more complicated and incomplete transformation.

Banerjee's research digs into the decades following India's independence, tracing how early ambitions for homegrown computing were shaped by Cold War politics, limited resources, and a lingering colonial mindset. He points out that while the West was developing cutting-edge hardware and software, India's early computer scientists often worked with outdated, secondhand machines. The push for self-reliance, known as "swadeshi" in other industries, did not fully take hold in computing.

The book suggests that the tech boom of the 1990s and 2000s, which turned cities like Bangalore into global outsourcing hubs, was less a homegrown revolution and more a strategic adaptation to global market demands. Banerjee argues that this path created economic opportunity but also deepened a dependency on foreign technology and corporate structures. Rather than building a truly indigenous technological ecosystem, India became a service provider for the West.

Banerjee's work is a sobering look at the gap between the promise of technology as a tool for decolonization and the reality of a global industry that still operates on uneven terms. It asks whether the country's future can break free from this historical pattern.