The telecom man tells all

Brijendra K. Syngal the father of the internet in India chronicles his journey as well as the path of the telecom sector in a gripping work co-authored with former journalist Sandipan Deb. The book, ‘Telecom Man’ is important on several counts, not the least of which is its detailed account of how India finally came of age on the digital platform

An efficient telecommunications network is a foundation upon which an information society is built. Few would dispute the above statement given the all-pervasive nature of the internet and the manner in which it has gone on to redefine the socio-economic and political face of the world, and closer home, India.

The backdrop

Get this: With over 50 crore Indians connected to the Internet today, that is more than 40 per cent of the population, India ranks as the world’s second-largest online market, second only to China. That’s not all. Our IT industry is close to $180 billion as per the latest figures. Its exports were valued at $137 billion. Little of this would have happened without the lion’s share of credit going to Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd’s (VSNL) high-speed data services and its founder.

Precisely why The Telecom Man is a seminal work. Interestingly enough, it also happens to be an autobiography. Not the usual form was chosen for the recounting of such a massive journey.

It all started when Sam Pitroda, the telecom Czar of India at the time threw a gauntlet to Brijendra K Syngal a graduate of IIT Kharagpur. “If you enjoy taking on a challenge more than you do making money, return from England and come to head VSNL.”

What transpired is history: much to the astonishment of those who knew him, he decided to take up Pitroda on his offer. He resigned his plush tax-free job with Inmarsat in London to head Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), an old-style, stodgy public sector company at a salary of INR 9,000.

Over the next seven years, he transformed VSNL into a responsive new-generation teletelecom player. And even as he connected India to the world through high-speed digital links, he helped in the rise of the Indian software sector as a global player. Best of all, in a move that would change the face of the country as we knew it, he brought the Internet to India in 1995.

The anatomy of an autobiography

But here’s the thing: most autobiographies draw from personal history. This one goes the distance and brings alive the karma bhoomi of the narrator in a fascinating read for Indians both young and old.

Instead of drawing from one man’s experiences, Syngal’s story draws from instances of India’s telecom boom. With over 10 chapters in the book, the book predictably starts with Syngal’s early years but is neatly steered into developments in the world of telecom. Most of the narratives in the book go hand in hand with the ongoing work of the Telecom Ministry, its key challenges, interactions with ministers, and the much-discussed 2G scandal.

Amidst all this, Syngal gradually carves for himself a niche as the go-to man for the country’s myriad telecom issues. It is a riveting narrative for its sheer lucidity.

Why you ought to read it

This is the proud story of a brave and forward- thinking Indian who left a secure and lucrative career behind and returned home to provide the world’s best telecom service to his people. A boy from a middle-class home, displaced from home and hearth as a young child by the partition, and growing up at a time when opportunities were limited unlike the Post liberalisation times we live in, the story is a heartwarming tale of believing in one’s self and the potential of one’s ideas. Interestingly, VSNL (later privatised and renamed Tata Communications) introduced Internet services two and half decades ago in 1995 when even China did not have the net. A Chinese minister visited the VSNL in 1996 to learn the tricks of the trade.

Mr Syngal’s assorted leadership roles in the public sector, as well as private sector combined with his international experience and global connect during the most transformative period in the telecom sector, made a massive dent in the system.

It offers readers a bird’s eye view of India’s corporate culture and government politics. Syngal recounts how he had to fight the bureaucracy, manage political masters three governments, five telecom ministers—through strategy, tactics, guile and plain stubbornness and battle the corruption inherent to the system. That’s not all. He had to face constant media scrutiny and false charges, which were often paid for by international rivals and had to walk a tightrope, while always keeping the country’s best interest in mind. The fleeting nature of success and adulation is best captured through cruel irony. In June 1998, he was named as one of ‘The 50 stars of Asia’ by Business Week magazine. But that same week, he was unceremoniously faxed, for not bowing to due pressure from the powers that be.

It showcases the finest moments of India’s transition from a Third World economy to a technology giant. Under Syngal, VSNL began to take confident strides. It successfully conceived and executed what was then the largest Global Depository Receipts issue from India for listing on the London Stock Exchange. By I998, VSNL was listed amongst the top 10 companies in market capitalisation and other parameters at the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. In his tenure, VSNL’s revenue escalated from $125 million to $1.6 billion and profits from $32.5 million to $240 million. In time, Syngal would go on to head Reliance and BPL’s cellular telecom forays and played a key role in exposing the 2G spectrum scam.

As it happened, Syngal repeatedly underlined the fact that the spectrum for 2G could not be allocated but auctioned instead. However, this bit of advice was ignored by the Ministry. “I had burnt a lot of midnight oil on this and all the hard work had borne fruit. It is indeed a sad story that ‘coalition dharma’ ruled us country, industry and citizen be damned. Is that governance?” he countered. He is equally candid while offering a no-holds-barred account of his battles with corporate honchos as well as powerful bureaucrats and politicians. Scathingly, he writes “…For the public sector chief executive (CEO), the principal shareholder is the government, ergo, the politician… and the politician’s interests are many and varied and are hardly restricted to the bottom line…Then there is the bureaucracy, full of ego. But unlike politicians, they face no risk of losing their power and position and perks…They are a brotherhood that looks after its own interests first and the country’s after that, if time permits.”

Strong words, but accurate, perhaps.

What could have been better: the CC take

It is a lacuna inherent to the genre of autobiographical writings that one tends to come across as self-adoring not to forget self-congratulatory of one’s career and life This is true of Telecom Man as well, but thankfully, Syngal is canny enough to talk about his failings as well. On the other hand, the 90s were an exciting age. Post liberalised India was progressing on several fronts and if that backdrop were provided in some more detail as well, a good book would have been even better.

All in all, the work is value for money and time.

The Coauthor At A Glance

Sandipan Deb is an independent journalist. He has been Editor of The Financial Express, Managing Editor of Outlook and Founder-Editor of Outlook Money, Open and Swarajya magazines. He is the author of The IITians: How an Indian Institution and Its Alumni Are Reshaping the World; Fallen Angel: The Making and Unmaking of Rajat Gupta; and The Last War, a novel re-imagining the Mahabharata in the modern Mumbai underworld; and editor of Momentous Times, a volume to commemorate 175 years of The Times of India. His writings cover the spectrum from economy to culture, cricket to quantum physics, cinema to society, the future of technology to what keeps us human. He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta.