By Dinesh C Sharma, June 20, 2013
In my 30 years of journalism career, my heart has never felt
so heavy while writing an obituary. The sudden demise of Dr N Seshagiri has
shaken me from inside. One often comes across a variety of people during journalism
career. Most are just temporary ‘contacts’ whom you forget the moment your beat
changes or tour assignment is over or the contacts retire from their positions;
while a few leave everlasting impression on you. Just a handful remain your friend,
philosopher and guide for lifelong. For me, Dr Seshagiri belonged to that rare
category.
To the world, he was a founding father of the great Indian
IT revolution and a technology forecaster, one of the shining ‘computer boys’ of
the Rajiv Gandhi era, an institution builder, a great computer scientist and a mover and shaker of the IT Task Force
set up by the Vajpayee government, which led to second wave of reforms for the
IT and telecom sectors. To me personally, he was a source of information,
knowledge, inspiration, encouragement, energy and a pillar of strength. A
telephonic talk with him or an email message from him was sufficient to
energise me.
The first time I met him was in early 1990 when he was the Director
General of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the last telephonic
conversation I had with him was as recent as two months ago. In the intervening
23 years, I must have met him several times, got a number of exclusive stories
and heard a lot of interesting stories from him. My communication with him was
more intense after he had retired and settled down in Bangalore. I have no
hesitation in placing on record that my book on the IT industry – The Long
Revolution – would never have been written or if written, would have never been
complete, without Dr Seshagiri.
The first time I mentioned the idea of the book to him was
in 2004 when I met him in Bangalore. I vividly recall the meeting which took
place at Pavithra Restaurant in Jayangarar Fourth Block Market over hot cups of
coffee. I had already mentioned to him about the book project, so he came
prepared with a lot of photocopies of book chapters, reports and other
material. This became the seed material for my book and I straight away
launched into research for the book. He was very encouraging and supportive. A detailed, formal interview took place only
two years later, in July 2006, at the NCST city office in Visvesaraya Towers. This was followed by constant communication with
him and more meetings at IIC Delhi and in Bangalore.
While providing me information and documents, he always emphasized
that I should write an unbiased history of IT industry, supported by references
and documents and not mere views and anecdotal remembrance. Many elements of
the story would have remained unexplored or poorly explained but for critical
leads provided by Dr Seshagiri. Whenever I got conflicting version of events from
other players, he would listen to me and come out with logical arguments or
produce documentary proofs in support of his point of view. It was an
intellectual camaraderie that I thoroughly enjoyed and will always cherish its
memories. Every word of the praise he wrote for my book came from his heart and
he meant it. I will value it all my life. He was gracious enough to come for
the Bangalore launch of the book, along with Ram Guha and S Sadagopan, making
it a memorable show.
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After retiring from NIC and the Task Force, Dr Seshagiri was
involved in another major project, which was non-IT about which many people are
not aware of it. He edited a massive series of reference books on Cities and Towns
of India, published by the Delhi-based Gyan Publishers in 2008. In 2012, he
came out with similar series on villages of India. It was seminal work, never
before attempted by any government agencies. This is something he wanted NIC to
do, but government support did not come for this. He had planned a system for constant
updating of the two series, and also a digital version of it in future. My most
recent interaction with him was for a paper I was writing on the future of
India’s IT industry. The insights which be provided for this paper are
invaluable. Dr Seshagiri had a pleasing personality, was unassuming yet had a magnetic personality, was eager to help and was always seeking to break new grounds even at 73. He was the shining star of Indian IT and the nation must be grateful for his contributions. Many of the ideas he had about the use of technology, the future of Indian IT and social aspects of IT diffusion are still unpublished and in private domain. I thought I would convince him to pen all his ideas into a new book. Alas, that opportunity has been lost. May his soul rest in peace.
