Syngal, who passed away on 9 July, brought the Internet to India, only the third country in the world to have commercial Internet — much before China
You are reading this on the Internet. You do most of your daily financial transactions on the Internet — paying for some groceries or some service that you needed. So let me speak about the man who made it all possible.
Brijendra Kumar (BK) Syngal, who passed away on 9 July, was fondly called “the father of Indian Internet”. He brought the Internet to India, only the third country in the world to have commercial Internet (much before China).
(Disclosure: I have always called him “Sir”, but in this article, for reader convenience, even though I feel uneasy about it, I am referring to him as BK.)
This column is about a man — one among many — who built the India that we live in today.
BK was chairman and managing director of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) from 1991 to 1998, and then chairman of Reliance Telecom and vice-chairman of BPL Communications. His career is the story of how India has progressed from the days when we had to wait eight hours for a “trunk call” to go through to today’s Digital India. Gen-Zers may not be able to even begin to imagine the scale of change.
All of us 1.4 billion Indians owe something, a little bit, to him. But, like many visionary pioneers who worked selflessly for India, BK did not get the honours and acclaim that he deserved.
BK, who did his BTech from IIT Kharagpur, was one of the first 50 electronic engineers that India produced. He joined the Indian Telecom Service (then called the Indian Telegraph Engineering Service) in 1964. Unlike most of his batchmates, he chose to work in “projects” rather than a desk job. “Projects” entailed actual laborious engineering work, often in inhospitable regions. But BK did not want to push paper. He wanted to work with his hands.
He spent most of the next two decades all over India, connecting the country. In the jungles of Assam, where a leopard lurked near his tent, he set up microwave towers. In the deserts of Rajasthan, where sandstorms would often erase the road his jeep had been travelling on within minutes, he laid cables that would prove invaluable to the Indian army during the 1971 war against Pakistan. He climbed mountains in Kashmir to repair repeater stations and literally connected the Valley to the rest of India by introducing long-distance direct dialling services.
“For me, building something and seeing it being constructed every day, meeting the deadlines, solving all sorts of unexpected problems, enjoying the camaraderie of the teamwork, when you had only one another to rely on–that was more satisfying than anything else,” he told me. “And the indescribable joy when you see that your project is complete, that you’ve done your job–you’ve created something that will serve the people for years, impacting their lives, maybe even for decades.” These are the men who selflessly built the India of today.
He was rewarded for his work — the government sent him off for a cushy three-year stint in Hungary. But when he returned, he pushed for the toughest assignment available — setting up the grid of earth stations for India’s INSAT satellite project. Thirty-five earth stations had to be set up on a meagre budget of Rs 40 crore within three years. And this was a prestige project for the government. If it failed, it would be a huge embarrassment for the nation. The developed world was already looking at this sky-high ambition of a Third World country with derision.
It seemed an impossible task. So, BK volunteered.
His boss was aghast. “Kambal tumhe chhorta nahin hai,” he said, “Aur tum kambal ko chhorte nahin ho (The blanket doesn’t let you go and you don’t let go off the blanket)! What is this madness? You will regret this.” But BK was undeterred.
Working against tremendous odds, he set up the stations within deadline and budget, from Ladakh to the Andamans. But it was more than just an engineering achievement. Because BK also had to deal with various ministries, departments, government committees and experts with differing opinions. Being BK, he always kept pushing for more. “One of the jokes that circulated at that time was ‘Syngal writes dissent notes in reports of committees that he is chairing because he is too futuristic’,” he told me. “But my logic always was: if you don’t start thinking about the future now, the future will be upon us before we realize it, and we will be left in the past.”
BK spent nine years in London at the international satellite agency Inmarsat. Then in 1991 came the chance to head VSNL. VSNL was at that time the monopoly international phone service provider, a stodgy and lazy monopoly which provided little service. Making an international call from India was a nightmare. One had to dial for hours to get through to Berlin or Boston. Even Bangladesh actually had better international phone services.
The seven years that BK headed VSNL should have had spawned a dozen Harvard Business School case studies. Hardly has an Indian manager ever faced so many battles on so many fronts and emerged triumphant. The work culture was abysmal — there was sloth all around and zero customer focus. The technology that VSNL used was totally outdated. Neither the politicians nor the bureaucracy saw any reason to allot any extra money to VSNL. It was a total mess all around.
BK transformed an inefficient public sector corporation into a nimble future-focused organization. From an overseas switched-voice company, VSNL became an internationally recognized telecom company, offering a full range of basic and value-added services.
Without any financial support from the government, VSNL boldly invested in the world-girding submarine telecom cable SEA-ME-WE2. Once the system became operational, India got a 10x jump in global connectivity.
Today, India’s IT exports are more than what Saudi Arabia earns from selling its oil worldwide. But our IT giants would be nowhere near where they are today without BK. In addition to easy voice connectivity, he introduced high-speed leased data lines for Indian software companies so that they could work real-time with international clients. This was the tipping point. When BK arrived at VSNL, the turnover of the Indian software industry was $60 million. By the time he left VSNL in 1998, it had soared more than 300 times to $2 billion.
Under BK, VSNL executed the largest global depository receipt issue till then to be listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) out of India. By 1998, VSNL was one of the top 10 companies by market capitalisation and other parameters on the BSE and the NSE. It was ranked in the top 30 in the LSE. During BK’s tenure, VSNL’s revenues grew from $125 million to $1.6 billion, and profits from $32.5 million to $240 million.
All through these years, he had to fight the bureaucracy and manage the politicians — three governments and five telecom ministers — through strategy, tactics, guile and plain stubbornness. And also battle the corruption inherent in the system. He had to face constant media scrutiny and false charges, often paid for by international rivals. He had to walk a tightrope, while always keeping India’s best interests in mind.
“Father of the Indian Internet”: BK launched Internet services on 15 August 1995 with much fanfare. It was a disaster. There were so many technical glitches and so much consumer dissatisfaction that within a month questions were being raised in Parliament. BK called a press conference. And, unmatched in the history of the public sector, he told the media: “I goofed up. Give me 10 weeks’ time and you’ll get a system that India will be proud of.” He fulfilled that promise. There never was a braver man.
In 2020, India had 750 million Internet connections. But it all began with BK.
In June 1998, the American magazine BusinessWeek named BK as one of the “50 stars of Asia” along with Dhirubhai Ambani and Deepak Parekh of HDFC. Said the magazine: “Unofficially, Syngal is known as ‘Bulldozer’, for his ability to crash through one bureaucratic barrier after another. India could use more managers like Syngal… Syngal is a tough boss: He posts notices chastising employees for a videoconferencing glitch or for losing a lucrative contract. But his employees know that in India’s state sector, they are working for the guy who gets things done.”
A few days after the BusinessWeek issue hit the stands, BK was sacked via a fax message late in the evening. BK would tell the sacking story very happily. His explanation was: One, his incorruptibility; and two, tremendous American pressure to take him down — US telecom companies that had been gouging the India market for decades were facing a situation where VSNL was making terrific profits and was the dominant partner in the dealings.
Post-Syngal, VSNL’s performance declined sharply. In 2002, it was sold off to the Tatas and was renamed Tata Communications.
I first met BK in 2002 when I was writing a book on IITs and IITians. I spent two hours with him and I came away with one simple thought: This man wears his nationalism on his sleeve. BK was pleased when I wrote that in my book. “That’s what I am,” he told me. “I have spent my life trying to work for India.” He was a proud son of India and India should be proud of him.
Wherever you are now, Sir, I am proud to have known you.
The writer is a former editor of ‘Financial Express’, and founder-editor of ‘Open’ and ‘Swarajya’ magazines. Views expressed are personal.
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