Silicon volcano

When Brand Bangalore took a beating

The Hindu Business Line

The violent aftermath of the death of an iconic film star may have badly dented Bangalore's claims as most-favoured IT destination. Is it a Silicon Valley or a Silicon Volcano waiting to erupt at the slightest provocation

Rarely do seven days pass, without a head honcho of an international technology company or two, passing through Bangalore — and the week gone by, was no exception. A top executive of one of the world's biggest players in the computer storage arena, as well as a key name in networking hardware, were more or less marooned in their hotel rooms for two days. Most of their engagements were cancelled, as the frenzy of violence and arson that followed the death of iconic cinema personality Raj Kumar, engulfed the city.

With little to do — except watch the non-stop coverage on television of burning buses, looting gangs and the odd dead body on the street — the two visiting heads had ample leisure to ponder over the decisions that brought their respective organisations to India's so-called Silicon City.

ANOTHER IT DESTINATION

The networking major had reason to thank his prescience — he had just come from Delhi, having decided to set up the company's newest research centre at Gurgaon, the satellite town that is first emerging as a major Information Technology destination in the North. His visit to Bangalore was more of a recruiting mission — and that could wait for another day.

The storage head had just presided over a session of pumping up of his company's already large development muscle in Bangalore. He was palpably bemused by the way the city responded to the passing away of a beloved father figure — but when this correspondent met him two days ago, he was still upbeat about Bangalore's place in the company's scheme of leadership in its highly competitive niche.

Neither of the visiting executives was ready to write off Bangalore. But for how long? Between them, they represented cumulative investments in this country of around $200 million over the next three years. They— and another thousand like them — represent a reality that is all too often brushed aside as an inconvenient fact when the subject of the city's place in the global ranking of desirable IT destinations is discussed.

Brand Bangalore is a complex combo of happenstance, coincidence and proactive action, going back 26 years, when Texas Instruments first decided to set upa satellite communication dish and create a small Indian brains trust to feed its research and development in digital signal processors back home.

Since then a fortuitous decision to open up the engineering education sector to private enterprise, a generally helpful state administrations and a notably proactive arm of the Centre's Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) have been backed by the cosmopolitan culture and upwardly mobile aspirations of the city's ordinary citizens as well as the commercial class. This typically Indian masala mix of attitudes and opportunities morphed into an international flavour that clicked where it mattered most — in the board rooms of the best information and communication companies of the world.

It is the momentum of such a combination that has made Bangalore the brand that it is today — and let's admit it — the word `Bangalored,' a synonym for having one's job snatched away and handed over to a geeky graduate in Koramangala.

DRAMATIC CHANGE

In late 2003, Newsweek put a picture of Bangalore's International Tech Park on its cover to illustrate its theme: Cutting edge `Capitals of Style'. That was then. Today, if Bangalore pops up in a Google search of world headlines, it usually opens into horror stories of crumbling infrastructure, never ending traffic snarls, erratic power and an increasingly tense and high strung work force which often spends more time coming to and going from work in grandiosely named Electronic Cities than at the work desk.

The compulsions of coalition politics in the State were seen as the main reason why Bangalore appeared to be tragically neglecting all those sectors of a metropolitan administration, deemed crucial to retaining its most valued corporate patrons.

The change of government earlier this year was seen as an opportunity for a fresh start, a new chance to address basic issues such as transport, communication and energy in a hard nosed manner without having to constantly pander to a `them versus us', `rural versus urban' mentality.

There has been some palpable change for the better even if senior administrators in the State still felt compelled to play what many, fed on American police soaps, clearly saw as a "good cop-bad cop" routine: Praise the IT-BT industry today and promise it all sorts of goodies; bash it tomorrow and remind it that `others' matter more.

Last week's orgy of violence was something that no one had factored into any equation of Bangalore's pluses and minuses. An event where sadness should have been reflected in public dignity and grace, was allowed to spiral into a free-for-all where goondaism ruled and genuine outpourings of public sorrow were snuffed out by a mindlessly violent rabble. The post mortem reports are yet to come; but the image of Bangalore has taken an appalling toll. Today, the targets of the mob have been unfocused.

What splinter of provocation will it take, to turn it tomorrow, against all those hundreds of international companies whose glass ensconced high rise headquarters might conceivably be seen as targets upon which to vent one's frustration?

Is Bangalore adequately policed? Does it have the management and the networking to respond to sudden happenings involving huge numbers of people in disaster-like situations? Is it harnessing even a fraction of the high-tech technology that it is supplying to the world, to solve its own problems of urban angst? These are all questions that need to be answered.

UNCOMFORTABLE REALITY

But equally important the city and its government may have to address the uncomfortable reality that many thousands of its citizens have within themselves an uncontrollable rage that is dangerous to ignore. The burning of a dozen buses this week and the tragic loss of life may be an amber signal pointing to larger, unaddressed malcontent. To ignore this is to put at peril all that has gone to create an unbeatable brand name that is the envy of so many other aspiring capitals.

Can a city claim to be an IT capital, if roaming gangs can force a 24X7 industry to down shutters? Will the business process outsourcing and call centre majors — Bangalore's biggest employers — not think twice about operating in an environment where they are forced to declare holidays under pressure, putting at risk their obligations to millions of customers at the end of a telephone line?

The debate whether Bangalore should be called India's Silicon Valley — or Silicon Plateau in view of its special geography — is one of those non-issues that the media throws up every now and then. That may become irrelevant if enough numbers of its hitherto `satisfied customers' decide that it is in fact a Silicon Volcano waiting to erupt at the slightest provocation.