FC Kohli’s Protégé And Successor Remembers ‘The Father Of Indian IT’

Fondly known as the ‘Father of the Indian IT Industry’, Faqir Chand Kohli was a brilliant technocrat and visionary. He foresaw the opportunity for the Indian IT industry decades ago when the technology sector was almost non-existent in India. His leadership and passion were key to establishing India as a trusted and quality partner for global corporations. Mr. Kohli led innovations in areas far-ranging from adult literacy, water purification, software engineering, software automation, complex-systems and cybernetics. He propagated the importance of technology adoption for India and stressed on the importance of local language and hardware industry in India.

During my initial days, I started to learn more about him and realised that he was very quick to grasp issues and was rather forthright when it came to telling us what the right thing to do was. However, if one was sure of being right, they could counter him with a logical explanation, and he would respect that. Kohli was certainly not known for his patience, but as I learned later, he was good at heart.

One of the greatest things that I learned from Mr. Kohli is the art of listening. He was a man of man of few words and his instructions were often quite minimal, which trained me to anticipate what was required to be delivered. Now-a-days it is common to have a friendly discussion and chat between a subordinate and his manager but during my initial days with Mr. Kohli it was against the ethos of the organisation to have an open discussion. It was more formal in nature which were mainly through written memos that we exchanged. However, this provided me with an opportunity to disagree in a non-confrontational way.

I still recall that he would always challenge me by presenting me with different situations and new opportunities in our early days. This was something I learned from him and imbibed as I grew to build my teams at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. later. I personally believe that the mark of a great teacher is one who inspires, motivates, and opens the mind to endless possibilities of what one can achieve. A mentor also builds strong interpersonal connections with his peers and teams through the course of his journey.

Mr. FC Kohli was the first Indian to have made an Indian IT outsourcing deal with the Burroughs Corporation in 1973. The first real ‘outsourcing’ contract we did for Burroughs was pretty small. It was for $24,000 and involved converting a hospital accounting package called the Hospital Information System, written in Burroughs medium systems COBOL to Burroughs small systems COBOL.

The outsourcing business, which also helped spawn companies such as Infosys Ltd. and Wipro Ltd., was still a few years away. Kohli saw an opportunity when he became the director of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in New York. The role took him to the U.S. where he built contacts in Burroughs Corp., the second-largest computer company in the U.S. then. Burroughs soon became TCS’ client and asked the Indian company to develop a health-care system to sell to their clients along with the company’s B1700 new series of computers.

I still vividly recall the time after completing the fourteen-week-long training, I was appointed as a systems engineering manager and was put in charge of the hardware unit in TCS, responsible for hardware maintenance of Burroughs computers in India. The job was not only challenging from a technical point of view but as a field engineer too, as I had to work with my hands using screwdrivers, pliers and sometimes sticky tape, to fix the equipment and keep it running. We could have simply bought new machines instead, but the ‘do it yourself’ approach saved precious foreign exchange and forced us to learn about system software and the support of hardware. This theme of self-reliance that we imbibed from him, to work around the cost and capability perspective was never forgotten… and is till today the hallmark of Indian IT.

Mr. Kohli always wanted India to be part of the computer revolution that was beginning in the West. His electrical engineering degree and MIT training coupled with his voracious appetite for books on technology gave him the confidence to try new things in India and to create value.

Throughout his career, the visionary leader, always maintained close ties with academics—from designing India’s first course on control systems to being in-charge of establishing IITs in Mumbai and Kanpur. Mr. Kohli was also the chairman of Nasscom in 1994-1995. Even after his retirement, Kohli continued to lead India’s IT story but this time he took it upon himself to use technology to tackle the problem of adult illiteracy in India.

He strongly advocated that India needed bright young people with good education— something India had in abundance. He firmly believed in education for the masses and thus developed the adult literacy program. He felt that multiple language competencies for the Indian IT industry would be a game changer in the future. He always encouraged the teachers/professors in Engineering colleges to upgrade their knowledge base in keeping with the changes technology was bringing to the industry. A vision that is still upheld by TCS with its employees under its continuous learning programs. He believed that a graduate armed with the latest knowledge of the tech world would be more job ready and subsequently be able to deliver well at his job too.

Mr. FC Kohli gave TCS a direction, fought scepticism, and gained international assignments through personal credibility. Under his watchful guidance, TCS grew from 10 consultants in 1969 to 14,000 by the time he stepped down in the late 1990s. Today, TCS is India’s largest private-sector employer and the most valuable IT company in the world with over 453,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants across 46 countries.

Despite his momentous achievements, his simplicity and thoughtfulness are lessons for us. His enduring optimism and his ability to foresee the future leave us with a legacy that will only help us grow from strength to strength. I will miss him dearly as my mentor, guide and a close family friend. Our industry and the nation has lost a legend.

S Ramadorai is chairman of the governing board of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and former vice-chairman and chief executive officer of Tata Consultancy Services.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.