{"product_id":"book-dzek","title":"Midnight's Machines: A Political History of Technology in India","description":"Every Prime Minister of independent India has guided, if not personally overseen,   one prized portfolio: technology. If, in the early years, Nehru and his   scientist-advisors retained an iron grip on it, subsequent governments   created a bureaucracy that managed everything from the country's crown   jewels-its nuclear and space programmes-to solar stoves and mechanized   bullock carts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But a lesser-known political project began on 15 August 1947: the Indian   state's undertaking to influence what the citizens thought about technology   and its place in society. Beneath its soaring rhetoric on the virtues or   vices of technology, the state buried a grim reality: India's inability to   develop it at home. The political class sent contradictory signals to the   general public. On the one hand, they were asked to develop a scientific   temper, on the other, to be wary of becoming enslaved to technology; to be   thrilled by the spectacle of a space launch while embracing jugaad, frugal   innovation, and the art of 'thinking small'. To mask its failure at building   computers, the Indian state decried them in the seventies as expensive,   job-guzzling machines. When it urged citizens to welcome them the next   decade, the government was, unsurprisingly, met with fierce resistance. From   Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, India's political leadership has tried its   best to modernize the nation through technology, but on its own terms and   with little success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this engaging and panoramic history spanning the arc of modern India   from the post-War years to present day, Arun Mohan Sukumar gives us the long   view with a reasoned, occasionally provocative standpoint, using a lens   that's wide enough for the frame it encompasses. With compelling arguments   drawn from archival public records and open-source reportage, he unearths the   reasons why India embraced or rejected new technologies, giving us a new way   to understand and appreciate the individual moments that brought the country   into the twenty-first century.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49328155853104,"sku":"BDdzek","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/537048-dzek-Square.jpg?v=1733707095","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-dzek","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}