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t h r e e
Dewang Mehta
I
t was in the evening of April 12, 2001. I was in the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital
and my Secretary Sri Sarma rang up. He sounded sad and gave me the
unbelievable news that Dewang Mehta was no more—a victim of a heart attack
in Sydney, Australia.
I knew Dewang Mehta for more that 11 years. As soon as I took over as Secretary,
Department of Electronics in June 1990, one of the first things I did was to get in
touch with the industry associations. NASSCOM was then a young, vibrant body
and the vibrancy was reflected in Dewang Mehta
—
so full of cheer and energy. He
had the brightness of technical knowledge and at the same time, had an innate
sense for timing, fashion and an enormous capacity to charm people. In these days,
when at the political level the importance of information technology has been
realized, it is difficult to visualize the tremendous role he played in promoting the
cause of Indian software.02 In fact, Dewang Meht.a had become Mr. Indian Software,
Every other sector of the industry used to say that what it needed to solve problems
was a Dewang Mehta!
Dewang had come to symbolize the vigorous, imaginative, entrepreneurial, pushy
and persuasive representative and spokesman, which every industry needs. Today,
the role of an industry champion is not only to get national policy concessions but
also influence international opinion. Dewang Mehta was superb in this area.
I was fortunate to be involved in the evolutionary process of the Information
Technology sector, particularly the software industry in India since 1990. I think I
was doubly fortunate to have come to know Dewang Mehta who was the catalyst
and champion of the software segment. He used to say in many of the meetings
which we addressed together, that I was the Lord Rama of the Indian software
industry and he was my
Hanuman
.
My standard response to this remark was that
the great Rama could not cross the ocean to go to Lanka. It was Hanuman, who
chanting the name of Rama, leapt across the ocean. Hanuman had gone far beyond
the capacity of Rama.
N. Vittal, Central Vigilance Commissioner
