Anil Gupta: Acknowledging innovators, a forgotten Gandhian legacy

Whenever I have the opportunity to talk to budding managers, leaders and senior policymakers of our society, I remind them of a fault my generation suffers from. Many of us knew the problems faced by have-nots in our society but we learned to live with them, instead of solving them. What did Gandhi do when faced with such a scenario?

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While it is fashionable to use jargons like crowd-sourcing or mass-sourcing or open innovation model today, we seldom realise that had we followed Gandhiji's advice first articulated in 1929, we would not have the tragedy of living with so many technical and social problems faced by the common man today.

Honey Bee Network tried to trigger the process of learning quarter of a century ago and the effort continues. However, we could not give such awards which Gandhiji then offered. To quote him, "It is a lesson in framing in framing the problem, defining the criteria of selection and ensuing that so that solution can be made open source by acquiring IPR rights" - Mahatma Gandhi's announcement of Machine Design Contest, July 24, 1929.
Akhil Bharatiya Charkha Sangh Workers' Samiti has decided to organise this contest for inventors and engineers all over the world that if they could come up with a Charkha or a Samyukta Yantra (for making the thread and cloth that satisfies the following criterion) shall be awarded a prize money of Rs1 lakh.

The criterion during the contest were:
(1) Charkha must be lightweight, easy to move and one which can be operated by using either a hand or one's leg, in the natural way of the rural cottages of India. 

(2) Charkha must be in such a way that a lady can work at it for eight hours at a stretch without great effort put in.

(3) Charkhas must be made to accommodate a puni (used for making handspun cloth).

(4) Eight continuous hours at a charkha must yield 12 to 20 numbers of 16,000 feet yarn.

(5) The machine should be so designed such that it costs no more than Rs150 and should be made only in India.

(6) Charkha must be strong and well-designed to handle 20 years of continuous usage. Repair and service should not cost more than 5% of the value of the machine.

(7) All those taking part in this contest with their own input costs and expenses send their machines to Sabarmati Ashram before or not later than October 30, 1930. If the machines satisfy criteria mentioned, the inventor/designer can patent it on his name.

However, if they wish to be eligible to win the prize money, then he/she shall have to transfer the rights of the patent to Indian Charkha Sangh Council. 

(8) Judges for the contest shall be Khadi Pratishtan's Sri Satish Chandra Das Gupta, Bardoli Swarajya Ashram's technical director Sri Lakshmidas Purushottam and Tiruchengonduu Gandhi Ashram's director Sri Chakravarthy Rajagopalachari. In case there is no consensus among judges regarding the winner, Gandhiji's decision will prevail.

So, why hasn't this nation of over a billion and huge wealth set-up prizes of even a crore rupees been able to develop manual paddy transplanting machine, semi-automatic device for tea-plucking or low-cost processing machines for forest produce? The list goes on.

State, market and civil society will have to explain someday, the persistence of civilisational inertia and make millions suffer everyday, despite all the growth statistics and profligacy in public expenditure. Technology Acquisition Fund and Technology
Commons are two recent small initiatives of HBN in making private IPRs a means of creating public good. But is that enough? Certainly not.

— The author is a professor at IIM-A