New Delhi, Oct. 14 -- India does not lack brilliant engineers. It lacks the products that carry their brilliance to the world. Not one of the technologies that define modern life, the iPhone, Nvidia's chips, Google's search engine, Tesla's cars, was conceived in India. Yet India's software services exports reached a record $221.4 billion in 2025-26.

I put this puzzle to Sujeet Kumar, a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) member from the eastern state of Odisha, during the third episode of SAM Dialogues, the interview show I host for South Asia Monitor. He began his career as a software engineer at Infosys, one of the very companies at the center of the story.

A History Lesson, not an Excuse

His answer began with history. India opened it...