India''s IT industry loses crusader

He was a person most hated to love and a few loved to hate. He was, quite literally, a one-man show who took the Indian IT industry by its neck and propelled it into the stratosphere. Many around him thought him to be overly ambitious with little care for the many toes he was accused of stepping on. People loved to mimick his lisp, gossiped about his outrageous wig and snigger about his website.

His sudden and unexpected death in Sydney, where he was part of a delegation led by Mr. Pramod Mahajan, the minister of information technology, brought a pall of gloom in amongst industry aficionados.

The fact is that this man had, without any backing, succeeded in rising up through the sheer dint of hard work and perseverance, rose to be among the most recognised faces in the country and outside. A little more than five feet tall, in an industry dominated by the big ones, he stood like a colossus. He was Dewang Mehta, the president of the IT industry apex body, National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) and a person who had become synonymous with the IT revolution in this country. He has been credited with building Nasscom to India's best-known software industry lobby group. In the process he became, arguably, India's best-known software face along with N Narayanamurthy and Azim Premji.

Apart from memberships and appointments on a number of other IT groups, Mehta was a member of the advisory group of the new IT ministry. He was on at least three state government bodies dealing with IT issues and a member of the governing council of the software technology parks of India.

That he was held in high regard across the country by people who mattered can be gauged from the fact that almost all senior industry leaders and government officials connected with the IT boom in the country, went on record stating that his death was an irreparable loss to this country.

A chartered accountant by training, his first job as an IT professional was at Dalmia cements, where he worked as an electronic data processing manager. He moved on to become a journalist for a while after which he joined Nasscom. The rest, as they say, is history.

An eternal optimist, Mehta fiercely refuted claims of a slowdown in the Indian software success owing to its heavy dependence on the US for business. He dreamed big about India's IT future and was very often quoted as saying that India's software exports would grow to $50 billion by 2008.

He dreamt of running for Parliament and of starring in a Hindi movie. Bollywood stardom didn't come to him, but he was supposed to play himself in a bit role in a forthcoming movie.

Mr Mehta will be remembered for not only for his contribution for the IT industry but also for the pro-active role he played in bettering the life of those less advantaged. He set up ten camps in Bhuj and the adjoining areas for the children orphaned by the quake.

A true human being, with no one to call his family, he had the whole IT fraternity become a part of his family.

With his passing away the IT industry would be hard pressed to find a suitable replacement. Truly, an evangelist and a crusader who left indelible footprints in the sands of time has gone!