Technical Communication in India

Introduction
In India, ‘technical communication’ has moved from being a little-known discipline to an indispensable career choice in many industries, over the last three decades. ‘Thriving’ is the word that best describes the state of technical communication market in India today.

There is an explosive growth of technical writing in India over the years. According to 'Google Trends Analytics', seven of the top ten cities around the world where the term "technical writing" was searched was India, for several years consistently. In 1996, the number of technical writers in India was between 100 to 300. By 2006, it grew at an exponential rate. Now, according to Ramesh Aiyyangar, the former president of Society for Technical Communication India chapter, there are more than 25,000 technical writers in India.



History of Technical Communication
With British rule, even though mass education was introduced and knowledge was no longer the private domain of Brahmins, the country still balked at industrialization. The economy was purely agricultural, and therefore industrialization was not feasible. Technical Writing was ignored, though not through neglect, but because there was no great need for communication among farmers who used little or no modern machinery. In the absence of professional journals, and a widespread disinterest in communicating what little original material was available, there was neither the need nor the inclination for technical writing. 'Technically obsolete data' was used in India for decades because of the absence of effective, regular and speedy communication from research to industry. The foreign rule did not create a climate conducive to technological change. Technical communication as a field was relatively unknown in India before the 1990s and therefore was less established. Indian technical writers had fewer opportunities to develop professional competencies.

Offshoring and Technical Communication
In 1990, there was an upsurge in the number of technical communicators in the country. The Information Technology development in India started off mainly for the cost differential. Initial days involved offshoring; that is Indian companies sent their employees abroad on projects.

There was demand for Technical Communication in India because:
 * 1) Technical communication as a profession made its influence felt on Information Technology sector.
 * 2) The companies started leveraging workforce to set up their technical writing teams and used exhaustive internal training and mentoring to impart the necessary documentation skills.
 * 3) As the operations in India matured, more engineering and development work was executed in India and in parallel, Indian technical writers moved on to writing new content.

Simultaneously, there was a need for a technical writer’s’ forum. Many technical communicators lacked formal education in the subject. A forum was required to exchange ideas, and share experiences on technical writing.

In 1997, Gurudutt Kamath, a freelance technical writer set up 'The Technical Writers of India' (TWIN) mailing list which was an instrument for like-minded people. TWIN mailing list provided learning sessions held in three different cities. Learning sessions represented a live forum that facilitated formal knowledge sharing; be it of tools, processes, metrics or basic technical writing skills.

By 1998, active discussions began on the need of establishing an Indian Society for Technical Communication (STC) chapter. Soon, Gurudutt Kamath circulated a STC application form that was signed by 17 members and submitted for approval by STC. The first Administrative Council took charge with Gurudutt Kamath as the Chapter President in 1999. Since 1999, the India chapter has increased its strength to around 100 registered members and several sustaining member organizations. STC India Chapter plays a key role in educating technical communication professionals in the country through learning sessions that impart information about the skills required to shape their careers.

Outsourcing and Technical Communication
Post the Information Technology slowdown in early 2001, outsourcing took place in a big way, in India. In 2004, big multinationals and smaller U.S. and European companies handed over to Indian companies everything from software development to financial analysis. Some American companies have set up branches in India and were experimenting with “remote delivery from India of all sorts of work, from hedge-fund administration to pre-press digital publishing”.

A 2005 STC India chapter survey points out that, nearly half the technical communication jobs in India appeared to be new jobs and not solely the result of offshoring. These findings rebut the assumptions that all technical communication and technical support jobs in India serve the U.S. market. Instead, it was found that an increasing amount of the technical communication work done in India was read and used by Indians and citizens of other countries buying U.S. and Indian technology. Stabilization and further growth of this service industry will depend as much or more on internal development within the country. Differences in the Nature of Work

There are inconsistencies in what a content developer position looks like, in Indian economy. Studies have found that Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are requested less often for technical writer jobs. Grants, proposals, multi-modal/ video content are less prevalent in Indian technical writing market. Information technology accounts for half of the Indian jobs.

Technical Education in India
Researchers have confirmed that India lacks formal technical communication programs, for which professionals feel a great need. A curriculum with technical communication courses is an important criterion for education decision-making.



In India, universities and institutions such as IGNOU, New Delhi, Symbiosis University, Pune, and Nano Science and Technology Consortium (NSTC), Noida, have started Technical Writing Training Programs. Besides universities, some corporate training institutions in metros such as Bangalore, Bombay, and New Delhi have also started offering short-term training programs for those who are aspiring to become technical writers. In the universities, the training modules are structured with a focus on academic learning, while the corporate training modules are mainly tailored to their needs and are focused on oral communication with less emphasis on communicative writing skills. However, corporate training might be highly organization-specific and overly specialized to fit specific types of projects; this becomes problematic when the technical communicator lacks a broader grounding in the field, whether that is gained through experience or academic training.

Growing Concerns for Future Technical Writers
Researchers show that Indian technical communicators perceive no cultural barriers that would prevent them from communicating freely with people from other countries in online discussions. However, several factors may discourage Indian technical communicators from seeking online training, such as tuition that is expensive given Indian salaries, residential requirements for Ph.D. students, and difficulty in scheduling synchronous online discussion that is convenient for instructors and students who are half a world away from each other.

It is important to recognize that although Indian technical communicators expressed interest in studying specific skill-based courses, they might have less use for courses that are more theoretical or culturally specific. Layla Matthew, the senior technical editor with Cisco Systems in Bangalore, notes that “earlier, we had people with journalism degrees and degrees in English applying for technical communication jobs. Now we realize that a technical communicator needs strong technical skills, web design skills, and interviewing skills. Future training for technical communicators will be based on sharpening these skills”.