The Indian-American who wants to connect the world

Last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg faced a setback in India. The country’s telecom regulator ruled against Free Basics — or Zuckerberg’s idea of offering a limited version of the internet that includes access to certain news, health and job portals, along with Facebook’s own social networking site and messaging services, free of cost on mobile phones. 

Zuckerberg was betting on Free Basics to help expand its user base in India, already the largest. But it was scuttled after activists argued that the service offered free access to only a few websites and discouraged people from using other competing services.  It therefore went against the principle of net neutrality that calls for equal treatment for all internet services, they argued.

It helped that Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman R S Sharma, who earlier ran the unique identity programme as its director general, knew that there was no place for walled internet gardens in a country like India, where only two out of 10 people have access to any semblance of internet.  

Now, the United States has got a new regulator in Ajit Pai, an Indian American who is a supporter of the limited version of internet that Zuckerberg advocates. 

Pai, born to Indian doctors who migrated to the US over four decades ago, has consistently opposed net neutrality during the Obama administration. 

Earlier this week, with US President Donald Trump naming him the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission or FCC, the open internet order of 2015 in favour of net neutrality could well be repealed. Pai, who was born in the US and grew up in rural America, has highlighted the digital divide in the country and is keen to close the gap. 

“I believe one of our core priorities going forward should be to close that divide —to do what’s necessary to help the private sector build networks, send signals, and distribute information to American consumers, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else,” says Pai.  “We must work to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans.”

Pie’s family history has had some bearing on his views. He was raised in rural Kansas by his parents, Varadaraj Pai, a urologist from Secunderabad, and Radha Pai, an anaesthesiologist from Bengaluru.  He has said his grandparents,  one of whom lost his father young and had to drop out of high school to work; another ran a small spare auto parts store, have also left a mark on him. 

He has argued for the need to improve mobile and internet connectivity in rural US, and says he has an open mind to achieve his dream. “Everyone should have online opportunity. 

There is no limit to what Americans could achieve if they become participants as opposed to spectators of the digital economy,” Pai has said on numerous occasions. He has often commented about the dichotomy of the lack of good roads in rural US, while having good mobile networks. 

In his inaugural remarks as FCC chairman, he said he was blessed to be fortunate to head the position and think big. “I understand that not everyone will personally agree with every policy the FCC pursues.  But I will do my best to hear all points of view — to approach every issue with a literal open door and a figurative open mind,” said the 44-year-old. 

But not everyone is convinced. 

“It’s hard to work for a consensus when you won’t sit down with each other,” Tom Wheeler, his former boss at FCC told the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Wheeler says Pai, who was an FCC commissioner before becoming the chairman, would often stay away from meetings after the initial few years at the commission.

However, others see him as the right man for the job. “He’s smart, he’s principled, and he knows what needs to happen at the FCC to grow this country and the economy and protect people’s rights,” Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, whom Pai served as a senate aide in Washington a decade ago, told the Wall Street Journal. “And on top of that, he’s a nice guy.”

In 2014, during a speech at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry event in Mumbai, Pai drew analogies between Parle G biscuits and mobile cells (cells are as small as Parle G biscuits) and talked about how he has come closer to his family in India because of technology.

“Our countries might remain separated by about 8,000 miles, but my family feels a lot closer today than it did in the 1970s,” said Pai, recalling how he had to wait for his grandfather’s aerogramme from India when he was a child and how information was hard to come by.

Restrictions on investment in communications ultimately limit cultural interaction, he said. “After all, one of the great things about the digital era is that there is ek technology, ek duniya.”  

Pai, who loves homemade idli and sambhar,  and roots for his home team in American football, Kansas City Chiefs, is married to Janine Ann Van Lancker, an assistant professor of medicine at George Washington University. His sister Sheila is a teacher in Philadelphia.

Pai’s Twitter handle is replete with good-natured banter with his five-year-old son Alexander Pai.  His kids’ YouTube videos, he says,  links his family near and far.