This article examines Indian telecom policy from independence to the present. Dividing this period into three phases – from 1947 to 1984, 1984 to 1991 and 1991 to the present – the article explores the role of the state in India’s dramatic transformation from a telecommunications laggard to one of the world’s largest markets in mobile communication. It draws on a wide range of government documents, institutional surveys (domestic and international) of Indian telephony, memoirs and analyses by policy officials, and interviews with telecom executives. This article makes two arguments. First, it emphasizes the importance of external forces, including economic pressures, obligations to foreign creditors and the arrival of outsiders into key policymaking positions. Second, it provides an alternative to the simplistic argument that the state has ‘left telecommunications to the private sector’. Rather than abandon its role in network building and maintenance, the Indian government has deployed its power in specific and deliberate ways. While much of this policy development was unanticipated and at times accidental, Indian telephony has been transformed from an inward-looking and defensive statist monopoly to an internationalized, technocratic marketplace.

中文翻译：

---

重新想象印度国家：外部力量和电信政策的转变，1947 年至今

本文考察了印度从独立到现在的电信政策。将这一时期分为三个阶段——从 1947 年到 1984 年、1984 年到 1991 年和 1991 年至今——本文探讨了国家在印度从电信落后者到世界上最大的移动通信市场之一的戏剧性转变中的作用。它借鉴了广泛的政府文件、印度电话机构调查（国内和国际）、回忆录和政策官员的分析以及对电信高管的采访。这篇文章提出了两个论点。首先，它强调外部力量的重要性，包括经济压力、对外国债权人的义务以及外部人士进入关键决策职位。第二，它为国家“将电信留给私营部门”的简单论点提供了另一种选择。印度政府并没有放弃其在网络建设和维护方面的作用，而是以特定和深思熟虑的方式部署其权力。虽然这种政策的发展在很大程度上是出乎意料的，有时是偶然的，但印度电话业已经从一个内向和防御性的国家主义垄断转变为一个国际化的技术官僚市场。