V Rajaraman

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A brief biography

N Dayasindhu, Nov 12, 2025: The Times of India

Many of us know V Rajaraman through his programming books. They have helped millions of Indian students take their baby steps in the fascinating world of programming. My introduction to Rajaraman was through his book Computer Oriented Numerical Methods. The book built the confidence of a computer novice like me. Rajaraman was holding his readers’ hands and taking them along their programming journey. His books infuse a grandfatherly care for the readers. But this is not the only reason he is the pitamaha of Indian IT.


Rajaraman was one of the pioneers of Indian IT. He is part of the pantheon that includes PC Mahalalanobis, who brought the first digital computer to India; Homi Bhabha and R Narasimhan, who developed India’s first indigenous digital computer. An IBM 1620 computer arrived at IIT Kanpur in 1963. The visiting American faculty, along with Rajaraman and his colleague HN Mahabala, set up the IIT Kanpur computer lab and devised a ten-day course that covered Fortran programming, numerical methods, and introduction to computer architecture. FC Kohli, the first CEO of TCS, attended this course. The first course in programming for undergraduate students in India was the TA (Technical Arts)-306 in IIT Kanpur. Saurabh Srivastava, one of the founders of Nasscom, had his first introduction to computers from the TA-306 course. NR Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, was a graduate of the MTech electrical engineering course with a specialisation in computer science, a course pioneered by Rajaraman and Mahabala. 


Keeping the faith in IT


Despite the friendly advice from senior faculty members that Rajaraman and Mahabala should focus on mainstream electrical and electronics engineering and not toys like computers, they kept their faith and were convinced of the potential that IT had for developing India. They were Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, who along with their gang of students, were instrumental in India and Indians getting a toehold in the Wild West of the emerging IT industry.


Rajaraman’s first book, Principles of Programming, was born from his lecture notes in the late 1960s. The publisher printed the book on newsprint since Rajaraman insisted that it should be affordable to students. It was priced at an affordable Rs 15, compared to the Rs 400 that was the cost of imported books. 
Rajaraman was convinced of the need to start an undergraduate programme in computer science. He took it upon himself to convince the IIT Kanpur senate and request a few seats from each of the existing departments for this programme. He managed to obtain about 20 seats, and IIT Kanpur went on to start a BTech in computer science in 1978. To everyone’s surprise, this became India’s most sought after undergraduate engineering programme and closed at about rank 40 in the JEE exam. Other IITs and engineering colleges followed in setting up their computer science programmes. 


Maverick student


Rajaraman played a stellar role in computer science education at the national level. He headed a government committee that recommended a new academic programme called the Master of Computer Applications (MCA). Rajaraman also led the development of the AICTE’s undergraduate curriculum for BE Computer Science and Engineering. The BTech, MTech, BE, and MCA are the foundational bedrock of Indian IT and Indian IT professionals.


The iconic professor was a maverick in his student years. VC Rideout, a visiting professor to IISc, had built an analogue computer, the Preda (Philbrick-Rideout Electronic Differential Analyser). By the time he returned to the US, Rideout completed a system that could solve linear differential equations up to the fourth or fifth order. Rajaraman, who was a student at IISc in the 1950s, took on a thesis project to build the non-linear units to make the Preda solve non-linear differential equations. There was hardly any money in IISc at that time. Rajaraman went around with a solder in hand, picked up resistors, capacitors and even an oscilloscope tube to build the non-linear circuits from junk American war disposal equipment. 


Will miss his calls


Rajaraman’s family is his students, many of whom are icons of the IT industry and academia across the world. On a personal note, he was extremely supportive of itihaasa, the project chronicling the history of Indian IT. His colossal contribution to Indian IT was evident when every IT leader we interviewed would inevitably ask us if we had spoken to Rajaraman. I will miss his calls to discuss my Times Techies articles and his incisive reading of global and Indian IT developments. 
N Dayasindhu is the cofounder of itihaasa Research and Digital