Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu (1893-1974) never finished school. Yet this self-taught inventor, industrialist, and philanthropist, often called the "Edison of India," went on to drive over a hundred innovations across transportation, electrical engineering, photography, and agriculture.

His inventions included the Rasant electric razor, a tamper-proof voting machine, a ticket-vending device, a camera-lens distance adjuster, a fruit juice extractor, and low-cost housing designs. In 1937 he built India's first indigenous electric motor. He also made a four-stroke internal combustion engine and, in 1952, a prototype two-seater petrol car.

He toured the world, including Germany, the UK, and Belgium, to study cutting-edge technology and manufacturing, then brought that knowledge home to build for the needs of millions of Indians. His razor shows his range: he sourced motors from Germany, casings from Switzerland, and steel from Sweden, and sold over 7,500 pieces in London in the first month. He was also a skilled photographer, and filmed the funeral procession of King George V while in London.

He was making a case for "Make in India" when the country imported nearly everything and its raw materials fed Western industry. But unlike Edison, he was no showman or marketer. He left many creations unpatented, and he built for the joy of solving problems, not for building a commercial empire. Colonial suppression, and later the regulatory friction of independent India, kept most of his consumer inventions from ever leaving the prototype stage.

Independence did not help him. Nehru's model of Indian socialism put its faith in massive public-sector enterprises and heavy industry, and private inventors outside the state's circle got little support.

Colonialism also lingered in the mind. We ended the Raj but kept many of its instruments, education above all. Macaulay's centralized, English-medium system displaced much of the indigenous, community-funded learning of the gurukuls and madrasas, and it survived independence largely intact. Our textbooks celebrated Edison, Einstein, and Newton, and had little room for homegrown innovators without elite credentials.

Naidu is the clearest example. His legacy stayed local to Coimbatore, cut off from pan-Indian history, and generations grew up not knowing his name.

That is slowly changing. A biopic, G.D.N., stars R. Madhavan in the title role. Purandara Babu of Hyderabad has written to the President, the Prime Minister, and other constitutional authorities urging a Bharat Ratna. "Despite his towering contributions to India's science, technology and nation building…did not receive the national recognition he deserves," he wrote.

He is right. Any account of how an ancient country became a modern nation must include people like Naidu, a true son of the soil and one of the finest minds of his time.