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| India’s Intellectual Treasures: The IIT Legacy | |||
| Are the IITs all that they are hyped to be? A picturesque coffee table book IIT: India's Intellectual Treasures attempts to investigate. | |||
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Growing up in India, and then coming here and watching Indian children grow, I’ve realized that no matter where Indians land on the face of the earth, we continue to do one thing-obsess about education. It is interesting to see parents talk about SAT scores and which Ivy League colleges their kids have applied to while looking down upon the not so academically gifted children of their friends. Things are changing now, but even today, if sons and daughters don’t make a beeline for engineering, medicine or law schools, their parents start asking each other where they went wrong! | ||
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While my folks never told me I had to get into an Ivy League school, my dad’s favorite line was-“Don’t expect me to give bribes to the college Principal to admit you, if you don’t do well. You can go and study in “Putli Paathshala” (a generic name he gave to all schools he considered equivalents of community colleges in India). Well I managed to go beyond the dreaded putli paathshala, and so did all my brothers and sisters, but I think nothing created greater waves in the family than when my brother Prasun aced his way to an easy admission into the hallowed interiors of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. The fact that, at that time it was beating out the other IITs (there were 5 then, there are more today)in various arenas of achievement was the icing on the cake. If the son made it to IIT, his parents achieved instant stardom and nirvana along with him, I got preferential treatment from girls eyeing him as a future groom, as they suddenly fell over each other to be my best friends with enthusiastic parental permission to boot. The fact that my brother may have to struggle through the rather exhausting and punishing curriculum was never a consideration. That he would excel was a foregone conclusion since he had always been super smart and disciplined-he seldom came second in anything! My memories of IIT then were limited to the rare occasions my possessive brother would condescend to take me with him for the annual inter IIT festival called Rendezvous. While I was mesmerized by the amazing talent I saw during this festival where representatives from all the five IITs, competed in various events, from music to debate to sports to so much more, my brother would spend most of his time swatting away his friends or anyone officially known to possess the Y chromosome who tried to get anywhere near the invisible” lakshman rekha” he had drawn around his sister, due to paucity of the opposite sex. One of his coolest friends then was and is Anoop Gupta-brilliant, humble and extremely charming, he got my vote as Prasun’s nicest friend, when he once spent an inordinately long amount of time explaining the intricacies of the computer to me, while my brother impatiently brushed me aside as most brothers are wont to do with younger sisters! Anoop today, is amongst Bill Gates key men without whom Gates doesn’t make too many important decisions. My real understanding of the IIT s came when I decided to do interviews with Anoop and Dr Beheruz Sethna, the President of the State University of West Georgia. Both presented their side of what it meant to be a part of these elite institutions. Anoop was a top notch student and initially wanted to study medicine. He had opted for engineering to stay close to his family and said that all he knew about the IITs when he joined was that they were India’s top engineering schools at par with MIT as far as undergrad education was concerned. Then he saw top students falling by the sideline and realized the competition was very tough. When Anoop topped in his first year he thought it was a lucky fluke. When he repeated the feat every subsequent year he said in his unassuming way, that it was very reassuring. “ Today when I look back there is definitely this realization that the best from the IITs are right up there with the best from anyone in the world.” He also said that the fact one is from the IIT definitely opens doors both in academia and within the alumni IIT fraternity where fellow IITians reach out and help each other out though later, it is up to you to leverage that advantage. Dr Sethna on the other hand was forced to join IIT to fulfill his father’s dream of seeing his only child there. He cracked me up when he said many years before he became old enough to apply to the IIT, his dad would go around pointedly with a clipping of the IIT ad in his pocket, making it very clear where he wanted his son to head. He says he was pretty miserable there, having naively taken on a heavy load of extracurricular work not quite realizing how punishing the curriculum was. During his time in IIT he says he rarely saw a professor who could teach well, even though a lot of them were exceptionally brilliant and nationally acclaimed researchers . “In the five years that I was there all I saw was their rear ends most of the times, writing equations on the board. When they were done they would erase them and continued writing more questions on the board.” Dr Sethna added that no one seemed really enthusiastic about teaching, no one explained anything to them and he felt that the entire environment of IIT was ruled by fear and intimidation. Dr Sethna who has been voted as one of the best Professors as well as an excellent administrator jokes that he learnt what not to do as a professor by watching those who taught him in IIT! Dr Sethna however acknowledged that IIT taught him there is no short cut to hard work because you end up rubbing shoulders with some of the most brilliant people in India. But are the Indian Institutes of Technology all that they are hyped to be? My friends Suvarna Rajguru an attorney and Ranjan Pant an IIT alumi and business entrepreneur decided to investigate and have come out with an introductory overview of the IITs in a picturesque and concisely written coffee table book IIT: India's Intellectual Treasures. It was pretty interesting to read about how the notion that industrial development was possible only by training high level technocrats, in new, freshly created technical institutions for post independent India, propelled Jawaharlal Nehru to build the IITs. The first IIT was established in Kharagpur in 1951, the site chosen to honor the spirit of the lost political prisoners fighting for India's freedom in the near by Hijli jail. According to the authors, IIT Kharagpur therefore symbolizes not just technical brilliance but the pride and honor of India in the face of Britain's legacy of death and destruction. The next four IITs, Bombay, Chennai, Kanpur and Delhi were built by financial and other assistance from UNESCO, USSR, West Germany, USA and Britain and the influences can be seen partly in their unique curriculum and partly in construction. The last two created in 1994 and 2001 at Guwahati and Roorkee, are the creation of the now self reliant central government. Life was not very rosy when the first graduates started emerging from the hallowed portals. Three reviews in 1986, 1995 and 2000 brought home the realization that while the 27,000 engineers who exited these state of the art institutes became trailblazers worldwide, they had failed to meet the needs of the nation's industry. Several alumni had departed to foreign shores for higher studies and not returned, so India was left struggling with a lagging rural economy. What also stood out was the fact that while the revered, highly experienced older faculty was retiring, there were not many worthy heirs and insufficient support to fund research programs, raise pay scales or even get consultants or professors from outside, and it affected the institutions adversely. While many consider the IITs to be at par with MIT as far as the undergrad programs go, they are considered nowhere near Ivy League standard for postgraduate work. On being reminded that the motto at IIT Kharagpur read "Dedicated to the service of the Nation," an alumni quipped, "Which Nation?" a biting reference to the exodus of the Indian technocrats to the U.S. Talking about their alma mater seems to have struck a deep chord within the 35,000 strong IIT alumni community in the United States. The book captures the outpouring of nostalgia and memories and the authors have made a conscious effort to portray the flip side of being an IITian. From studying day and night to the sounds of loud music, the tough competition not just to get in but to survive, lousy food, walking on the dark side with games of Russian roulettes and high stakes, the alumni recall sex, drugs, rock and roll at the Mood Indigo Festivals, attempted suicides and breakdowns. The IIT fraternity also formed "close bonds of friendship that resulted from mutual struggles, competition and commiseration." An IITian knew the only religion and citizenship that mattered was being an IITian. The $30 billion joint assets and the glorious success that many IITians have savored in the United States is only because of the "fundamentals learnt in IIT," according to the alumni interviewed. The book also captures the journey of some of the alumni, including those who have returned to India to help their alma maters with financial and hands on help. The authors profile 25 top alumni who have made the highest "global impact in terms of innovation, wealth creation, leadership and philanthropic activities." The book is strewn with beautiful pictures, interesting statistics and quotes about the seven institutes and their alumni. It took the authors two years of extensive research, collaborations with two historians(one of whom did his PhD dissertation on the IITs,) pouring through 50 years of India's annual reports on education, visits to all the seven campuses, extensive interviews with academia and faculty at IIT and several students and alumni to create this book. This book also pinpoints the vital statistics and captures the essence of these institutes to whet the nostalgic appetite of any IITian. It is an intriguing read even for someone not from these techno jewels in India's crown, a succulent appetizer, and sets the tone for more in-depth books as the main course to follow. Mohanbir Sawhney, who teaches at the Kellogg school of management said to me that he spoke to an Indian cab driver in California who told him he tells all his non Indian customers he is from IIT and gets a hefty tip at times! Indeed in recent years the IITs have caught the imagination of the world globally. CBS ran the piece "Imported from India" thrice in 2003 on 60 Minutes. Business Week, Forbes magazine and even Dilbert showcased them. It was interesting to note that while Ranjan is an IIT alumnus, Suvarna who came to this country when she was barely 2 and raised in the US, recognized the significant contribution of these institutes globally so much so that she quit a prestigious job and spent two years in coauthoring this book and Nehru I guess had the last laugh! (To purchase IIT :India’s Intellectual Treasures- go to Kavitamedia.com)
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