WHAT ABOUT IIT's IIM's?

WHITHER IIT’S IIM’S ?

Nothing concentrates the Indian mind more than criticism of something Indian. I have tasted the wrath that our people are capable of on the several occasions that I have written something less than flattering about our country. Minister Ramesh Jairam is the latest such guy to be at the receiving end of national anger.

WHITHER IIT’S IIM’S ?

All that this gent said was that our much touted IIT’s and IIM’s are world class not because of great faculty or research output –which in his view were mediocre—but because the students in these institutions are world class.

The torrent of anger that this remark elicited began with the Union HR Minister Kapil Sibal and cascaded into a countrywide expression of indignation .I believe this is part of the great Indian tradition of debate that makes our country a robust democracy and however unpalatable the comments one must encourage such bebates.

At the risk of adding to this cauldron may add my two bits ?

The purpose of IIT’s and IIM’s is to my mind not to increase human knowledge but simply to produce good engineers and managers. Period.

As a nation we are not at a stage when we can aspire to be knowledge creators. That stage will come in the future but right now it is enough if we produce efficient and skilled people in all domains of work .

The knowledge creation stage can be reached when the necessary wherewithal is available. For example in order that society becomes research oriented we need to become a meritocracy. We also ought to be in a position to risk billions of money with a possibility that all that investment may amount to nothing. We need divergent thinkers, mavericks, Risk capital, venture capitalists, expensive laboratory equipment etc.

None of these can be envisaged in the foreseeable future.

It is essential that like China we merely stress on generating jobs for the great masses of illiterate/semi literate people. After all China has forged ahead of us not by breakthrough research but by simply mass producing the most basic of goods – pens, pencils, chewing gum, simple toys, girls’ ribbons, condoms etc that the US market devours and in the process funnels into Chinese coffers trillions of dollars apart from generating a billion jobs.

Ramesh Jairam’s comment comes ironically at a time when M.I.T, that iconic technology institution at Boston is celebrating 150 years of its existence. The President of MIT Susan Hockfield. says "If we can't figure out how to make technological innovation the path to the future, then America is not going to have invented the future, some other country will have." Surely India is hardly in a position to aspire to ‘inventing’ the future.

Our problems are far more basic—like making a toilet available for every Indian.

That apart there are larger issues that are typically Indian that impede research and entrepreneurship of the kind that make MIT one of the world’s greatest sources of breakthrough ideas.

I offer an example that I am aware that involves a close relative of mine –an IIT alumnus-- and serves to throw light on an aspect of Indian reality.

This relative of mine went on to achieve world fame in his chosen field and was awarded a medal by the US President George Bush for outstanding contribution to science the US. An IIT invited him to spend a few months every year teaching students in India. A few months later this relative told me that he would not like to continue this annual visit. His reason?The IIT cannot afford and did not care to subscribe to the kind of research publications in his field that were extremely essential to him. He said that at this rate if he did not keep in touch with daily developments in his field—that invariably took place in the US--he would be considered illiterate back in his American University. I do not wish to tell you about the bureaucratic setup that stifled him and which Jairam alluded to .

However he added that he could hardly blame the IIT since India’s problems are far more basic. He also referred to the toilet example I have cited above.

Things have changed since this incident. There is this concept of reverse innovation . India had made its first baby steps in generating innovations—courtesy US funding of Indian research talent. Perhaps these simple steps have served as a warning signal to the US about India’s potential.

To quote MIT President Hockfield again "If you travel to Asia, to Shanghai or Bangalore, you feel the pulse of people racing to a future they are going to invent. You feel that rarely any more in the US."

By the way MIT is actively engaged in research on alternate energy and this research has been partly funded by guess who ?

Ratan Tata.

Jai Ho.

K.R.RAVI

WWW.KRRAVI.COM