The Brain in the Drain: Does Autonomy compromise the Sanctity of IIT

There have been many times that IIT's autonomy issues have been raised in the print and broadcast media and discussed in the IIT's senate, which have never been analysed in the context of how it really affects the academic environment at the institute and its real effects on the community that IIT is meant for : the students. First of all, there are 4 government institutions which have distributed powers related to various administrative and financial decisions governing the institutes of national importance. And these bodies are The Ministry of Human Resource Development, the ministry of Finance, the IIT Council and the IITs. When people say autonomy, they may mean any of the 3 below :
1) Administrative autonomy of IITs from IIT Council
2) Administrative autonomy of IIT Council from MHRD
3) Financial autonomy of IIT, IIT Council from Ministry of Finance.

Where as the administrative autonomy means powers, it means ability to take decisions , but the financial autonomy on the other hand means Financial self dependence, or less dependence on the government sources, that IIT is parasitically dependent on at the present.

A few months ago, all the newspapers in India reported that IIT faculty refused to be granted more autonomy when offered by MHRD. No one really focussed on which kind of autonomy is IIT faculty opposing? A brief analysis of the statements given by the IIT directors and IIT faculty shows that it is the financial autonomy that the Faculty is afraid of , for it will expose the researchers to an added responsibility of attracting investments and donations. Panick followed, and the faculty cried for "no more autonomy".

But the fact is that the administrative autonomy is still being incremented for the institutes on a regular basis. What it really means is that the movement of powers is from MHRD to IIT Council and from IIT council to IITs. This movement of powers has led to sudden growth in the seminars, lectures and symposiums at IIT over the recent years as their approvals are done right inside IITs themselves. Recently at the Pan IIT alumni meet a whooping 2 crores were spent on the already wealthy IIT alumni for attracting donations. A whooping 3 crores were spent in creating the online infrastructure of IIT, which ideally should have been a computer science department's weekend assignment for students. All these expensive projects are approved because of administrative autonomy that the institutes enjoy, without any liability to the money spent because this administrative autonomy is not accompanied with the financial one.

But where does the government interfere at all? What is the intersection point of the powers of IIT and powers of Government? A study of Institute of Technology Act of 1961 shows that only post where the government if at all can interfere is the Director. Quoting an IIT faculty, The Director virtually appoints the complete senior administration including the deputy directors and deans, chairs all the faculty selections including that for the Professors, is the chairman of the senate and thus the academic head, is the financial head and also the administrative head. For most people living in the campus, which includes 90% of faculty and students. But every institute and a university has a leader, how is this post of director different from the post of president at the Harvard University ? The fact is that the Director is also the chairman of the local municipality (all major complaints on water, electricity, sewage etc. would reach him). This ensures that the buck almost always stops with him . And for another reason that IIT's leadership is different from others is that this tech-only institute is administered completely by the researchers and over the years the smart MBA people and Indian civil servants have been kept away from even eyeing the institute's leadership by the cry of autonomy. And this leadership is not just academic but everything : the whole legislative, executive, treasury and judiciary of the 320 acre campus. IIT may be the only institute in the world which has too much to offer to the researchers, an administrative leadership, otherwise in the top universities of the world, technical researchers rarely can climb above the post of dean of their respective school. The last technical researcher to make it to the president of the Harvard University was Bryant Conunt, a Chemistry professor way back in 1933 about 80 years ago, when the ongoing world wars had shifted the focal point of leadership in the universities to the Academic Chemistry.

The skill sets of IIT's technical researchers for administering a university may be beyond my scope of intelligence and credentials, but the aspirations of some of the faculty in penetrating into the administration is however not a secret. Heads of Departments, Deans rarely are found in the labs, available only on appointments, their courses offer less student-teacher interaction in after class hours. Point is not that their interest in teaching/research is compromised, but that their research interest does not hinder their love for their administrative job.

When the sets of people working in Academics and people working in administration doesnt remain mutually exclusive, then there is a conflict of interest and reposibilities, especially at the intersection. It keeps academicians busy with their beloved jobs of administration. But more autonomy should mean more research, more hassle free teaching and less bureaucracy. But the fact is that for a student, time availability of a teacher for research has reduced, for teaching has reduced and centre point of the bureaucracy has shifted to the midst of student-teacher relationship, which may not have happened before in the history of Indian Academics.

But it is unfair to judge a researcher or an institute by the quantity of research and even more unfair to judge them by the quantity of time they are giving. A mistake which often the statisticians and economists do while comparing the nations and their universities by the number of publications, or patent filed (& not the patent registered). So the Quality of the research has to be judged by altogether different parameters.

Any publication is a result of hard work done by the research method: first find a research gap, then search for a conference or journal, then write, then send, then remain fingercrossed, then get accepted, then apply for travel grant for yourself and your spouse, pay for your kids if need be and plan a family trip. More autonomy will only mean easy approvals for finances. I have been dazzled by the choice of conferences that faculty (not all) attend at the tourist places like Singapore, US, UK. Some apply for only those conferences abroad at the countries where their children are based, so that the family trip gets compensated by the government. Whereas the international research unions like IEEE are steadily shifting their conference venues to east to save costs, while allowing a better tacit knowledge transfusion and networking opportunity, and it cuts their travel grants expenditure too, but the trend is yet to be seen in the Indian researcher's choice of attending the conferences. The statistics of travel grant applications at the finding agencies like MHRD, UGC, INSA and IARCS may speak louder which is not available in the public domain. When IITs started accepting the SAARC nationals and even decreased their fees in Feb 2010, there was a scope of more knowledge transfusions among the IITs and institutes in the neighborhood. But the preference of the researchers for the west, which is only going to increase with autonomy has nullified IIT's potential contribution to India's research diplomacy in the subcontinent. Over all this depicts a picture of autre-academic intentions of indian researchers for the tech-research.

Last year when V Ramakrishnan won the nobel prize, a debate on " Can IIT ever fetch a nobel prize" got triggered. It is very far fetched question to ask that Whether IIT faculty is nobel-laurable or not ? A better question is what exactly are their aspirations and what is the next milestone after becoming a professor at IIT ? are the autonomous incentives at IIT making the right aspirational play for the researchers?

2 years ago when I was doing a literature survey for a project at NUS Singapore, I was amazed with how my every search for IIT in top journals like Nature and Science resulted in nothing. My further interaction with the researchers exposed me to a perception in the international research community that if a paper is from IIT, it has to be theoretical.

And this is since how many years?
It has been throughout.

So the next better question is to ask if Autonomy can increase the aspirations ? I will choose to answer myself "No" . History is evident that Autonomy can only increase one thing among the researchers - Procrastination. And when it will come with Finances funded by the government, it is only going to contribute in the negative.

A scientific research is involved with an art of framing the facts and discoveries. But Science may be more logical, but publishing a paper is not. Researchers who target international journals always endeavor to look for a general topic and India-Centric research is avoided. Why ? Because "India" decreases the publishablity of a paper. Atleast this is a perception of Indian researchers targetting publishing in the International journals of repute. So, with this perception, how is IIT or how can it ever contribute to national priorities? Can autonomy improve on this. It will only worsen. Autonomy will not only make the institutes centre for selfish career-designing but will dismantle the channels of funding the research areas of national priorities. More autonomy may not have anything to focus on Nation's key areas.

For answering that how Autonomy will really effect students one need to look at the kinds of decisions that "within-IIT" administration has taken in the past. For the last 2 years, IIT students have been appealing for permission to keep coolers at hostels which have only fallen on deaf ears. Some students have even been penalised for keeping the coolers in the hostels. And Institute has if anything to offer is timely raids by the administration to check if coolers have been kept by students. Stray dogs too have an enmity of past several pastlives. Institute is yet to consider and do something about the dogs even after several live canine encounters faced by the students. The increased water borne diseases at IIT required a newspaper report for it to be resolved by the administration, when RO systems in hostels were replaced recently. Mess at hostels which maintain daily record of food wastage, have only contributed to increased market for nearby restaurants (among those who cant tolerate the mess food) and increased sales of Vitamin B tablets (among those who are regular at the Mess). The institute's tender system is every year renewed and every year same people apply and win their closed envelope bids. Student Organizations at IIT Delhi, even after past 2 years of arguing about these same problems, have been unable to do anything. In many decisions, students are not made the stake holders, and wherever they are made the stake holders in the administrative and financial decisions, especially in the cultural fest Rendezvous and techfest, Tryst, they got involved in money-eating exercise. Autonomy never accompanied the scope of external auditing and willingness for internal auditing, and this reduced the student posts and fest posts to money eating and CV enhancing opportunity, leading to deterioration of student culture and academic environment.

But more hilarious the reaction of autonomous IITs to the student suicides. IIT Kanpur planned for removing fans and replacing them with table fans so that no one can suicide by hanging. IIT Madras dean analysed suicide statistics in percentage terms, commenting that the % figure is ignorable. These led to serious doubts on the bright tech genii in the ability of handling the administration of a university.

But higher autonomy didnt just give the legislative, executive and treasury to the administration. It also gave the judiciary. The Disco meetings at IIT decide the fate of the students (found culprit in a crime or deemed to be a crime). This makes the whole governance of the 320 acre campus dependent on the researchers' personal idea of fairness and justice. Earlier too, the demands for appellate authority for IIT has been suppressed which leaves IIT administration to single play the fate of the students. The verdicts of Disco have been unprecedented in the history of academics globally. From hostel expulsions to semester F grade.. from intelligibility for IIT posts to suspensions.. some verdicts have destroyed careers, friendships, memories, reputations and virtually everything that a normal college graduate finds important in his life.

all this at the end of the day, makes a professor most important entity (only inside the 320 acre campus). This enhanced importance contributes the master-slave component in the teacher-student relationship, where students for their entire tenure find their degrees at the stake. The Communication gap has widened in the classrooms, and IITians after some time in the institute have nothing but a false ego in their heads, hiding from the world how their childhood dream of being in IIT, betrayed them at the end.

The Brain in the Drain: Student Politics at IIT Delhi

Student Politics
Ankit Ratan & Pranjal Choudhary

It is a bit strange that we should call student body elections in IIT as Student ‘Politics’. I have spent four years in this institute, entitling myself to speak with some knowledge about the whole process. At the same time I should also admit that I haven’t been too enthusiastic about it (Elections) in any case. While this does make me a bit of an outsider, it has allowed me to view the whole process dispassionately.

Let’s get back to my initial idea of an apolitical environment on this campus. There are supposed to be no formal political parties on campus, atleast on paper. Still, I am sure most people are aware of Axis (it’s amazing how iitians come up with such grandiose terms for almost everything). There are supposed to be two major Axis on the campus and almost all posts are influenced or decided between the two Axis. But unlike parties there is no political agenda which binds the different factions of an axis together. The axis is formed more from personal bonds and characteristic hostel bonhomie than a common agenda. Thus IIT student body elections are devoid of any political propaganda, there are rarely any issues which are heard of. Securing an IIT level post involves a detailed bargaining for posts between the axis and distribution of certain posts to satisfy people to earn support.

Getting back to what politics is. Foremost is the requirement of an agenda, which defines why a specific group of people have come together. That obviously seems absent. Most parties and people (in colleges and other institutions) want to come to power to enforce their agenda upon the system in which they wish to get elected. Not only is any such motive clearly absent amongst almost all candidates, what they do about issues that crop up during their tenure is also least heard of. Then what is the drive that forces most candidates to work relentlessly for weeks; carrying on propaganda; giving parties to would be supporters and delivering infinite fundaas to convince people of their suitability for the post. I am sure there is that temptation for power and post but it can still not fully explain this mad drive for being Gen. Sec. etc.

Did someone say CV! While it unethical for me to brand the whole student election processes as a CV enhancement exercise, I am sure there are few more who would agree with my point of view. The control theory suggests that when output is a function of input, and if output has to be controlled , then control the function . The input for IIT is talented students, math genii, numerical problem solvers . Most of the people at IIT have previously nill exposure to voluntary services at their school , because they chose to limit their extravagance of time on non academic activities . But this change in colour is something more than an unreasonable mimicry .A past few years have seen a visible change in eligibility conditions by recruiters where there has been too much stress on holding posts inside the campuses. The training and placement cell which is yet to respect the Minor degrees of IIT itself in its auto resume generator , has given special columns to the posts that students held during their stay at IIT. Even during the visit of the President on institute’s golden jubilee, when the General Secretaries represented the institute , the authorities didn’t find people with high academic caliber or mouthwatering CGPAs and good sportspersons at IIT , eligible enough to be introduced to the President (or is it that they looked for people having same credentials as her excellency the President). Whereas institutes all over the world impose fines, or suspensions to punish students as disciplinary actions, IIT may be the only institute where Students are punished with ineligibilities for posts at the campus, proving that administration too acknowledges eligibility for posts as necessary component of incentives and punishments at IIT. And it is here we crack the code , the feedback loop in the circuit is being sent to the students by the IIT itself . The rules, incentives , punishments at IIT exposes the next batches to the virtual importance of the posts at IIT , leading to the fuss during the election period.

The voluntary component in the voluntary activities , ceases to be voluntary when there are incentives for holding that voluntary post. Students posts no longer remain voluntary , and desire to hold them is slowly turning to greed. Though, The hostel posts are decided by an all student vote, none of the other posts are based on the concept of universal adult franchise. Even the freshly elected representatives from the second year are supposed to vote for these posts. How are they supposed to make an informed choice is anyone’s guess. Hostel elections do involve basic infrastructure issues, casteism, regionalism etc., thus in a way displaying the typical characteristics of any student election and can deservedly be termed as political in nature. The elections on the bigger stage though are devoid of any political colour. The term ‘Student Politics’ (or ‘poltu’ as it is popularly called), therefore can only be used in the context of hostel elections. The lack of a political agenda has rendered the institute’s political environment impotent. The institute policies are only debated in AIC and SAC meetings, where the Director’s word seems to be the final argument (reference to minutes of such a meeting is ample proof). The system seems more like monarchy with certain ‘noble class’ representing the people infront of a king, who finally makes a judgment based on his idea of fairness.

Certain reforms are needed to give some credibility to institute elections and the executive processes performed by these elected representatives. Foremost being the formation of an independent review committee which will monitor the actions of all elected and non-elected post holders on campus. Such a committee should be a mixture of students, faculty and few members of alumni as external members. The other more important reform needed is the formation of an Institute Secretary similar to the hostel secretary. Thus there will be an office equivalent to the Prime Minister and there would be no ‘passing of the buck’ on critical issues. Such a representative would also be a true representative of the students. The election of such a representative should be based on principle of universal adult franchise, without which the whole process might again just end up as another post on the CV.