[Assam] From Outlook India: 'IITians Are Big Fools'

[Chan Mahanta]

ENCOUNTER
'IITians Are Big Fools'

( Highlights mine----cm)

No, it wasn't a frustrated or failed aspirant but a former IITian who 
said this last week at a lecture, while addressing a crowd of nearly 
a thousand IITians.
Rajesh Gajra


No, it wasn't a frustrated or failed aspirant but a former IITian who 
said this last week at a lecture while addressing a crowd of nearly a 
thousand IITians and other college students during the annual 
Techfest at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB). But coming 
from Dunu Roy, who, unlike his colleagues and peers, decided to 
pursue grassroot integration of technology with local and practical 
requirements, it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who has 
followed this IITian's career.

But for a first-timer, the 90-minute talk and the subsequent Q&A 
could well have been an eye-opener. Provoking his audience by calling 
them "big fools" who know nothing about India and its village life, 
Roy said the IITians are victims of the politics of education and 
science. He added that the first lesson he learnt was that 
technologists and engineers are under an illusion that they get to 
take the decisions. That was not all. He went on to say that 
environmental dynamics aren't understood by engineers who seem to 
specialise in solving one problem to create another one, thereby 
creating a "sustainability for the engineering profession-and not for 
the people".

"How many of you will end up working for the Haliburtons and 
Microsofts of the world?" he asked. And then proceeded to answer by 
pointing out that many of the students would do so because "Indian 
technical education is geared to meet global demands". The collapse 
of the US education system has led to a shortage of scientists and 
technologists, he said, which is why the courses they [the  IITians] 
are learning are required for the US". Since Indian engineers are 
also cheaper than the American counterparts, "it made good sense for 
the Indian government to promote technical education so that you can 
provide cheap service to the US." Therefore, he suggested, the 
curriculum has changed. Earlier, he pointed out, IITs had a more 
integrated approach and also taught humanities, ethics and logic. But 
these subjects were removed in order to hasten the production of 
'unreal' technologists. 

The original vision to set up IITs stemmed from the independence 
movement. The Indian leaders at that time realised "the need to have 
trained scientists and technologists" who could provide equal rights 
to food, shelter, education and work to the people. The idea was to 
take the "best from universal education, invest in pockets like IITs 
(so that) they would return their expertise to the common pool of the 
country."  Which is why the money to fund the IITs comes from the 
exchequer, he pointed out.

And then came perhaps the most thought-provoking part of the lecture. 
Referring to the hyped-up success stories of IITians -he cited the 
example of Kanwal Rekhi, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist- 
who have earned millions of dollars, Roy posited that while the 
ostensible aim of education is to teach us about success, most of our 
learnings  comes from analysing and understanding failures. For every 
one IITian who makes money, there are 10 others who don't. And no one 
talks about the thousands of IITians who stay back and work for the 
country despite encountering victimisation by domestic politics of 
science and technology. Urging the young students to ask questions, 
and not just be receivers of "wisdom", Roy asked them to "learn the 
laws of motion of society and not just the laws of motion of 
science." 

And coming from him, it did not sound phoney. For after his 
post-graduation from IITB, Roy moved to Shahdol district of Madhya 
Pradesh and started the Vidushak Karkhana as part of the Shahdol 
Group carrying out focussed work on building a development model for 
the district and its implementation, in conjunction with local 
people.He was involved in this for 17 years during which he earned 
his income primarily out of repairing bicycles in the village 
district. He then shifted to Delhi for a four-year stint with the 
World Wide Fund for Nature, and later set up the Hazards Centre, a 
multi-disciplinary consultancy group. 

  It's rare for IITians to be the recipients of such blunt talk. And 
it should be noted that the student organisers of Techfest invited 
Dunu Roy to give this talk after accepting his condition that there 
would be no restriction on the content of his lecture. So perhaps the 
IITians are not such big fools after all.

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