The Hindu Business Line : Cultural stumbling blocks to excellence

India's culture — social and political — is the stumbling block to setting up a world-class research university. For, this is elitist, and elitism raises the hackles of political leaders and self-appointed guardians of social ethics. Yet, the same people who condemn merit-based admissions to professional colleges want the most competent doctors to attend to their near and dear. This is a debilitating dichotomy, says P. V. Indiresan.

SIXTY YEARS ago, in the aftermath of Second World War, China was actually trailing India in many respects. So also South Korea. Even War-shattered Japan had an industry size no different from that of India (though admittedly its potential was far superior). In 60 years much water (mostly dirty and polluted) has flowed down the Jamuna. India has barely risen above the stigma of being a Least Developed Country even as the others have shot far ahead.

There are many excuses for this tardy progress, the most important of which is democracy. Even today, many Indians take comfort from the thought that we are the largest democracy in the world, and democracy holds us back, and that tardy economic progress is a worthy prize to pay for a functioning democracy. That is a lame excuse: Germany has a democracy that is qualitatively superior to ours, and it has risen to dizzy heights from the ashes. So have several other West European nations. Japan too is a free democracy. With this excuse we are fooling no one but ourselves.

Admittedly, Japan and the West European nations had a foundation of education, science and technology that had remained intact in spite of the devastation of the Second World War. Neither China nor South Korea had any such advantage except one — their literacy rates were far higher than ours. So was their industrial culture.

Both have become the most admired exporters in the world. They are also among the top nations in sport. China has become so highly reputed in athletics that it has now won the coveted recognition of hosting Olympic Games. (We had better forget about cricket; if there were no Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, we would be at the bottom in cricket too.) Bollywood may be the largest in the world but has won no Oscar; China has.

India is still seen (more by others than by ourselves) as a nation with great potential. The latest in that direction is a programme launched by the Ford Foundation to investigate whether India can establish a world-class research university that can compete with Oxford and Harvard. I have been preparing the Country Paper on that topic, and have consulted a large number of our most reputed scientists and engineers of our universities.

Understandably, opinions varied on the details but on the core issue there was a general consensus: India has the potential to develop a world-class research university but is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future.

A world-class research university requires the following essential inputs: (a) internationally acclaimed faculty, (b) dedicated, brilliant students, (c) international level, financial support, and (d) full academic freedom. We have internationally acclaimed faculty but most of them are abroad. We have brilliant students too but many of them are more dedicated to making money than towards academic pursuits.

We have money too: The government releases every year an estimated $2 billion in precious foreign exchange to support Indian students studying abroad. That would be enough to maintain a hundred IITs. However, we lack world-quality academic freedom. Even the IITs do not have the basic freedom of deciding for themselves who will teach, whom to teach or how to manage their finances.

If the IITs, the IIMs, and the IISc have made the progress they have, that is mainly because their faculty have the freedom to decide what to teach. Our universities and colleges (even the most prestigious among them) do not offer their faculty even that limited freedom.

Our culture — both social and political — is the stumbling block. By its very nature, a world-class research university is elitist, and elitism raises the hackles of our political leaders and of our self-appointed guardians of social ethics. As Chairman of the Education Commission, Dr Kothari, a life-long practising Gandhian, proposed that some universities should be selected for special support and privileges. He was humiliated; his idea of having elite institutions was mercilessly shot down.

Those who insist on social equality, and shed tears for the poor, have captured the commanding heights of India's political ground. They brook no dissent. They have ruled the roost for long. It is time to call their bluff: They are more interested in the votes of the poor, in the glamorous invitations they can wangle by championing the poor, than in the poor themselves.

If they had been sincere, our poor would not be as illiterate as they are today, and will not be leading the miserable lives they lead. The poor for them is a resource; if they solve the problems of the poor, they will lose their raison d'etre. Either they do not know how to help the poor or, if they do, they do not want to do so.

We are idol worshippers; we believe in symbols not in substance. In a talk in IIT Madras, Field Marshal S. H. F. J. Manekshaw recounted how he was forced to include a woman athlete from a minority community. She did so badly, that she came back utterly humiliated. The "thoughtfulness" in including her did neither her nor her country any good. But the political masters must have benefited; they must have captured a few more votes without aiding that community in any material way.

Returning to the issue of a world-class university, and confining ourselves to science and technology, we observe that in developed countries there are 3000-5000 research scientists and engineers per million of population; India has 157.

Assuming the lower figure of 3,000 per million population, and a career-duration of 30 years, we need to admit and train one capable researcher one lakh students every year. We are neither able, nor willing, to support that minuscule number of youth with talent for research.

China has produced most astounding athletes by systematically catching them young, and giving them every possible privilege they need. In our country, there is no system of identifying potential for academic excellence; no system for retaining such talent. Instead, we wallow in an anomalous glory of having them migrate, or letting them drift to more lucrative non-technical professions.

We are violently opposed to elite education; we are happy to export the minority who survive that political antagonism. Therefore, the problem with establishing world-class universities in India does not lie in lack of talent or money; cultural inhibitions are the difficulty.

Social activists and political bosses alone are not to blame. Scientific research in India is not getting the support it needs from private investors either. Universities in developed countries, and in China too, get substantial financial support and intellectual cross fertilisation, from industry. Little of that kind of support is seen in India. No doubt, the IITs meet a quarter of their expenses from development contracts. Mostly, the money comes from the science departments of the government; they have little relation to the world of work. The little that comes from industry is mainly from MNCs, not from Indian buisnesses.

Of late, private institutions have proliferated. In the past 20 years, because of their explosion, admissions to engineering colleges have increased nearly 15 times even though the size of the economy has barely trebled. That mushrooming of engineering colleges has next to nothing to do about promoting engineering excellence; it is only for making money. In the light of this situation, I propose the following hypothesis for discussion.

Reservation for backward castes, judicial interventions in the management of colleges, opposition to elite institutions by pressure groups, restrictive regulations and bureaucratic interference will combine to prevent the emergence of merit-based world-class research universities in India.

Indian industry will continue to depend on imported technology and will not finance research universities.

As the IITs are suffering from increasing political and administrative interference, they too will not attain their full potential in basic and applied research.

The government will assist, or accord recognition to, only those private institutions that accept government control and surrender administrative autonomy. Hence, private institutions too will be handicapped in organising world-class universities.

Private institutions will be organised only as for-profit businesses; will aim to make money, not pursue knowledge.

Admissions will be based on nationwide entrance examinations common for all institutions, from the most to the least scholarly. Coaching institutions will proliferate. Those who learn by rote will gain advantage over those who study in depth.

Elementary education will continue to be neglected with emphasis on numbers and not on quality. Talented but poor children will not get the skills needed to write entrance examinations.

India will succeed in establishing a world-class research university when it learns to negate all seven of these hypotheses. It can but, sadly, we are not improving.

For instance, as a two-part cartoon in the Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan depicted 60 years ago, the same person who decried a girl's ambition to go to college, demanded that a lady-doctor attend to his sick daughter. A similar dichotomy exists these days too. The same people of substance that condemn as immoral merit-based admissions to professional colleges, want the most competent doctors to attend to their near and dear.

(To be continued)

(The author is a former Director of IIT Madras. Response may be sent to indresan@vsnl.com)

(This is the 152nd in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on June 13.)

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