'IITians Are Big Fools'

No, it wasn't a frustrated or failed aspirant but a former IITian who saidthis last week at a lecture while addressing a crowd of nearly a thousandIITians and other college students during the annual Techfest at IndianInstitute of Technology, Bombay (IITB). But coming from Dunu Roy, who, unlikehis colleagues and peers, decided to pursue grassroot integration of technologywith local and practical requirements, it shouldn't have been a surprise toanyone who has followed this IITian's career.

But for a first-timer, the 90-minute talk and the subsequent Q&A couldwell have been an eye-opener. Provoking his audience by calling them "bigfools" who know nothing about India and its village life, Roy said theIITians are victims of the politics of education and science. He added that thefirst lesson he learnt was that technologists and engineers are under anillusion that they get to take the decisions. That was not all. He went on tosay that environmental dynamics aren’t understood by engineers who seem tospecialise 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 Microsoftsof the world?" he asked. And then proceeded to answer by pointing out thatmany of the students would do so because "Indian technical education isgeared to meet global demands". The collapse of the US education system hasled to a shortage of scientists and technologists, he said, which is why thecourses they [the  IITians] are learning are required for the US".Since Indian engineers are also cheaper than the American counterparts, "itmade good sense for the Indian government to promote technical education so thatyou can provide cheap service to the US." Therefore, he suggested, thecurriculum has changed. Earlier, he pointed out, IITs had a more integratedapproach and also taught humanities, ethics and logic. But these subjects wereremoved 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 scientistsand technologists" who could provide equal rights to food, shelter,education and work to the people. The idea was to take the "best fromuniversal education, invest in pockets like IITs (so that) they would returntheir expertise to the common pool of the country."  Which is why themoney 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 ofKanwal Rekhi, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist— who have earnedmillions of dollars, Roy posited that while the ostensible aim of education isto teach us about success, most of our learnings  comes from analysing andunderstanding failures. For every one IITian who makes money, there are 10others who don't. And no one talks about the thousands of IITians who stay backand work for the country despite encountering victimisation by domestic politicsof science and technology. Urging the young students to ask questions, and notjust be receivers of "wisdom", Roy asked them to "learn the lawsof 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-graduationfrom IITB, Roy moved to Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh and started theVidushak Karkhana as part of the Shahdol Group carrying out focussed work onbuilding a development model for the district and its implementation, inconjunction with local people. He was involved in this for 17 years during whichhe earned his income primarily out of repairing bicycles in the villagedistrict. He then shifted to Delhi for a four-year stint with the WorldWide Fund for Nature, and later set up the Hazards Centre, amulti-disciplinary consultancy group. 

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