Dr Joshi and his strange loves

Joshi seeks to bring IITs/IIMs down to earth. Simply put, he wants more of these institutions, more students per institution, price controls on tuition fees, graduates who don8217;t go abroad, and government monitoring of private alumni contributions. His remarkable vision rolls populism, socialism, and nationalism all into one sweeping potpourri.

He asserts that less subsidised institutions 8212; for example, Roorkee University 8212; have been of far greater value to India in terms of 8216;8216;papers published, citations received, and the number of students serving the country8217;8217; than IITs have been.

While not begrudging Roorkee University its justly deserved accolades, it8217;s worthwhile noting that had IIT excellence been hype, meritorious students would not year after year have chosen IITs over non-IITs, and terrific institutions like Roorkee University would have retained their own identities versus readily assuming that of the 8216;8216;lesser8217;8217; IITs.

Had IITs and IIMs really been less than excellent, Joshi would likely have been demanding that their subsidies be eliminated and that more students be admitted to the truly excellent non-IITs/IIMs. As it turns out, he is doing quite the opposite.

He wants to increase government role in IIT/IIM finances and increase the number of students admitted to them.

Is Joshi not justified in asking why this excellence is so selective? These institutions are academic snobs plus their tuition fees now are scarcely affordable. Their limited student body increasingly consists of highly tutored children of India8217;s Anglophone elite.

Won8217;t more IITs/IIMs, larger class sizes, and reduced tuition fees, finally open up these institutions to meritorious children of all economic classes?

No doubt India requires a lot more engineering/management 8216;8216;seats8217;8217; to address the needs of its knowledge economy and the aspirations of meritorious young men and women of all economic classes. The debate is over how to get there.

Why not encourage the creation of several new public/private institutions that compete aggressively with IITs/IIMs for brand identity, therefore for the best teachers and students?

Why not free them to peg their tuition fees to levels they can command in a free market where meritorious students choose them based on their excellence? Finally, why not make tuition fees affordable through scholarships and loans rather than price controls?

As example, there is one Harvard and one MIT. Their competitors like Columbia and Caltech and so many others do not seek to rename themselves, rather they compete to create their own identities. They don8217;t set tuition fees based on 8216;8216;purchasing power8217;8217; but on what the market will pay for their excellence.

For affordability, they make available cheap financial aid that helps meritorious students of all economic classes avail themselves of terrific education. This is the common sense approach to widespread excellence.

Instead, we have Joshi conjuring up illusions of excellence merely by re-labelling non-IITs, mandating substantial increases in IIT/IIM student bodies, imposing price controls on tuition fees and, astonishingly, even appropriating alumni contributions.

He thinks that these measures will extend the lustre of IIT/IIM degrees to a lot more students than now. While indeed bestowing coveted degrees on a lot more students, this approach will destroy the lustre they all seek. Some consolation prize this would be.

The lustre of IITs/IIMs was not created in a day, was not created by the government, and was not created as a toy for populist ideologues. It is the result of the talent and sweat of generations of graduates who thrived in the real world, created jobs for other people, earned global respect, and forced the world to take India seriously.

When Andy Grove and Bill Gates speak admiringly of Indian technology prowess, they do not speak of the likes of Joshi, who seek to destroy what they haven8217;t created.

The IIT/IIM alumni who work outside India fully understand their debt to these institutions and the taxpayers who subsidised them. No matter how much they give back, they cannot possibly repay this debt fully.

They also understand their obligation to preserve the lustre of the very institutions that made them, for those who follow them. They too want Indians of all economic classes to have the same opportunities they were privileged to have.

This is alas not possible with Joshi8217;s confidence trick. His approach is like selecting 8212; in the name of fairness 8212; 1,000 players for the Indian cricket team instead of the best 11 and insisting that any 11 of the 1,000 can compete with Australia. This will hurt the 11 who should be selected, won8217;t help the rest that are selected, and will make India lose the game.

Joshi seeks to burn down the village in an attempt to save it! He must not be allowed to have his way.

The author, an IIT Delhi alumnus, is a New York-based management consultant. These are his personal views