The incredible Indian thesis

Believe it or not, it will not take much to dam the deluge. The University Grants Commission has long been trying to create a centralised higher education hub on the Net. If the UGC administrators are ready with this computerised knowledge base, the obvious next step is to request universities to mail all their PhD applications and synopses. Centrally appointed experts can scrutinise concept papers. It can lead to eighty per cent of the petitions being rejected because research ideas are either stale or academically untenable.

It is not going to be as simple as that. A few voluble academics will run to the courts complaining against the infringement on their fundamental right to supervise more PhDs. A few politically inclined research scholars will file suits accusing the Union government of taking away their right to acquire a doctorate. But that should not deter the UGC or the ministry. Divorcing accountability from autonomy is the same as subscribing to anarchy. Somewhere down the line, a few universities should take a closer look at the achievements of some of their formidable 8216;8216;research guides8217;8217;. Have they not been systematically and even purposefully devaluing the rare certificate meant for the industrious and the seriously innovative scholar?

This process of centrally filtering PhD applications and research papers can only strengthen the enforcement of an Intellectual Property Rights regime in the Indian academic context. Shameless plagiarism and brash pilferage of ideas have cast long shadows on the campuses. The losers are a small minority of the talented. It is time that we stop forcing them out to universities abroad where their individual efforts are respected and where their original work is not treated with the same disdain as the mundane and the predictable.

Sceptics may argue that the system of Central decision-making on PhDs may also not be foolproof. Like several other well-meaning Indian institutions, it can be subverted. After all, India does not have a long history of incorruptible arbitration and honest regulation. Who will guarantee that political bias and even regional preferences will not creep into this Central mechanism? But then, the other option of giving the universities a free rein has not helped the cause of better, more credible doctoral theses. Let us not push this simple, unalloyed proposal for a Central institution to the realms of an esoteric Centre-State debate and consign it to the pages of yet another voluminous, Sarkaria Commission-like report.

The other proposal may appear even more dictatorial to the academic community. The ministry may well rank universities and grant a higher annual quota of PhDs only to the academically more advanced institutions. It means that Bhagalpur University may be allowed to produce only a single PhD in social science every three years while Jawaharlal Nehru University is given the annual right to churn out a maximum of five theses in the same discipline. Viewed from a long-term perspective, such categorisation will do more good than harm. Every five years, inspections will allow universities placed on the lower rungs to upgrade themselves. Of course, the teachers will resist. Ranking of universities can do away with the current egalitarian system of uniform pay scales. It can throw up new ways of evaluating the teacher8217;s contribution, perseverance and merit.

But that is another issue altogether. To begin with, we need to reform the PhD and ensure that the piece of hand-made paper is well earned.