IIT-B ki manzilein: Neela Asmaan ya Karjat Taluka ?

Ravi Banavar
May 5, 2012

The cover article by Milind Sohoni, presenting a radically different perspective on our celebrity institutes,the shortcomings of the past years, and the suggestions to re-orient and restructure the R & D agenda,
did make interesting reading. So did the counter- perspectives on his views. The article makes many valid
points such as the JEE being a disaster, engaging in engineering in the high-school days reduces the chances
of passing the JEE, the warm-bodied jobs that many students disappointingly aspire to and a few other
hard-to-disagree observations. There is, however, an underlying altruistic note to the article and a rather
utilitarian and clinical approach to research, which I find difficult to accept in its entirety. In addition, there
are two significant points that I would like to put forth, one being our yardstick for measuring meritocracy,
both amongst the faculty and the students, and the other being our perception of research, one which is not
rooted in aesthetics. Both these aspects are indeed important if we are to call ourself an elite institute and
hope to set a good example to others in our country.
The yardstick of meritocracy
Meritocracy is largely reduced to numbers - both at the student and the faculty level. Amongst students, in
the past and to a large extent even today, it has been measured based on closed book exams of a predictable
nature. Excelling in such a system of evaluation is once again an extension of the JEE-like discipline and
application. Rapidity of thought, efficiency and time-management are the crucial ingredients to success in
this system. Reflection on a problem and appreciating the finer nuances are not expected and neither rewarded in this evaluation scheme. Open-book and surprise evaluations are still far and few. Of course, this
is not to belittle those who have achieved the magic 10s in this system but should we not be emphasizing
creativity and originality as well ?
In the past, the yardsticks for faculty evaluation were the number of UG courses taught, laboratories
set up, sponsored project funding obtained and the administrative load handled. Over the past decade
or so, there has been a growing emphasis on the number of publications. Creativity, originality and true
scholarship are tough to measure in this game of numbers. And as is increasingly evident in the engineering
world, publications are often not true indicators of scholarship. These yardsticks are not really confined to
our institute but are also prevalent in the country, as well as many institutions globally. But we need to
seriously reflect on its inadequacies and bring in newer yardsticks for evaluation for both these groups. To
conclude my thoughts on this issue I draw a few metaphorical lines from Le Petit Prince (by Antoine de
Saint-Exup
ery),
If I told you these details about Asteroid B-612 and revealed its number to you, it is on account of the
grown-ups. Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about
what really matters. They never ask:What does his voice sound like?What games does he like best?
Does he collect butterflies?. They ask: How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much
does he weigh? How much money does his father make? Only then do they think they know him.

If you tell grown-ups, I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the
roof..., they wont be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, I saw a house worth a hundred
thousand francs. Then they exclaim, What a pretty house!
The aesthetics of research
Just as great musicians and writers define an aesthetic in their field worth emulating and aspiring to, so
also, good engineering research should be rooted in aesthetics. One could either define such an aesthetic on
ones own or, emulate from globally eminent groups. The latter are those whose claim to fame is based on
contributions that have been of a fundamental nature and have influenced engineering at large. Adopting
a tunnel-visioned focus, that many research groups today succumb to, would just ensure us a place in the
academic spotlight for a fleeting period of time.
Building our research programs on such aesthetic foundations would inspire other institutions around us,
as well as draw the best from the student community to come and learn here. Engineering, rooted in such
an aesthetic is indeed an art, and such art inspires students. And academics is indeed all about inspiration
rather than forcing dogma and recipe-books with the expectation that the receiver be exhilarated and feel
grateful. Writing and executing thousands of lines of code while brushing away the fundamentals, making
human-like gadgets manoeuver obstacles and climb slopes of varying inclines without ever wondering about
the fundamentals of motion and locomotion that enable such behaviour, being slavishly tied to commercially
available software (like MATLAB) and readily accepting numbers crunched by these packages, do not constitute this aesthetic; these are just tools (like a paintbrush and canvas) to realize the crucial idea or concept
that arises from aesthetics.
I now make a few observations on the first few decades of existence of our institutions.
The initial years of existence and our shortcoming
Technology, as we see it today, is essentially a western import into our society. Right from their inception,
our institutes borrowed their curriculum and followed texts that were by and large written by authors from
the west (mainly US). Furthering what one had learnt in this curriculum, and applying it to appealing
engineering problems was possible only in the west. And of course, the west promised and fulfilled a more
comfortable lifestyle. These forces, controlled by the development of the West, largely contributed to the
inability of these institutes in reining in their graduates to stay back in the country. But there was another
significant factor as well.
A research orientation, which would have been a strong motivator to convince a few students to stay
back here, was lacking. The lack of a research orientation in an elite institute contributes to an erosion
of scholarship and a dilution of academic excellence, and finally an unhealthy disconnect between teaching
and research. The preoccupation with undergraduate teaching resulted in saddling the curriculum with an
excess of superfluous recipe-like courses and a casualty of the graduate program. Research in the engineering
sciences, leave alone the blue-sky variety, was not common and occurred only in a limited form in the first few
decades and mainly in the sciences. Academic excellence of an institute cannot be solely measured by the
number of undergraduate students who are exported to reputed elite institutions outside the country. But
we patted ourselves on this sole achievement and rested on our laurels. The situation is however changing
over the last decade and a half. And this correction is slowly paying its dividends. It may take us some more
time to make an impact on the truly blue-blooded research community but I feel we must give this process
a chance. I would hesitate from disparaging this attempt as non-relevant blue-sky research. Just as there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book; books are well-written, or badly written(preface
toThe Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde),
so also, a demarcation like blue-sky research and utilitarian research for an institute like ours is not desirable.

Further, a very utilitarian and clinical approach to research, deprives it of a certain romantic and passionate
flavour.
Distractions of a different kind
Ever since fame came knocking at our portals in the 90s due to the stellar performance (technology/gadget
creators, super-efficient cogs in a larger machine, insider/outsider trading, body shopping) of our alumni in
the global arena, there have been other distractions. For one, this dizzying fame has weakened our resolve
and caused us to succumb to the whims of our alumni, who have a vision of their school rooted in nostalgia
and presumptuously feel themselves more properly positioned to make decisions for us. It is best that we,
the stakeholders (the IIT-B community), give thought to our needs and form a coherent vision of how we
wish to be positioned in the future.
Why do engineering ?
Apart from the promise of better career prospects, there is a fascination for the field of engineering triggered
by global engineering products and events like the martian/lunar landings, the space shuttle, digital computing and digital devices, the flight of aircrafts, supersonic jets, high speed travel and autonomous robots.
These subjects held, and will continue to hold, an alluring charm, and studying them is incredibly exciting.
The flush of youth nurses these ambitions, and social obligations are far from such minds. While studying
mechanical engineering, it was truly delightful to encounter the slider-crank mechanism, learn about the airfoil, the shedding of vortices and the wankel engine. Whether these charming facts were of use to the nearby
foIk did not occur to our minds. I seriously doubt if the Wright brothers ambition to fly was triggered by
the local transportation conditions in their town or the relevant policies of their government.
To conclude, making R & D more relevant to the needs of our country is quite clear and undebatable,
but let us allow neela-asmaan research to thrive alongside with addressing the needs of Karjat taluka. Over
a period of time, these apparently disparate agendas may merge and we could picture ourselves gazing at a
starlit sky in a blissfully self-sufficient Karjat.