The MA programs in the Indian Institutes of Technology are relatively new programs introduced to build social and cultural sensitivity in these IIT campuses. They were also created to increase gender and caste representation and have brought economic independence to the campuses by introducing self-financing and monetised programs. The recent issues of radicalisation and left biased studies at IIT Gandhinagar have brought two issues into focus; (i) the MA and PhD admission process in HSS and other new interdisciplinary departments such as Policy Studies, Development Studies, law, cognitive Sciences, and other such fields in IIT campuses, (ii) faculty recruitment process in HSS and other such departments across all IITs.
The admission systems into HSS postgraduate programs are mostly based on an interview-specific approach, or in some cases, department-specific entrance tests, which have descriptive questions that may reflect ideological leanings. This type of examination system leads to aspersions on the optimal use of institutional autonomy compared to national examination systems like GATE and JEE entrances. The same IITs, prioritising meritorious students coming from all parts of the country and all communities, may become a place of compromise when it comes to MA and PhD programs in HSS and such departments. These departments have taken their autonomy to an extreme by suddenly increasing the number of students in the MA programs or PhD programs without giving a thought to managing these programs in premier Institutes that usually focus on quality over quantity. In some cases, the departments have started behaving as autonomous institutes free of either institutional administrative process or peer-review scrutiny within and beyond the campus. In some cases, the IIT MA and PhD thesis defence announcements have been limited to the department students and some alumni, rather than being sent to all technology and science students or faculty on the campuses.
The crux of the issue is that if HSS and such departments are an integral part of the IIT system, why not introduce a joint entrance examination system for IITs postgraduate programs in HSS fields? Why have GATE HSS components remained less popular? Why not have a steady name or nomenclature for the MA programs across all IITs where these programs are introduced? Currently, the names such as Society and Culture are opaque and become an easy target for ideologies. Questions related to academic rigour, transparent assessment systems, and sensitive approaches to national concerns will continue as long as scrutiny and stipulated ways of vetting these programs are not introduced. These programs have the potential to dilute the system’s trustworthiness and robustness, unless the people who run them are held accountable and monitored by strict institutional and inter-institute academic monitoring norms.
Similarly, the faculty recruitment process in Humanities and Social Sciences in the new IITs is porous with little peer control. Unless the recruitment process across all departments is streamlined and strengthened, the chance of delivering high-quality content to students is limited. Linguistic and ideological biases should not become the governing factor in faculty selection. Mostly represented by Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu the faculty recruitment process demands more social and demographic inclusiveness across all IITs. The new faculty members in HSS are hardly aware of the culture of the Indian Institutes of Technology, since there are not many senior faculty members to guide or monitor. They take their perceived autonomy for granted.
Recently, transgressions across all IITs in academic conduct have been visible. It is the need of the hour for both the central government and stakeholders to observe and intervene when there is a gap that demands urgent attention in the education system of our premier institutes. If handled with care, HSS can be an essential game changer for the IIT system. Therefore, is there a storm in the teacup or just an upturned teacup waiting for rainwater to fill up in the storm, it’s up to us. We cannot afford to dilute the academic standards of IITs at this crucial juncture of our national growth.
