Brain (in) Drain

The term “Brain Drain” is not new to IITs. For decades we all have been crying to prevent IITians from leaving the country, but as always, we have only been crying, not doing anything. Thanks to IITs for taking initiative at last. This has not only provided a new ground for the new students, but also thrown open a new dimension for alumni to be explored.
Like any good philanthropist, IITs had kept their efforts under the wrap, unless the Government of India gave green signal to Right to Information Act (RTI). One RTI application was immediately filed for the cut-off marks for IIT-JEE 2006 by someone who had absolutely no idea as to what blunder he is headed to. When the data got public, it was a shock to many as a student scoring very high in two subjects but missed the cut-off by one or two marks in one subject, was not selected, while a student scoring just the minimum marks decided by the divine intervention of a professor in IIT Kharagpur (the IIT which conducted JEE that year), was chosen. The RTI applicant failed to see the God’s grace in the words of the professor and asked for the explanation of the method employed to reach the cut-off. The professor, realising the limitations of a lesser mortal, gave all the statistical tools that he was aware of, thinking that this at least is going to confuse everybody, if not convince any. Alas! Had the professor known that God’s counterpart also has some representation in the world, which would surprisingly know statistics, he would have clearly said that God ordered him to set this cut-off in his dream, but this never happened, and the RTI applicant went to Calcutta High Court against the Prof. This resulted in single digit cut-off marks in JEE 2007. How ignorant was the RTI applicant, but thanks to him, it is only because of him that we are aware of the responsibility IITs have taken to create social “robots” at large. What else can we say to one of the most competitive undergraduate entrance examinations in the world? Is it really about “paas or fail”, the culture heavily criticised by many? IITs have realised that they can show new career doors to the likes of Narayanmurty’s son, who went to Carnegie Mellon because he “could not make it to IIT”. Many people have gone to study at other world’s most reputed colleges. The elder brother of one of my friends went to Dartmouth to study engineering because he was not selected in IIT. After one and a half years of his undergraduate education there, he realised that he fits in journalism, and not in engineering. He changed his major, and is now working in one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. He is happy and successful, and thanks IITs for not taking him in. “I wouldn’t have been able to do so in IIT, everything is so fixed there”, as he puts it. Yes, everything is fixed here, form cut-offs to CGPAs and CPIs, everything has this fixed tag attached, but still, IITs have made many careers like this. Well, if you belong to a middle class family, if you cannot afford another quality backup, if you fail to get so called “cut-off” marks in any subject (it doesn’t matter if you top in Math and Physics and you intend to study Computer Science and Engineering, but missed the Chemistry cut-off by one mark), then “thou art damned”. You simply don’t deserve it. This is the way social robots are created, not taking humanitarian aspects. Who cares, we breed horses here. Of course there are exceptions, but most of the aberrant handful success stories like writers are of peculiar age group, that may be called ‘old’ by many, save Chetan Bhagat. The person who fails to be a robot or a horse and who fails to compromise on his expectations but have come to IITs just because he heard it to be a “nice place”, commits suicide. Thanks to IITs once again, this person would never have made a good software engineer, or would never have cracked CAT, or would never have gone to US for his MS/PhD and then stayed there.
Since the inception in 1956, IITs have come a long way to one of the brands that India boasts today. Unarguably, they are centres that impart excellent technical education. I have many friends who hold IIT degrees. I have seen a tint of pride in their and their family members’ eyes. A joke at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says that it (MIT) is run by an IIT Kanpur mafia, which is true to an extent, as it is not astonishing to see around 500 Indians at MIT at any time, including distinguished faculty members. From Narayanmurty to Vinod Khosla, it is brand IIT. No wonder whenever government decides something about this institute, a loud cry follows. But recent events have only given a new definition to the term “Brain-Drain”. It is not just fledging the IITians, it is literally throwing a creative and intelligent human brain to a drain.