Another IIT student has died by suicide. And as inevitably happens, the IITs are once again on trial.
Television anchors, newspaper columnists and social-media commentators have rushed to pronounce their verdicts. The IITs, we are told, are brutal, competitive and discriminatory places that have little concern for students who come from less privileged backgrounds.
I don’t know enough about the circumstances of the latest tragedy to pass judgment on it. But the debate has taken me back to my own IIT days—and what I remember is rather different.
An Infinitely Caring and Inclusive Institution
I remember an institution that was demanding, certainly, but also remarkably encouraging and inclusive. I remember teachers who took a personal interest in us, classmates who came from wildly different backgrounds, and an academic environment in which being curious was considered a virtue rather than a weakness.
But memories have a way of becoming inconvenient when they don’t fit the current narrative. So here are some of mine. And, rather than confirming the picture of a cold and uncaring institution, my memories are almost the opposite. I remember an institution that was remarkably encouraging, inclusive and, in its own rather understated way, caring.
There were only five IITs then. Fewer than 2,000 students were selected through the JEE for all five together. My school, Netarhat, was something of a JEE factory. More than half of those who appeared for the examination eventually made it to an IIT, mostly on their first or second attempt.
Interestingly, Pure Sciences was a popular choice among the boys who secured high ranks. The reason was not difficult to understand. Many of them had already decided that the Civil Services—read IAS—was their ultimate destination.
So why IIT?
For many, it was simply a matter of practicality. The universities in Bihar were then in considerable disarray. A three-year BSc programme could easily stretch to five, with delayed sessions, cancelled examinations and precious years lost in the process. An IIT degree, on the other hand, was clockwork by comparison. Three years meant three years. One could then get on with life—and prepare for the UPSC examination.
I too joined IIT Kharagpur, for its five-year Integrated MS programme in Physics. My objective, however, was quite different. I wanted to move to an American university for higher studies and research in astrophysics. I did not have a particularly spectacular JEE rank. But I got what I wanted and, unlike many of my schoolmates, never made a second attempt.
Mine was probably among the last batches to enter the old five-year BTech and MS programmes after Class XI. The IITs subsequently moved to four-year programmes, with admission after Class XII.
Pure Sciences in an IIT?
Those of us studying the sciences were treated with considerable affection and encouragement by our teachers. We were also objects of mild curiosity in the hostels. Our teachers would tell us, almost as special encouragement:
“You people are going to become scientists, not mere engineers. You must therefore approach knowledge differently.”
The engineering students in the hostels, meanwhile, wondered what these science fellows were doing in a premier engineering institute in the first place.
My class had just sixteen students. During the first two semesters, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics students sat together, and many common courses continued thereafter. It was an intimate academic environment by today’s standards.
There was another feature that did not escape the attention of the engineering students: roughly half the class were girls. That made us a particularly enviable lot in the hostel.
And then there was the money.
Affordable Higher Education
Tuition fee was ₹25 a month. Hostel rent was ₹12.50. The mess bill, at less than ₹200 a month, was the largest expense most of us had to worry about. My NTS scholarship covered more than half of my expenses. Even so, some money had to come from home. IIT of late seventies and early eighties was, of course, a very different institution from today’s IITs. Tuition fees alone now run into lakhs of rupees a year. For many poor and lower-middle-class families, the cost of higher education has consequently become a much bigger barrier than it was in my time.
I have written about this earlier in my blog, titled Higher Education and the Boy with Two Identical Shirts. Please do read that.
https://generallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2025/01/higher-education-and-the-boy-with-two.html
I spent three and a half semesters at IIT Kharagpur. So, whatever I write in this blog, and the ones that follow, will obviously not represent the complete experience of someone who went through the entire four or five years of IIT life. But I did dip my toes in the waters of the most glorious spring of knowledge on earth.
Change of Track
I left Kharagpur in my fourth semester to join the Special Class Railway Apprenticeship at Jamalpur. That decision eventually turned an aspiring astrophysicist into a mechanical engineer.
The universe lost one astrophysicist. The Indian Railways gained a mechanical engineer. I have never quite decided who got the better bargain.
But that is a story for another blog
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