By Suvarna Rajguru

What makes the IITs so chic.

In recent years, the Indian Institutes of Technology have unloaded almost 40 percent of their graduating classes on the United States. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 IIT alumni populate thousands of American businesses and universities and scores of them have stormed the citadels of Fortune 500 companies. During the heyday of the dotcom boom, the IIT geek were dubbed “entrepreneurial geniuses” and India’s “hottest export” in the American media. Suvarna U. Rajguru examines what made the IITs so chic.

Amidst the swirling corruption that has become commonplace in Indian academia, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) remain committed to a system of educational excellence based upon merit. No other single institution in India has received more worldwide critical acclaim than the IITs. The principal reason for this recognition has been the overseas IIT alumni, dubbed “India’s greatest export” by BusinessWeek magazine.
Says Sudhakar Shenoy (IIT Bombay, CEO of IMC), “The IIT admission process has remained pure, probably because everyone knows that trying to slip in an unqualified student is futile. Such a person would be eaten alive at IIT. He will just be unable to compete.”

The Sacred Joint Entrance Exam
Competition is the watchword. Today, students must pass through a two-tiered system. The first step is a screening exam to qualify for taking the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), and the second is the JEE itself. Students spend countless hours in preparatory courses. Some take a year off just to study for the JEE. Yearly, approximately 170,000 students take the screening test. Of that number, approximately 35,000 qualify to sit for the JEE. Ultimately some 4,000 students are selected to attend one of the seven IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Roorkee).
“The exam is so competitive,” says Professor M.S. Ananth (Director of IIT Madras) that in the past “16 children of IIT Directors did not qualify to attend IIT.” Asked if any further efforts were made, he replied, “Nothing could be done. They did not qualify.”
IIT directors and professors fiercely defend the confidentiality of the JEE; some even call it “sacred.” Ananth points out, “while we know who is on the JEE Committee, we do not ask any questions.” That must be why in 50 years, only once has someone leaked a paper. In 1997, after questions on a math paper were disclosed, the entire JEE was scrapped and re-administered two months later. According to Ananth, this is no easy feat, considering that in 15 years, no question has been repeated on the JEE.
The JEE is so revered that it is used not only as a screening tool by the IITs, but also by other institutions such as Benaras Hindu University (BHU) and the Indian School of Mines. Lately, foreign countries have shown interest. For instance, Singapore higher education institutions ask Indian students for their JEE ranking when deciding whether to extend an offer of enrollment.
Still, things have changed somewhat since Sudhakar Shenoy’s time. Then, there were no quotas for certain categories of students. Today, according to the dean of Continuing Education at IIT Kharagpur, Professor V.V. Satyamurthy, 22 percent of IIT seats are reserved for scheduled castes and tribes. However, even students who qualify for such reservations must achieve a minimum qualifying score. (Incidentally, the Indian government imposes this 22% reservation requirement on educational institutions at all levels across the board). In any event, performance is the equalizer.
“Every student,” according to S.S. Gokhale (dean of students at IIT Madras) regardless of status, “must earn a certain number of credits per semester. If he fails to do so for one semester (i.e. flunks), he gets a second chance. If it happens again, he is asked to leave.”
Such rigid standards create intense pressure for students. Shailesh Mehta (IIT Bombay, former CEO of Providian Financial) recalls what one student did to avoid an exam: “Being unprepared, he intentionally broke his thumb. With a doctor’s certificate, he was able to re-schedule the exam.” But, it’s the camaraderie that helps IITans get through the tough times. “Camaraderie,” says Pramod Khargonekar (IIT Bombay, professor at University of Florida) “provided a support system. Even if you were doing poorly in a subject, there were others in your shoes as well.”
The lucky few were able to take it all in stride. Purnendu Chatterjee (IIT Kharagpur, founder of The Chatterjee Group) remembers, “getting in was the toughest part.”

A Coming of Age
Studying aside, ask any IITan what he remembers most fondly about his college days, and the answer inevitably will be the same: the close bonds of friendships that resulted from mutual struggle, competition and commiseration. “IIT camaraderie is irreplaceable,” remarks Shenoy. It was a coming of age, a place where boys transformed into men. (The masculine is used throughout this article because nearly 90 percent of the students attending IIT are men).
As Vijay Thadani (IIT Delhi, founder of NIIT) aptly puts it: “IIT is where most of us had our first taste of freedom.” His Delhi colleague Sanjay Malik adds, “It was a rich and full life, twenty four hours a day. I went home on weekends just to catch up on sleep.” Unlike many colleges in India, the IITs require students to live on the campus. In very few circumstances, and only through special permission, is one allowed to avoid this requirement.
Freedom means independence, experimentation and sometimes taking a walk on the dark side. Recalls one IIT Bombay alumni, “We set up a roulette game every Friday night. I used my position as general secretary of our hostel to arrange for the room. It was jam packed every Friday until 4 am.” The gambling stakes were high. Recalls Shailesh Mehta, “some guys spent every minute playing bridge just to earn enough money to pay for a trip to the United States.” Another alumni recalls the rare “blue movie” or soft porn shows. “I was general secretary for the Metallurgy Association and used an excuse to get the projector. We charged Rs.5 per person. It was pretty popular.”
There were less illicit pursuits as well, like rock bands named “Electron,” interhostel cursing matches, or all night “bull sessions.” It was the inter-IIT events, however, that provided the most spice of life (i.e. this was the rare occasion where the male-female ratio was not lopsided). During events such as the Mood Indigo Festival, named after Duke Ellington’s jazz masterpiece, students invited celebrities such as Asha Bhosle to perform. Students from colleges all around India visited IIT Bombay to display their cultural talent and to partake in forbidden pleasures. Says one IIT Bombay alumni, “Mood Indigo was drugs, sex and rock and roll. It was the one time that women who did not belong to IIT stayed overnight on campus.”
The Inter-IIT Sports Meet also provided an outlet. At this year’s Sports Meet held from Dec 14-20 at IIT Delhi, men and women participated in various sports including, cricket, basketball, table tennis, badminton and field hockey. Says Anita Krishnan (currently at IIT Madras), the Meet “is a great way to meet people outside of your own IIT.”
Rahul Pande ( IIT Roorkee) explains the sentiment felt by many of his Roorkee colleagues: “I’m just happy to be here.” Roorkee is the newest member of the IIT family, and this was the first time that Roorkee was invited to the Meet.
Having a residential campus, however, has its downsides — like the campus food, which apparently was, and still is, less than appetizing. “Appetizing? The food was terrible,” comments Adil Zainulbhai (IIT Bombay, director at McKinsey & Co.). It seems that things have not changed much since Zainulbhai’s time. Today, Sheetal (a member of the IIT Bombay staff) coolly explains, “The question is how much the cook can spoil the food on any given day.”
That must be why many students opt for chowing outside the campus at the local tea shop, the corner dhaba or the truckstop in the city. Sudhakar Kesavan (IIT Kanpur, CEO of ICF Consulting) recalls driving into the village town of Kanpur with 15 of his friends in a tempo. He says with a laugh, “We planned to go to a truckstop because we heard it had the best parathas.
Unfortunately, with so many people in the tempo, it broke in half!”
Subroto Sengupta (IIT Kharagpur, Professor at the University of Michigan) remembers his local hangout, Shady’s Tea Shop, where the tea served was meant for truck drivers. “We got through,” he says “on that high octane tea.”

Ragging: A Subculture
One aspect of IIT often brushed under the rug is ragging. Like hazing in the United States, ragging is a time honored tradition of initiating freshman into the college. During the first month of freshman year, seniors randomly harass freshman, asking them to recite dirty limericks, visit IIT Simla, compute math problems, dress up in drag, or the like.
Says Nitish Thakor (IIT Bombay, professor at Johns Hopkins University), “ragging was a terrific right of passage that toughened up your character.” Prasun Dewan (IIT Delhi, professor at the University of North Carolina) adds, ragging “helped freshman get to know their seniors. After the ragging month was over, I got to be great friends with the seniors who ragged me.”
Mostly, what seniors command is harmless. On rare occasions, however, things get out of hand. Khargonekar recalls how one student was commanded to remove his clothes and then wrap newspapers around himself. “He was set on fire. Luckily, the fire was put out before he got hurt.” Because of such incidents, ragging today is officially banned on IIT campuses and is an offense for which a student can be expelled.

Seeds of Success
While the fun times remain uppermost in the minds of most IITans, several remember the rigorous academic climate, which helped shape them for the cold, harsh reality of the business world.
Sudhakar Shenoy recalls fondly that “IIT taught us critical thinking because you can only survive there if you can think.” He attributes his success in business today to what he learned at IIT. “We learned survival skills. It toughened you because it was like living in a war zone every day. We were on edge all the time. I still have a few nightmares a year, waking up with a start believing that I have failed to study for an exam.”
Rajat Gupta (IIT Delhi, Managing Director of McKinsey & Co.) takes a different tack. “The success of IITans is due 70 percent to native talent and 30 percent to IIT. But, it was not the education so much as the vibrant student community with lots of opportunities for leadership and confidence building” that has been the main factor in our success.
Not everyone, however, links their IIT education to professional success. Says Mehta, “inherent talent, rather than the IIT education, contributes to the success of graduates.” One of his IIT Bombay colleagues concurs: “Success is due to bright students more than good professors. If I had not gone to post graduate school, my foundations would have been very weak. It doesn’t surprise me that there are few IITans who are innovators, and the few innovators have been successful in areas that have little to do with engineering.”
As Achal Mehra (IIT Kanpur, editor of Little India Magazine) coyly says, “IIT doesn’t want anyone to know this, but it hasn’t been the people at the top of the class that have gone on to be successful. It’s actually those who spent their time in activities outside of academics that have been most successful.”

Brain Drain
Whatever the factors may be, one thing is clear — IITans represent the “cream of the cream” of Indian technical manpower. The problem is that the manpower is not remaining within the country. Venky Shankar (IIT Kharagpur, professor at the University of Maryland’s Business School) jokes that while IIT “Kharagpur bears the motto Dedicated to the Service of the Nation, the question on everyone’s mind was always, ‘which nation?’” In recent years, as much as 80 percent of IIT B.Tech. graduates specializing in computer science emigrated to the United States. The tech bust has tempered these numbers a bit, but the criticism lingers.
Critics claim that the Indian government unfairly favors the IITs when education dollars are doled out. Ranjan Pant (IIT Kanpur, co-chair of the First International PAN IIT Conference) explains: “a major portion of the Indian government’s higher education budget is now allocated to the IITs.”
According to Director Ananth, the government doles out somewhere between Rs. 90 to 100 crore to each of the seven IITs annually. “Even with the addition of IIT Guwahati and Roorkee,” he says, “we have not been affected.” “IIT budgets have increased, not decreased, in the last few years.”
According to statistics from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in 1998, the Indian government allocated approximately Rs.22 crore for each IIT. Today, it allocates almost five times that amount.
The increases are not coincidental. They are part of an ongoing effort by the Indian government, as a matter of national pride, to rededicate its commitment to education at all levels. As an official within the HRD department put it, “India is not a poor country. India has money. The only question is how to allocate it.”
Still, some Indian citizens cry foul at the “brain drain” of bright, young Indian talent to foreign countries, particularly the United States. Dubbing the IITs the Indian Institutes of Travelers, they contend that the government should institute a policy, requiring that each IITan pay back the full cost of his education. That sum today is about Rs.1.5 lakh or the equivalent of U.S. $3,000 per year. Over four years, the debt accumulates to some $12,000. Another suggestion floated has been asking students to work in India for a time after graduation.
Most IITans balk at such suggestions. Sunil Pande (IIT Bombay, Countrywide Manager at Larson & Toubro) sums it up thusly: “While brain drain is a major concern, the issue must be addressed in its entirety, and requiring people to stay in India for a time is not the answer.” His comments are echoed by Director Ananth: “Brains like hearts go where they are valued. It just so happens that Indian brains are more valued in the West than in India.”
These are supporters of the brain bank or brain circulation theory. They contend that India is better, not worse, off because of the so-called brain drain. Take Rekha Nadkarni (IIT Bombay) who says, “NRIs have significantly enhanced India’s image abroad.” Adds her Bombay colleague Pradeep Anand, “in the 60s and 70s, almost half of our batch came to the U.S. to pursue further academics; if they had stayed back, they would have been frustrated and underemployed because India at the time could not absorb these technologists.”
From these alumni’s perspective, even today the Indian economy serves as the primary catalyst for brain drain. Says Deepak Raghavan (IIT Delhi, Founder of Manhattan Associates), “Capitalism is the right approach. Fix the Indian economy to make it more attractive” so that graduates will stay. Adds Purnendu Chatterjee, “If the Indian economy is vibrant, Narayana Murthy will create another Infosys.”

Giving Back
Be that as it may, either out of guilt, prodding or sheer magnimity, IITans have started to give back to their alma maters — in a big way. At the recent PAN IIT Conference held in October in Washington, DC, Umang Gupta (IIT Kanpur, CEO of Keynote Systems) encouraged his fellow graduates to contribute at least $100 per year to their alma mater. Gupta himself put his money where his mouth is, recently contributing $1 million to Kanpur. At the same conference, another Kanpur graduate, Prabhu Goel, handed over $1 million to his alma mater.
Alumni from other IITs have made similar multi-million dollar contributions: Kanwal Rekhi (IIT Bombay, founder of Excelan), Arjun Malhotra (IIT Kharagpur, CEO of Techspan), Vinod Khosla (IIT Delhi, partner at Kleiner, Perkins), Shailesh Mehta (IIT Bombay, former CEO of Providian Financial), Desh Deshpande (IIT Madras, founder of Sycamore Networks), Rajat Gupta (IIT Delhi, Managing Director of McKinsey & Co.), Vinod Gupta (IIT Kharagpur, Founder of InfoUSA), Sunil Munshani (IIT Kharagpur, venture capitalist) to name just a few. Not surprisingly, the bulk of such pledges and contributions have come from tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Asked whether the tech bust has affected the IITs’ ability to collect on pledges, Ashok Mishra (director at IIT Bombay) replies, “no alumni has reneged on his pledge; however, some alumni have chosen to fulfill their pledge in installments over a period of time, rather than making one lump sum donation.” The sights of these alumni are set high. Mehta states that the “goal is to raise $50 million for IIT Bombay. Each hostel will be renovated to be like a 5 star hotel.”

Fill Our Suggestion Box
Interestingly, IIT directors and professors do not pitch their alumni for money anymore, but rather time and suggestions. Says Professor Kalra (dean of Resource Planning and Innovation, IIT Kanpur), “Money is not the only component; your physical time and informal inputs are more important.” Alumni, like Shailesh Mehta, are answering Kalra’s call, providing critical comments and suggestions for improvement. “IITs should double their capacity. This would not dilute the brand, because the 2,000 students who fall just below the JEE requirement are just as smart as those who made it into IIT.” How can they double the capacity? “Join hands with industry,” says Sunil Pande. “IITs should generate more projects jointly with industry, particularly with non-Indian companies.”
Others claim that IITs should stress pursuing an academic career more than information technology. “IIT is not encouraging academia,” says Pramod Khargonekar. “Top IIT talent pursues software development, not research. Having Indians in academia has been really important. As a professor, I come in contact with and can educate many more people about Indians and India than an entrepreneur can.”
Mehta sums up a related issue: “The problem is of aging faculty. The IIT faculty compensation is too low and outside consulting is very limited, which makes attracting new, high caliber faculty difficult.” “IITs are on par with undergraduate institutions like MIT,” Hemant Kanakia (IIT Bombay, Founder of Torrent Technologies) comments, “but nowhere near the top half in post-graduate research institutions.”
Still others maintain that the physical infrastructure of the IITs is the most pressing concern. After a recent trip to his alma mater, Suresh Shenoy (IIT Bombay, CMO of IMC) exclaims “It looks like a bomb hit it. The machines look like they are from a junkyard. In our time, things were state of the art.” Some batches have done their part. On their Silver Jubilee, Vijay Thadani’s 1972 batch funded the building of a new hostel on campus. Similarly, Desh and Jayashree Deshpande recently funded the building of a new women’s hostel on the IIT Madras campus.
IITans have now begun to give back to the Motherland as well, mainly through business process outsourcing. “Brain drain is a problem,” says Kanakia “that can be turned into an opportunity.” Notes Raj Shah (IIT Bombay, CEO of 123Signup), “Brain drain should be encouraged. If you see any significant deal in India, there is always an Indian American involved.”
Still, there is nothing like old fashioned grassroots support, the kind that makes you roll-up-your shirtsleeves and get your hands dirty. The 1970 batch to which Nat Kannan (IIT Madras, Chairman of VCampus) belonged adopted a village near the Madras campus, providing funds for clean water and internet access. At IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, the wife of Director Ashok Mishra set up Vidya, an organization dedicated to schooling underprivileged children and their mothers. Senator Hillary Clinton visited Vidya during her trip to India a few years ago. So successful has this venture been that Mrs. Mishra spun off Mantan, a Big Brother type organization maintained by IIT Bombay students who mentor and provide guidance to these children.
Similarly, at IIT Kharagpur, P.K. Dwivedi and Hansa Nundy returned to their alma mater after successful professional lives to found Disha, an organization with a similar mission and goals to Vidya. The dedication of these alumni is clear. Dwivedi lives full time in and manages the tidy but meager environs of Disha House on the Kharagpur campus. Nundy lives part of the year without salary at Disha House and has engaged her mother-in-law in the effort as well! It seems the spirit of generosity is a family matter.

IIT Revisited
With 50 plus years of history behind it, IIT continues to remain the premier institution in India for technical education. It faces critical challenges, such as faculty shortage, maintenance, research production and the like, but there is one bedrock upon which IIT can stand. That is its alumni, who remain loyal and committed to its progress. These alumni will ensure that 50 years from today when we revisit the IITs, we will remember and be able to honor Pandit Nehru’s words: “Here stands this fine monument of India today representing India’s urges, India’s future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolic of the changes that are coming.” Suvarna U. Rajguru is currently working on a book and documentary project on the IITs. © 2002 Indus Media.

IIT Alumni Headliner Network
Notwithstanding the tech bust, IIT graduates still represent some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and corporate executives:

• Victor Menezes (IIT Bombay, Managing Director, Citibank)
• Rajat Gupta (IIT Delhi, Managing Director, McKinsey & Co.)
• Vinod Khosla (IIT Delhi, Partner, Kleiner Perkins and co-founder Sun Microsystems)
• Arun Netravali (IIT Bombay, President, Research, AT&T Bell Laboratories)
• Narayana Murthy (IIT Madras, Chairman, Infosys Technologies)
• Rakesh Gangwal (IIT Kanpur, former CEO USAirways)
• Rono Dutta (IIT Kharagpur, former CEO United Airlines)
• Hemant Kanakia (IIT Bombay, Founder of Torrent Technologies)
• Kanwal Rekhi (IIT Bombay, Founder of Excelan and TiE)
• Raj & Neera Singh (IIT Kanpur, Founders of Telcom Ventures)
• Suhas Patil (IIT Kharagpur, Founder of Cirrus Logic)
• Arjun Malhotra (IIT Kharagpur, CEO of Techspan)
• Desh Deshpande (IIT Madras, Founder of Sycamore Networks)
• Vin Gupta (IIT Kharagpur, Founder of InfoUSA)
• Muktesh Pant (IIT Kanpur, CMO of Reebok International)
• Purnendu Chatterjee (IIT Kharagpur, Founder of Chatterjee Group)
• Umang Gupta (IIT Kanpur, Founder of Keynote Systems)
• Adil Zainulbhai (IIT Bombay, Director, McKinsey & Co.)
• Sudhakar Shenoy (IIT Bombay, CEO of IMC)
• Shailesh Mehta (IIT Bombay, former CEO of Providian Financial).

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