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At
the 4th Annual Convovation of Maulana Azad National Institute of
Technology, Bhopal
on
12th April, 2007
It is
a matter of great honour for me to be here with you this afternoon
on the occasion of the Fourth Convocation ceremony of this important
national Institute. I take this opportunity to congratulate all the
students who will be receiving their credentials today as token of
the successful completion of their studies here. I also compliment
the academic staff who have been behind the success of all these
students.
It is with a great sense of satisfaction that we are
honouring today Prof.P.Rama Rao, a distinguished scientist, academic
and administrator, who has contributed enormously to the development
of scientific and technical education in the country. In honouring
him, we are setting before our youth a great example of inspiration.
Similarly, we are also indeed happy to honour
Prof.B.Mungekar, a distinguished economist, academic administrator,
now at the helm of planning the social sector in the Planning
Commission. He is a great champion of the cause of education in the
country as also for ensuring justice to the weaker sections of our
society. His has been a life of dedication to the cause of the
under-privileged in the country. Unfortunately, he is unable to
join us on this occasion because of prior commitments.
Today, it is only proper that we recall the spirit behind
the setting up of these institutions in free India. Within a
decade-and-half of our Independence, practically all the major
national institutions like IITs, Regional Engineering Colleges and
so many other premier institutions and universities were
established. We were a new nation and had a commitment to our
future and had great confidence in our resources. We were not
deterred by the fact that these new institutions will suffer because
of an inability to build infrastructure or laboratories or getting
teachers. Nevertheless, our foundational efforts paid off. Today
we take pride in the fact of being a major player in the newly
developing global knowledge economy. Having said that, I must note
that in the recent years, there has been a certain amount of
collapse of that bold imagination of the earlier decades of our
freedom. Today, we are crying about the lack of faculty and other
resources and not being able to set up as many institutions of
excellence as we did in those first few years. We need to reflect
over this and it is our duty to see that the academic community
engages with this question. We also cannot allow people who have no
knowledge of educational issues to decide the fate of our higher
education system.
Our premier technical institutes have provided excellent
scientific and technical knowledge to our students. This is no mean
achievement. However, there are certain issues of concern that have
received attention in recent years. Institutions of higher learning
cannot merely be institutions for the dissemination of knowledge.
It is imperative that they are also producers of knowledge. The
research undertaken in our institutions is both quantitatively and
qualitatively short of realising both its own potential as well as
of any comparable institutions in the world. To contribute
substantially to the knowledge pool, teachers need to engage with
frontier areas of research, and not just borrow knowledge.
Otherwise, we will tend to get out of date. I hope our institutions
in general, and particularly MANIT Bhopal, will take up this
challenge.
The second area of concern is the narrow focus of our
technical education. We have neglected basic sciences in our
institutions. More so, we have totally neglected social sciences,
humanities and the arts from the curricular attention in these
institutions. Therefore, though we call these institutions
universities, they remain one dimensional polytechnics, giving only
skill sets to the students. The original concept of IITs did
include engagement with other disciplines and indeed there was some
effort to introduce other areas of study in the IIT system.
However, over the years, this became a marginal and symbolic
activity. NITs lagged behind even then. During the last couple of
years, we have encouraged institutions to develop programmes in
basic and social sciences and humanities. I am very happy that some
of the IITs have taken up this work and are now becoming really
integrated centres of knowledge.
I say this to underline the point of view of these other
disciplines and to highlight the opportunities that these
disciplines must get. In a holistic university system, students do
not just learn from the narrow stream of specialization that they
are a part of, but also from the overall ambience of a campus in
which multiple areas of intellectual activity is explored. Students
and teachers, of technology and sciences, interact with social
scientists and writers and artists, and together they produce that
student which has a special stamp of that institution. In the
absence of such an exposure, we produce one dimensional graduates.
This is unfair to our students. It is, therefore, our effort that
all these institutions including MANIT Bhopal, become vibrant
centres for pursuit of knowledge in every field of human
development, and we do hope, in the coming years, we will be able to
develop this kind of an ambience in this campus.
Another concern that I wish to highlight is the institute-centric
approach to knowledge dissemination. In such an atmosphere, we do
not learn from our surroundings, and indeed are immune to things
happening around us. Bhopal is a beautiful city, particularly
because of the magnificent lake it has. I do not know if students
of this institute, particularly of the Civil Engineering Department,
wonder who made this lake and what was the technology behind it.
Some of us would be surprised to know that this lake was built by a
Gond Queen named Kamla. The Kamla Park on the upper lake is named
after her. Similarly, there are ruins of a dam near Bhojpur. Why
was it abandoned is an issue that should fascinate engineering
students. Bhopal is also a city of magnificent buildings. I do not
know if the students of Architecture in this institute know about
some of these magnificent structures. Apart from the modern-day
works of great beauty like the Vidhan Sabha and the Bharat Bhavan by
Charles Correa, there are also medieval and ancient marvels in and
around Bhopal; the Stupa of Sanchi to the Bhojpur Temple, the
structures in Islamnagar and Taj-ul-Masajid in Bhopal, are all great
architectural achievements. Do we ever wonder about the architects
of these marvels, about the tools they worked with, about the
engineering concepts that they engaged with ? Do we engage with
such questions in our classrooms ?
We do not even see and recognize the living great among us. Bhopal
is home to the largest collection of Syed Hyder Raza paintings in
Bharat Bhavan. Raza is from Madhya Pradesh and is arguably among
the greatest of the modern Indian painters. Habib Tanvir is among
the greats of all time in Theater. He lives in Bhopal. Raza and
Habib Tanvir bring glory to Bhopal, all over the world. But
students of a premier institute do not get a chance to relate to
them.
Among the young artists, Gundecha Brothers have made
Bhopal their home. They are celebrated all over the world but do we
provide an environment that enables our bright students to
appreciate their Dhrupad and these contemporary exponents of this
great tradition. Arundhati Roy is one of the foremost public
intellectuals in the world and lives next door in Panchmarhi.
Thousands throng to her meetings in the university campuses across
the world but we do not create a space in which our bright
youngsters could experience the thrill of her presence and engage
with the isues that she so powerfully champions.
A narrow curricular focus again restricts our potential to develop
with many dimensions. As a result, the products of fine
institutions also develop a narrow techno-centric vision of their
work and indeed of their lives. Because we do not look outside, not
only do we miss out on the physical aspects of reality around us as
I just mentioned, we also miss out on the living reality around us.
We are not aware of the surrounding nature. Even more critically,
we do not notice the community of people living around us. The more
educated we become in such a scenario, the more alienated we become
from our own people. We do not notice the hopes, expectations and
fears of vast sections of our community engaged in a grim battle for
survival. A narrow vision given by the institutions makes us
perceive reality in terms of statistics, and we are unable to fathom
the real meaning below those sets of figures. We see the way the
economy grows or the sensex moves up and down, but we do not see
thousands of suicides of farmers. Having spent years in Bhopal, we
do not see the ongoing suffering of lakhs of victims of the Bhopal
gas tragedy. We do not see the hardship that children and women
face in our society. A narrow techno-centric knowledge
dissemination system diminishes us as human beings. It should be,
therefore, our collective endeavour to develop these institutions of
excellence within a holistic frame, such that not only competent
engineers are produced but also aware and engaged human beings.
I am,
perhaps, over-stating my point. I am sure all the students
have developed many insights about our surroundings and our people,
despite these handicaps. But still, I am mentioning this fact
because if students reflect over this, they will be able to identify
any lack of ability to appreciate life in its varied dimensions and
even after leaving the portals of this great institution, will try
to overcome handicaps, if any, that they carry with them. Many
students feel that their learning curve has peaked as they pass out
of an institution, but students will discover sooner or later that
the knowledge that they carry from the institution does not take
them very far. In a certain sense, real education begins only
after one completes one's formal education. Then one has to be
one's own guide. It is up to each one of us to carry the
knowledge that we have received at an institution as a baggage or as
an empowering tool to further explore reality. In the real
exploration of life, one has to move forward with the enormous
internal resources that each one of us has. One has to become
a lamp unto ourselves as the great Buddha said, "Atma Dipo Bhav".
We have within us the potential to be the source of light, not only
unto ourselves but also for those around us who are in need of a
little helpful light.
With these words, I once again thank the institution for giving me
this great honour of being with you this afternoon and convey my
very best wishes to all of you who are graduating into the world
with a stamp of approval and encouragement from this beloved
institution.
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