History of Indian Institute of Technology

The History of Indian Institutes of
Technology refers to the history of the
IITs. It is a collection of events and
developments that had a bearing on their
past and will affect their future.
Pre independence developments
The concept of the IITs originated even
before India gained independence in
1947. After the end of the Second World
War and before India got independence,
Sir Ardeshir Dalal from the Viceroy's
Executive Council foresaw that the future
prosperity of India would depend not so
much on capital as on technology. He,
therefore, proposed the setting up of the
Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research. To man those laboratories, he
persuaded the US government to offer
hundreds of doctoral fellowships under
the Technology Cooperation Mission
(TCM) program. However realizing that
such steps can not help in the long run
for the development of India after it
gains independence, he conceptualized
institutes that would train such work
forces in the country itself. This is
believed to be the first conceptualization
of IITs.
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Developments leading to the
first IIT
Dr Humayun Kabir encouraged Dr B. C.
Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal to
work on Sir Ardeshir's proposal for an
IIT. It is also possible that Sir J.C. Ghosh ,
the then Director of the Indian Institute
of Science , Bangalore, prompted him to
do so. In 1946, Dr Kabir along with Sir
Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive
Council (Department of Education, Health
and Agriculture) set up a committee to
prepare a proposal, and made Sir Nalini
Ranjan Sarkar the chairman. The Sarkar
Committee was taking too much time, but
Dr Roy did not wait for the Committee to
finalise its report and started working on
the interim draft itself. The 22 member
committee (in its interim draft)
recommended the establishment of
Higher Technical Institutions in the
Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern
regions of the country. Possibly on the
lines of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts,
USA), these institutes were recommended
to have a number of secondary
institutions affiliated to them. The draft
also urged the speedy establishment of all
the four institutions with the ones in the
East and the West to be started
immediately. The committee also felt that
such institutes should not only produce
undergraduates but should be engaged in
research – producing research workers
and technical teachers as well. The
standard of the graduates was
recommended to be at par with those
from elite institutions abroad. They felt
that the proportion of undergraduates
and postgraduate students should be 2:1.
L. S. Chandrakant and Biman Sen in the
Education Ministry played significant role
in producing a blueprint for a truly
autonomous educational institution. Sir
J.C. Ghosh (later to be the first Director
of IIT Kharagpur ) ensured liberal
provisions of the IIT Act allowing the IITs
to work free from nitpicking interference
from the babudom . It is largely because
of the IIT Act that IIT directors were
granted authority superseding even some
parts of the government. On the ground
Bengal had the highest concentration of
engineering industries, the Committee
suggested that an IIT may be set up in
that state. This encouraged Dr. Roy. to
use that fragment of a report in order to
persuade Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to push
through a special Act to establish an IIT
in Bengal.
With the recommendations of the Sarkar
committee in view and on the basis of
blueprint made by L. S. Chandrakant,
Biman Sen, and Sir J.C. Ghosh, the first
Indian Institute of Technology was born
in May, 1950 at the site of Hijli Detention
Camp in Kharagpur , a town in eastern
India. Initially the IIT started functioning
from 5, Esplanade East, Calcutta [ (now
Kolkata) and shifted to Hijli in September,
1950 when Sir J.C. Ghosh offered the
place as a ready made place for the IIT.
The present name 'Indian Institute of
Technology' was adopted before the
formal inauguration of the Institute on
18 August 1951, by Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad . On 15 September 1956, the
Parliament of India passed an act known
as the Indian Institute of Technology
(Kharagpur) Act declaring it as an
Institute of National Importance.
Jawaharlal Nehru , India's first Prime
Minister , in the first convocation address
of IIT Kharagpur in 1956, said:
“ Here in the place of that
Hijli Detention Camp
stands the fine
monument of India,
representing India's
urges, India's future in
the making. This picture
seems to me symbolical
of the changes that are
coming to India." [1]
”
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The next four IITs
To counter the criticisms of setting up IIT
in West Bengal, the draft report
suggested that a second IIT may be
located in the Western Region to serve
the process industries concentrated
there. It also added that a third IIT
should be considered for the North to
promote the vast irrigation potential of
the Gangetic basin. Not willing to leave
South out (and to make it politically
correct), the draft report hinted that a
fourth one might be considered for the
South too. However, it offered no specific
economic justification for the same.
When the pressure started building up to
set up IIT in the West, Jawaharlal Nehru
sought Soviet assistance in order to set
up the institute in Mumbai. Krishna
Menon (the then Defence Minister) and
closest to the Russians, got Brig Bose
appointed the first Director of IIT
Bombay when it got established in Powai
in 1958. As a fallout of the prevailing
Cold War, the Americans offered to help
to set up yet another IIT. The way the
Sarcar Committee had suggested, it was
established in the North as IIT Kanpur (in
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh ) in 1959. Dr Kelkar
was the first Director of the institute.
At that time, the Germans had run up
large trade surpluses, and they were
persuaded to support an IIT in the South.
The Germans had initially decided on
Bangalore as the location but when they
visited Madras, C. Subramaniam , the
Education Minister, took them round the
Governor's estate with frolicking deer
roaming among hundreds of venerable
banyan trees, and offered the space
across the table. The visiting German
team was considerably impressed by it
and Madras got the fourth IIT in 1959
itself as IIT Madras.
R. N. Dogra the Chief Engineer of
Chandigarh persuaded Prof M. S. Thacker,
then Member of the Planning Commission
to set up an IIT at Delhi on the ground
that the country was divided into five
regions, and all but the North had an IIT
each. It was done on the basis of the
logic that Uttar Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh constituted the Central Region.
Hence, officially, Kanpur was located in
the Central Region, not the North. This
led to the establishment of IIT Delhi in
1961. The Indian Institutes of Technology
Act was suitably amended to reflect the
addition of new IITs. [2]
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Establishment of IIT Guwahati
and IIT Roorkee
After the establishment of IIT in Delhi,
there was a long gap in any notable
development in the history of IITs.
However in the beginning of the 1990s,
widespread student agitations in Assam
led to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
promising another IIT in Assam. Rajiv
Gandhi agreed to it on the spot
considering it a minor request of ITI
although eventually it cost over Rs 1,500
crore. The IIT Guwahati campus started
functioning in 1987. In the beginning of
the 21st century, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi
(the Education Minister of India) made
University of Roorkee into an IIT, making
IIT Roorkee the newest IIT but the oldest
institution amongst the seven in 2001.
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Establishment of IIT (BHU)
Varanasi
In order to establish more IITs in India,
MHRD constituted Professor S K Joshi
Committee in 2003 and Anand Krishnan
Committee in 2005 to recommend names
of existing institutes that had the
potential of being converted into an IIT
institute, both of which had
recommended for the conversion of the
IT-BHU into an Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT). On July 17, 2008, the
government of India issued a press
release granting "In principle approval for
taking over the Institute of Technology,
Banaras Hindu University – a constituent
unit of the Banaras Hindu University, a
Central University, its conversion into an
Indian Institute of Technology and
integrating it with the IIT system in the
country." After the approval of BHU
Executive Council, a Bill was introduced
on 4 August 2010 a bill seeking to amend
the Institutes of Technology Act 1961 to
declare IT-BHU as an IIT. The Bill was
eventually signed by the President of
India on 20 June 2012 and notified in the
gazette on 21 June. The Central
Government released a notification on 29
June that as per the Act, the
transformation process was complete and
the erstwhile IT-BHU was rechristened as
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)
Varanasi . [3]
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Establishment of eight new IITs
Establishment of the eight new IITs began
with decision of the cabinet, which was
announced by the Minister of Human
Resource Development (MHRD), Arjun
Singh, in 28 March 2008 that the
government planned to establish more
IITs, Indian Institutes of Management
(IIMs) and Central Universities across the
country. Six IITs at Bhubaneswar,
Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Patna
and Ropar began functional from 2008
while other two at Indore and Mandi
commenced their sessions from 2009.