To all the variety of posts about “Nehru creating IIT”, here are a few facts:
- The initiative to create IITs was started before India’s independence.
- The true progenitor of the idea was Sir Ardeshir Dalal, who had set up “Council of Scientific and Industrial Research” and saw the need of having a Graduate institution catering to Technological studies in the post-WWII era.
- His idea was taken up by Dr B. C. Roy, who was egged on by Dr Humayun Kabir
- Sir Nalini Ranjan Sarkar was tasked with spearheading a committee to create a report towards starting such an institute. The committee went into the details of how 4 ‘Higher Technical Institutions’ needed to be created for North, South, East, West zones of India
- J. C. Ghosh, L. S. Chandrakant and Biman Sen helped create a blueprint for this institution. J. C. Ghosh helped formulate the IIT Act. This act helped keep IITs out of the purview of Babudom and keep them autonomous.
- 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, of course, was way before Left Front entered the picture and turned this fact into mythology).
- On the basis of this B. C. Roy went and persuaded Nehru to allow the IIT to be opened in Bengal AND approve the IIT Act (for which Nehru needed some convincing).
- After B C Roy got the permission, he rushed post-haste to open the IIT in Bengal. It started operating from Calcutta. People were scouting for a location to base it, without having to spend too much on putting up a building.
- Earlier in the century, the British had built a ‘detention centre’ building. This was to jail and torture freedom fighters. This was called the Hijli Detention Camp. Some freedom fighters had also been killed there. During the war, it had been converted into a camp for the US Air Force.
- It had ready-made infrastructure as also an admin building. This was offered as a readymade centre to Sir J.C. Ghosh. He took up the offer. In Sept the institute shifted to Kharagpur.
- Maulana Azad chose the name, Indian Institute of Technology, after MIT. Nehru inaugurated it. His contribution.
- For a long time, IIT KGP was the only IIT, setting off consternation in other zones.
- In the late 1950s, to set up IIT in the West, Jawaharlal Nehru sought Soviet assistance, and it was with Soviet assistance that IIT Powai was set up.
- With the Soviets getting in, the American’s had to step in, so they set up IIT Kanpur.
- South was clamouring about negligence. To placate them, Nehru was looking for another help. In the meanwhile, Germans had run up large trade surpluses. They were persuaded to convert their surplus to help set up 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 around the governor’s estate with frolicking deer roaming among hundreds of 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.
- Cos Kanpur was then ascribed to ‘Central Region’ than the North, a clamour went up to have an IIT for the North. Thus IIT Delhi was set up (with internal resources) in 1961.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of the first IITs. Nehru’s contribution towards it all was mostly a speech.
