Those Were The Days: IIT Madras, a sterling institute that attracted the finest in academics

With corporates and prospective fathers-in-law waiting at the gates of Indian Institute of Technology Madras to take the graduates into their fold and family, there has emrged a grand aura around the institute, but people often forget its humble beginnings. Post-independence, there was an urgent need for industrial development and planners wrung their hands in frustration at the shortage of engineers. An education committee stressed on a pressing necessity for technical institutions, in the north, south, east and west.

IIT Kharagpur (1951) and Bombay (1958) were inaugurated. The idea for IIT Madras was derived when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was visiting Europe. The Federal Republic of Germany offered to collaborate with India to set up a higher technological institute in Madras.

It was agreed that importance would be given for design (a German notion) and a close relationship was established with industry. Compulsory workshop training ensured ‘a good engineer should know how to use not just his brains, but also his hands.”

Guindy Engineering College, one of the oldest in the world to impart technical education, was considered as the site for the new institute. Kamaraj Government offered a free site within Guindy National Park (632 acres including a 131-acre lake). 223 acres of cultivated land was acquired from the villages of Kanagam and Velachery. The compensation provided to the farmers ranged only between Rs 400 per acre (for dry lands) and Rs 1,000 (for wetlands). The institute actually fell in two districts, Madras and Chengalpet.

There was a hurry to get it running. The forest land was de-notified in the Fort St George Gazette only in 1961, but the construction of the buildings had started in 1959. 20 Germans were deputed to the institute and 20 Indian teachers were sent to German Technical Universities for training. The classes commenced in AC Tech College. The girl students were put up in the Teachers’ Training College hostel in Saidapet and boys were put up in Pachaiyappa’s Trainees Hostel for men in Guindy.

The motto from the Bhagavad Gita ‘Siddhirbhavati Karmaja’ (success is achieved through effort) was adhered to. When the government gave the 131 acre lake in the Guindy National Park, the Conservator of Forests objected saying animals in the forest would die of thirst. A small pond, Appalakulam, was left back as a watering hole for wildlife (the Guindy Park still suffers from major water scarcities because of the thoughtless donation of the lake). The 110-acre lake area within IIT, unfortunately, formed the access to the main academic zone and was predominantly closed.

Though hostels were named after rivers, ironically, water shortage was another persistent issue in the hostels. The campus magazine talks of a fictitious attempt to rename the hostels as Sahara and Kalahari Hostels. The swimming pool–a rare feature in Madras those days was also empty most of the time.

During the building excavation, Nandis and Lingams (some of Pallava and Vijayanagar vintage) were unearthed. Of the three temples on campus, the Jalakanteswarar Temple is very old. 

The Peeli Amman temple still organises the Aadi Thiruvizha where surrounding villagers participate in an elaborate ritual of pilgrims walking up to Thiruvanmiyur and visiting the protection deities of many villages. Though palm trees dominated the natural flora, IIT planted 45,000 trees (most are exotic, non-regional trees). Recently, IIT was restrained by the National Green Tribunal, Southern Bench, from felling trees on its campus until further orders.

12 species of mammals including the Flying Fox, Jackal, Palm Civet, Grey Mongoose, Chital and Blackbuck can be found in the campus. The first hunt club east of Suez functioned in this site. Recently, the IIT Madras campus is becoming a hostile terrain for wildlife. Though a 40 km/hr has been fixed as the vehicular speed limit, at least 70 spotted deer are killed every year.

Madras, today, is the land of computers, but way back in 1973, the first computer (the IBM System 370 Model 155 digital computer valued at Rs 1.5 crore) in the city was installed and a wall of the IIT lab had to be broken to take it in.

IIT-M is a sterling institute that attracted the finest in academics. At some point, it was worrisome for planners whether the primary goal of IIT-M, to train technocrats in India, was being defeated with a high rate of brain drain.

The expenditure has always been 20 times that of the fees collected and even today, the taxpayer’s money ploughed in as annual subsidy is Rs 500 crore.