A thread on the origin of the Indian Institute of Technology:
It started in 1946 with a committee headed by Sardar Sir Joginder Singh, a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1/n)
It started in 1946 with a committee headed by Sardar Sir Joginder Singh, a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1/n)
The committee had met to consider the creation of higher technical institutions "for post-World War II industrial development of India". On the recommendation from this group, a 22-member committee was set up under the aegis of Nalini Ranjan Sarkar (2/n)
One of the prime movers behind this was Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy. In its interim report, the Sarkar Committee recommended the establishment of higher technical institutions in India, along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3/n)
The report urged that work should start with the speedy establishment of major institutions in the four-zones of the country with the ones in the east and the west to be set up immediately (4/n)
This now led to a tug of war between Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr BC Roy. Dr Roy wanted the first institute to come up in West Bengal as it had the highest concentration of industries in the country (5/n) 
Pt. Nehru disagreed. West Bengal already had 3 eminent technology institutes: BE College Shibpur (1856), Jadavpur University (1906) & Rajabazar Science College (1914) which were already serving the state well he felt (6/n)
Dr Roy was persistent. Nehru then asked where he would find land for the new institution. Post independence/partition, West Bengal was facing huge influx of refugees from East Pakistan & was facing major crisis of housing (7/n)
Dr Roy promised Pt. Nehru he would arrange land any how. The first Indian Institute of Technology was thus established in May 1950 as the Eastern Higher Technical Institute. It was situated in Esplanade East, Calcutta (8/n)
In September of that year, the institute shifted to its present location. The Hijli Detention Center in Kharagpur of Midnapore district was an infamous jail during the British era (9/n)
Dr. Roy's government took over the premises and land and on war-footing, converted it into India's first IIT. When the first session started in August 1951, there were 224 students and 42 teachers in the ten departments of the institute (10/n)
The name "Indian Institute of Technology" was adopted before the formal inauguration of the institute on 18 August 1951 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. On the occasion of the 1st convocation, Pt. Nehru delivered a few stirring lines (11/n)
"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" - he'd said (12/n)
IIT Kharagpur was followed by IITs at Bombay (1958), Madras, Kanpur (both 1959) & Delhi (1961) (13/n)
Nehru and Dr Roy had a special relationship. The Dr was one of the very few who addressed the PM as "Jawahar." In April'62, with the PM seriously ill & refusing to heed his doctors, Dr Roy's intervention was sought for....
...."Roy is tall enough to ask Nehru to obey medical orders" ~ one of the PM's medical team was quoted by Washington Herald
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