Thread by @gauravsabnis

IITs & IIMs are the fountainheads of forwards and posts about Hindutva and generally anything promoting aryanism, brahminism, orthodoxy, patriarchy. They were even before Modi. So were ripe to become propaganda factories once he took over. Why they obsess over the "IIT brand".

https://twitter.com/smallthief/status/1475870304647868420

IITs & IIMs have very little real actual serious top level world class research happening, the way it would happen in comparable institutions in other big countries. IITs & IIMs are primarily "Teaching Schools" or at the most "Balanced Schools", to use the US nomenclature.

I'm not saying there is no real research at those places. Many academics do real research. But on the aggregate, it's not really much. The structure & culture at IIT/IIM, is & always has been, more geared towards placements than education or research. By design, pretty much.

IIT/IIM were always explicitly set up as teaching schools, to serve the needs of the Indian nation and economy as it grows. Research has never been the priority the way it explicitly is in top schools in many other countries. Research requires independence, freedom.

But a teaching only institution also has a regimented militaristic style top-down culture. The emphasis is on obedience. Questioning is not encouraged. Just attend classes, write exams, get good placements, goodbye. IIT-IIMs run more like military academies than universities.

Those of us who have been to IIT, IIM (even NIT for that matter), and then been to universities in the West can tell this difference. How western universities just seem more.... Relaxed. Creative. Open to ideas. Empathetic. Because they're not run like West Point.

Well, sanghis want to run the world like a military academy, so of course IITs and IIMs are a great source for mindless propaganda and chest thumping. Just put a sanghi on top and the institutional structure will make it almost all sanghi.

Pu La had a great name for India's education ethos. He called it the "Gapp Basaa Sanskriti". The "Shut Up! Culture".

Nothing lights a fire under the butts of elite Twitter sanghis like throwing shade at IITs and IIMs. Especially when it comes from "one of us". 😂🤭

It's hilarious, the parochial defensive mindset. They don't want to make their schools better. Just "protect the brand".

"We consider teachers as gods and teachers consider students as their own children in our culture."

Yeah, no! You should not!

Teachers are not gods nor want to be treated as gods.
And teachers should NOT be treating students like their own children.

Like, seriously!