-Chenni Valavan
Our department is slated to introduce a new MA branch major, Public Policy. Ostensibly, it looks like IIT-M’s HSS has joined the Indian bandwagon zeitgeist of introducing and advertising programs such as Public Policy, Liberal Arts, etc. Fancy as it sounds, this does not signal our department’s enduring vitality, but rather, its attempt to build a luxurious apartment from the scraps of a slum.
Not wanting to rub people in the wrong way (though that might be inevitable), I have an inquiry: Does the department have enough ‘juice’ and ‘enthusiasm’ to incorporate a new program while it struggles to meet whatever needs of current existing students? (kindly refer to my previous article for context).
Public policy isn’t just a mishmash of the “Palampur Economics” stories and basic theories: the discipline requires a strong, dense mix of quant/qualitative training, applied research, department-incentivized internships, and MOST importantly: a supportive ecosystem that feeds students into fellowships, think tanks, ministries, global organizations, NGOs, or at the very least, other universities. Our department, by contrast, is still struggling to guarantee a reliable spread of electives (don’t take my word for it. Talk to graduated HS23 batches about how their enthusiasm for electives was squashed as there were only 2-3 electives available for them), ensure timely availability of minor courses, or even lay down a clear way to collect OD leave for students who attend conferences. And there’s still no dedicated technical training hub for GIS, R, SPSS, or other analytical tools that any serious policy curriculum would treat as necessary.
My humble opinion is as follows: you can’t graft a new sapling into a rotting tree. After publishing my first article here, a few alumni contacted me and confirmed my suspicions: The course structure was bad from the very beginning. Here are two selected quotes:
“Infact, in every batch, atleast 1/3rd of the class experience this (redacted) anguish that you have put out succinctly”
“This is how the department has always been except for the IMA vs MA stuff….. The lack of cohesion and solid knowledge in minor has also been an age-old problem. Nothing really has changed…” – Ms. Soumithra (Article 19 comment)
How ambitious of the department to venture into new waters while they are sinking through the foundations of their existing home turf. When pressed about the shortage of courses, we are offered three narratives:
There are no faculty rooms, or funds to hire new professors.
No professor wants to come here as a guest lecturer for various reasons.
All professors are capped at 3 courses per academic year.
So, does the introduction of a new program mean that these problems are solved?
The earlier experiment, i.e., the IDDD Public Policy program, wasn’t popular either; very few opted for it. One brochure line of the IDDD reads:
“.. most high high-profile corporate firms (such as TCS / Cognizant) have a Policy / Systems Division looking for persons with abilities to think from larger societal perspectives.”
Aspirational indeed, but how many public policy related positions are listed in the department’s placement/internship bluebook? I’d wager fewer than five. HS placements, meanwhile, are dominated by business consulting roles. Perhaps, the department should, as the saying goes, ‘check yourself before you wreck yourself’. Which reminds me: We need a strong placement network that is more than a list of alumni on LinkedIn (I’m certainly sure that list itself isn’t optimized). Without them, we are offering students an equivalent of a politician’s manifesto: Sounds brilliant, zero execution. The placement game must be strengthened for existing MA batches as well, since the employability prospects for them are pretty slim, through no fault of their own.
And what about upgradation, the route for MA students to shift into an MA-PhD? Introduced for HS23, it left students puzzled: only 5 out of 75 across ES, DS, and Economics were selected. And there were other bureaucratic confusions as well. Unless proper clarity and format is fixed for upgradation, the confusion will persist for our new friends too.
Then there is the question of space – intellectual and physical. We still have a dearth of common spaces where students can hold discussions, run reading groups, or simply exist/loiter. RSL will do in a pinch. But that’s the only decent place which exists. Remember the department library? The MA people certainly won’t. And the mural area which the department graciously provided us? Some of the red cushion chairs are missing, now replaced by white-plastic chairs of which half are broken. The MML? Oh please, you can only fit in a handful of people. The department excels in another handful as well: that you’ll be taught only a handful, alluding to another famous Tamil phrase “Kattradhu kaimann allavu, kalathathu ullagalavu” (What we have learnt is but a handful, what we’ve haven’t is as vast as the entire world). Only here, the department takes it at face value and implements it. “But why invest in spaces where we encourage people to work in silos, or where only the well-connected learn about opportunities?” the department might’ve asked. And this erodes the very ethos of a policy school.
Speaking of policy school, we must note a disciplinary imbalance: this department remains overwhelmingly tilted toward economics and ES, while governance, law, applied social research and DS lack serious representation. Promises of new courses and features for the new MA – broken promises repeated from earlier batches – risks leaving the program being reduced to a rebranded extension of our existing, crumbling silos. Pax IIT-M-Humanities’ genius in constructing silos is matched only by its masterful disregard for its ‘arrogant’ lot who dare to call this space their own.
More worryingly, our culture of care has dwindled to non-existence. When a student (ES ’24) passed away (untimely demise) last December, there was no official email from the department (or even from the institute) acknowledging the loss. No open conversation followed, only a brief remembrance meeting in the PhD room. Most members of the department were unaware that the person existed, or such a tragic event had occurred. For a community that claims to nurture social awareness, our silence spoke volumes. Unless the department can show the same concern for its people that Public Policy people demand from governments, the new degree will ring like an empty bell.
The promise of the new MA program isn’t inherently flawed. Done well, it could become the anchor that revives the HS as a space which is rigorous and outward-looking. (I know, I contradicted my first paragraph here). But without deep reform, and non-apathetic leadership (students included), this initiative may prove little more than a new tyre mounted on a rusted car.
Edited by: Eshani Bhattacharjee | Design by: Vasuki
Article 19 