 HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS

The Committee felt that an appreciation of the historical beginnings of management education in India would be useful for a better understanding of the original mission of IIMs and their achievements. Accordingly, the historical beginnings of IIMs has been briefly discussed below:

On the eve of independence, Gandhiji, wrote to Pandit Nehru saying,

"I am convinced that if India is to attain true freedom, and through India the world also, then sooner or later the fact must be recognised that people will have to live in villages, not in towns; in huts, not in palaces. Crores of people will never be able to live at peace with each other in towns and palaces. They will then have no recourse but to resort to violence and untruth".

Nehru, on the other hand, dreamt of a modem India in terms of industrialisation, steel and fertilizer plants, dams and hydel power, modem agriculture and a scientific temper in the country, He countered, "We cannot stop the river of change or cut ourselves adrift from it and psychologically, we who have eaten the apple of Eden cannot forget the taste and go back to primitiveness."

Nehru strongly believed that it was not possible to be really independent unless India became a modem technically advanced country.

Under Nehru's leadership, India invested in large capital intensive projects of steel, fertilizers, machine tools, hydro- projects, etc. for the rapid industrialization of the country. Scientific institutions were established and modem technology and management were strongly supported by setting up through the Government of India and. outside assistance, the Indian Institutes of Technology and, somewhat later, the Indian Institutes of Management. It was generally believed that technology transfer from the outside world was needed and desirable in virtually every sector of the economy, and that good models existed abroad suitable for replication in India.

Public Policy and Public Administration were also supported by establishing the Indian Institute of Public Administration, and small scale industries by establishing the Small Industries and Entreprenuership Training Institute (SIET) at Hyderabad. Later most of the states established their own Institutes of Public Administration for training public servants and also their own centres, for training 'managers' in small scale industries and entreprenuership.

The rapid growth of industrial and commercial enterprises in the 50s', both in the private and public sectors, produced a demand for more and better trained managers. At that time most large scale private sector industrial houses were either family concerns or subsidiaries of multinationals with foreign managers.

The public sector which was given the commanding heights' in the economy was largely manned by IAS officers from government. India had inherited from the colonial period an administrative structure designed for law and order, tax collection and general administration, not for the requirements of rapid industrialisation and growth of a modern state. Forty years later, it is realised that in general, public sector enterprises managed and controlled by government, have been a burden on the economy, and in fact have contributed to an inefficient and capital intensive investment strategy. In the pursuit of speedy modernisation and industrialisation, rural development, health, education and welfare and their management did not receive the attention they deserved.

In the 50s' management development took place largely through short-term management programmes for senior administrators and managers, run jointly by the Sloan School of Management, MIT, and the All India Management Association (AIMA) during summer in Kashmir. The government also sent groups of industrialists and. senior civil servants to business and management education centres in Europe and USA to provide them the necessary familiarity with different approaches to management education. For the three steel plants being built in the public sector in that period with the assistance of the then Soviet Union, the Fed-

eral Republic of Germany and Britain, respectively, large scale efforts of training abroad were organised. As many as 500 Indian engineers were sent abroad to private American steel plants to learn management and production methods!

With plans for rapid growth and industrialisation, the need for technical and management education was strongly advocated and supported by government. Under the Chairmanship of Sir Ramaswamy Mudaliar, a distinguished industrialist, a Committee was appointed during the Second Five Year Plan to estimate the managerial requirements of future expansion of industrial and commercial sectors and suggest necessary action to be taken. The Mudaliar Committee proposed the setting up of special training facilities, outside the Universities for greater flexibility and autonomy and for quickening the pace of management training and education in India.

In 1961, the Government of India, set up the two Indian Institutes of Management - one in Ahmedabad and the other in Calcutta. Support came largely from the Central Government. The State Governments provided the land for the campus, and it was hoped that industry would contribute to the buildings and other infrastructure required. The Ford Foundation financed the collaboration of IIM- Ahmedabad with the Harvard Business School and of IIM-Calcutta with the Sloan School of Management, MIT, as also faculty development and library resources. Both the IIMs started with executive development programmes, and only in 1964 started the two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP). Some years later, both started the Fellow Programme in Management, the equivalent of a doctoral programme. Effective leadership was critical to the early development of these Institutes. The founding Directors had a free hand in recruiting staff and organising their curriculum. In giving the programmes their early vision and direction they were not constrained. They worked in tandem with government who shared their vision of a modern industrialised India.

Because of the success achieved by the Institutes of Ahmedabad and Calcutta and the demand for more such Institutes, the government in 1972, set-up the third Institute of Management at Bangalore, and in 1984 the fourth one at Lucknow.

With the new economic reforms and the pressure for competing in international markets, it is likely that the role of professional management would become even more crucial in transforming the world of science, technology, finance and industry. The 'commanding heights' that were given to the industrial sector by Pandit Nehru in the early stages. of India's development, in the form of public enterprises, is now being reduced and there is a shift in policy towards a greater role for private sector and emphasis on improved management and greater efficiencies. In the context of deregulation and market driven approach to development, there is likely to be even a greater demand for TIM graduates in the business, commerce and banking sectors of the economy.