Speech by Neelima Khetan, Acting Director, IRMA for the 26th Convocation Day – 3rd April, 2007
Honourable Speaker, Shri Somnath Chatterjee, IRMA’s Chairman, Dr YK Alagh, IRMA Board of Governors and distinguished guests, the graduating batch, their parents and family, faculty and staff colleagues, and other fellow IRMANs.
It is a matter of great pride for me to speak as the Director on this very auspicious occasion. Every year since 1982, the Director of IRMA has had occasion to welcome some of India’s most distinguished public figures, to give away the degrees and to speak to the students, faculty and staff members at IRMA. Shri Somnath Chatterjee, Honourable Speaker of the Lok Sabha is truly distinguished. A highly accomplished lawyer, trade unionist and outstanding parliamentarian, we are indeed grateful to you Sir, for agreeing to be the Chief Guest on the 26th Convocation Day of IRMA. Shri Chatterjee has an M.A. from Cambridge and did his Barrister-at-Law from Middle Temple in U.K. He joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1968. Since he first got elected to Parliament in 1971, he has served as a Member in all successive Lok Sabhas, getting elected for the tenth time in 2004. It is indeed fortunate that one of the most important public offices of the country is occupied by someone of the eminence of Shri Chatterjee, whose social and political commitments are squarely rooted to benefit the common man,. At a time when our country is having to redefine its national ethos, in a fast changing global context, Shri Chatterjee has perhaps the most delicate and demanding assignment of all.
This last year at IRMA has also been marked by redefinition and change. The Founder Chairman handed over the baton of responsibility to a new Chairman. In Dr. Alagh, our new Chairman, we have a distinguished academic, policy maker and an institution builder. The Board has also selected a new Director, Prof Vivek Bhandari, to be part of IRMA in this new phase of its history. Prof Bhandari teaches at Hampshire College, USA, and will be joining IRMA in May. Beyond the change of leadership, the faculty of IRMA has been deeply engaged in looking within to see how it can position itself to be relevant to the emerging challenges of socio-economic development in our society. I feel privileged to be witness and participant to the transitions underway. I was a student at IRMA 25 years ago and for the last ten months I have worked as acting director in a part time capacity. When I joined, 25 years ago, we lived in the NDDB campus and, in my second year, we moved to the present campus. It was not fully built but even then it was grand.
The wonderful infrastructure of IRMA apart, we were privy to the pioneering earnestness of the faculty, and the staff who made up IRMA. Many of my friends went into the development sector and have worked for long years under the most trying circumstances. Their passion for service and professional excellence was the result of the remarkable people who taught at IRMA and shaped its destiny. People like Prof. Ravi Matthai, Dr. Michael Halse, Dr. Kamala Choudhary, Dr. KRS Murthy, Dr. Haldipur, Mr. Appu, Prof. Tushaar Shah, and above all Dr. Kurien. It needed visionary leadership and also great practical sense to get modern educated people to serve in rural areas. Dr. Kurien undoubtedly possessed these qualities in great measure.
IRMA’s curriculum was (and continues to be) unique. It combined vigorous classroom teaching with extensive field based training. Over the two years, the students spent close to six months actually working with rural producer groups and voluntary organizations to gain first hand experience of running development enterprises. Faculty members would also regularly visit these institutions in an effort to constantly explore and develop the field of rural management. A search for depth and a pioneering spirit were the hallmarks of the faculty.
Many IRMA students, when they graduated, joined these rural based organizations, even as they were assiduously wooed by corporate sector. The best students some times chose the least paying and most difficult jobs. IRMA, in its own inimitable way, encouraged students to follow the advice of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize winning Irish poet, who said the following in his Commencement Address at the University of North Carolina, on 12th May 1996 – I quote “what matters is not the economic givens of your background but the state of readiness of your own spirit. In fact, the ability to start out upon your own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own terms, not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting started all over again -- never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment, but getting renewed and revived by some further transformation”. Unquote Looking back it does seem remarkable how well IRMA succeeded in fulfilling its mandate and approximating its vision.
In the years to follow IRMA’s reputation was to grow. It became nationally known as a top ranking management school. However, IRMA’s success created its own contradictions. Students, not always interested in development, were attracted to it for the excellence of its teaching and the prospects of a good management education. The harsh realities of rural development work and the growing disparity in salaries began to take its toll on students. Senior faculty gained in recognition and moved on elsewhere to take up newer challenges. IRMA, for a number of reasons, found it difficult to stay the course.And then, at another level, the cause of IRMA itself was more complex than what had been imagined in the beginning. The vibrancy of the voluntary sector was not what it was made out to be, nor were the organizational structures of producer organizations very different from the oppressive hierarchies of state structures or the narrow self-interest of the corporate world. The larger social, political and economic circumstances in the country were also changing rapidly.
But even as the external constraints to IRMA’s renewal were manifold, there is no gain saying that the constraints internal to IRMA also played a role in its loosing momentum. The governance and academic structures of IRMA didn’t grasp the extent to which IRMA was loosing ground and needed to adapt itself to changing times. The institutional ethos had not been able to sustain excellence and leadership within the faculty. Often, the autonomy was restricted, as also the freedom that was available was not always exercised. Yet, it is remarkable, that despite all the constraints individual faculty members did do exceptional work and its students continued to excel professionally.
As I said earlier, when I had joined IRMA I was privileged to be witness to a new beginning. As a board member and more recently as the Acting Director, I feel I am once again witness to a new moment in IRMA’s history. A development as significant, if not more, compared to when I came to IRMA as a student. From a period of drift I see the stirrings of revival. Legal matters and boardroom differences that had marred faculty morale are now behind IRMA. Where egos clashed, now differences over ideas have begun to constitute the grounds for disagreement. There is greater appreciation that to achieve self governance and academic autonomy, there is need to serve the core purpose of IRMA well.
Not to say that the course is now only smooth. As acting director I am all too aware of the difficulty of rebuilding IRMA
and creating a coherent identity . Even as the early steps to this goal have been fraught with problems I do see signs of renewal. Not only do the fundamentals of IRMA remain strong; a beautiful campus, intelligent students, talented faculty, dedicated staff and a committed board, but above all IRMA’s original vision to get the best and brightest in our society to work for those less privileged remains as valid as before. No doubt the means to achieve this vision have to be revisited. Few would have thought that 60 years after
democracy we would still have mass poverty and a deepening crisis of governance all around. That so many progressive policies and social movements and voluntary organizations should have achieved so little is a paradox IRMA can help its students understand. We need to examine new approaches and thoughts in encouraging students to be good managers while at the same time to learn to think deeply, if not feel deeply, about ideas of justice, democracy, truth in action, non-violence and dignity for and by all people in society.
Before I end a few words from Seamus Heaney again, specially for the students who graduate today. I quote “By graduating from this great and famous university, you have reached a stepping stone in your life, a place where you can pause for a moment and enjoy the luxury of looking back on the distance covered; but the thing about stepping stones is that you always need to find another one up there ahead of you. Even if it is panicky in midstream, there is no going back. The next move is always the test…….. Whether it be
a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-ityourself kit. There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. And so, my fellow graduates, make the world before you a better one by going into it with all boldness. You are up to it and you are fit for it; you deserve it and if you make your own best contribution, the world before you will become a bit more deserving of you”. Unquote
In the end, let me say again how proud and grateful IRMA is, to have the Honourable Speaker as our chief guest today. He, in his person and in the office he holds, exemplifies the idea of working for the commons for building a just society and more purposeful institutions. Sir, may I present to you IRMA’s class of 2007 - consisting of 72 brilliant young men and women, each special and dear to us - and request you to bless them and confer to them their diplomas. Wearing the IRMA angavastram is an honour, and may I request the Chairman, Dr. Alagh, to place the angavastram on these young but strong shoulders.
Thank you.