50 years of iima

8/8/2019 50 Years of IIMA

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50 years of IIMA

Some years ago I was at an event when a young man, looking a bit starry eyed, came up to me. He mighthave been about 20 and since I had been doing a bit of cricket on television for a few years, I thought hewanted to ask me something about cricket. Instead, he inspected me a bit and asked, “You from IIM-A?” Ismiled at him, the kind of smile that says yes, and with the same intense gaze he said “Wow!” and walked

away. My professional work meant nothing to him, I wasn't a cricket host, just someone who had passedthrough “wow”!

Now, like many of my batch-mates, my institute turns 50 too. Like many of them, and maybe even more sothan them, it is robust and successful and hugely aspirational. Sometimes great brands can show signs of age, can become irrelevant to generations that care little for reputations, but IIM Ahmedabad is still theplace to be for the best young men and women of this country. It is a solid brand, one of India's strongestand most resilient; a “wow” brand.

It is a brand that many like me wear with pride and emotion. IIM-A changed my life, it put me into a peer group I didn't think I could have belonged to, a group I could claim for life. It gave me my Test cap,something I have often felt the need to turn to at various times in my career. To aspire for something and tobe accepted is a very special feeling. And I know I am not the only one who thinks this way. That is crucial

to understanding the aura of an institution.

Indeed IIM-A shares a wonderful symbiotic relationship with its students. It is not the bricks, but the minds init that make a place and every year, the institute admits some extraordinary minds. As they becomesuccessful they build the aura of the place they come from and in doing so draw more extraordinary mindsto it. It is an upward spiral. The best students need the IIM-A stamp to be seen as special and the instituteneeds the best students to retain its standing.

And yet, the institute needs to add value, for otherwise, it could become a best-in-best-out train. Late lastyear, when we were there for our reunion, it was an issue that was debated strongly. Unfortunately, it is notsomething I can have a strong point of view on since my life has taken me in a different direction but it is anissue worthy of discussion. Do employers--and let's face it, they often determine the standing of aninstitution--regard admission to IIM-A as a quality sifting process or do they believe that it makes men out of boys?

And so, while I cannot speak for others, it did change me as a person. I came from a soft engineeringcourse where I was able to end up as a rank holder without really doing too much.I had no idea of the rigour that success demands and I was lost in my first few months in Ahmedabad. Ithought getting in was difficult, I discovered that getting out would be even more so. That I eventually didcount among my prouder accomplishments. I have often been asked how IIM-A helped me in my life as abroadcaster. It taught me the importance of rigour.

My professors there were vastly superior to those where I came from, they were far more committed (I cannever get over Prof. Abhinandan Jain, one of the stalwarts of IIM-A, visiting our dorms late one evening toreturn our assignments since we needed to work on them for our next submission) and they set standardsthat you were mighty proud to meet. If you got a “B“ in Prof. Mote's course you knew a thing or two, if you,perchance, got an “A“, you were a superior being; as you were if you cracked a quiz set by Prof. Jaikumar

or by Prof. Barua. Not everyone was in that league, but then not everyone can be! IIM-A made me tougher;partly due to the academic standards (a third D and you were back home) but even more so by being partof an extraordinary collection of talents. By nature, the human species is competitive, maybe there is asurvival gene in us somewhere, and while there were many who pretended to be unconcerned by suchpetty matters, deep down, they knew they had to deliver. In my engineering college, if you felt the need todeliver, you delivered. Here, it was nowhere near as simple as that.

But academic rigour is but one factor; a critical factor but only one. The success of its students in diversefields adds to the aura. As a young kid you can wander through the Louis Kahn Plaza and imagine you are



doing what many corporate stars had once done. You can sit there and dream or reflect, as I still do everytime I revisit the campus. This feeling that you have the opportunity to become part of a bigger successstory is another reason for coming to IIM-A.

Many other institutes, and there are many fine colleges around, offer that opportunity but not always thechance to be part of a club. GURU-SPEAK It's the first Indian business school to launch its own publishingprogramme. Random House India and IIM-A have collaborated on a series of books written by facultymembers on subjects usually covered by most management and business books--management skills,strategies for growth, business and intellectual property, among others.

Authors use largely Indian examples such as the Mahabharat, the mantras of business leaders such asNarayana Murthy, and companies such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, Tata Motors Ltd and Bank of Baroda. For beginners and students. Naturally then, these alumni return to pick the best cherries from the next crop. It isa cycle all B- schools hope to establish and one that, through longevity and pedigree, IIM-A hasaccomplished. But now, as always, many challenges line up on the horizon. It is critical that IIM-A hasteachers students can be in awe of. I was only one of two that didn't sign up for Prof. Nitin Patel's course onMIS but I saw my friends looking up to him. As the pillars of the institute retire, are others stepping up? It issomething only more recent alumni can answer but it is imperative that the answer is “yes”.

And many great universities from around the world will come knocking at India's doors. They will bring

global appeal. The Federers and Woods and Messis of the world of education will be here but IIM-A needsto be the Tendulkar; the local global colossus.

Fifty years is a landmark, but one that is much smaller in the life of an institution than it is in the lives of itsmany distinguished alumni. And yet it is a great moment for one of India's greatest brands. There will bemany who will applaud; a tiny part of its heritage will offer thanks.

Harsha Bhogle, an IIM Ahmedabad alumni, is a cricket writer and commentator.

Nuts and bolts

Since its establishment in 1961, IIM-A has rapidly developed both a reputation for excellence in educationand a unique cultural tradition of its own. Important elements of this tradition include the signaturearchitecture, campus rituals and rites and a long list of alumni and faculty that have included people famousfor pursuits both management-oriented and otherwise. This is a quick snapshot of the people, places andtraditions that make IIM-A unique: THE PEOPLE Renowned physicist and Ahmedabad native VikramSarabhai played a significant role in getting the institute situated in Ahmedabad. The first batch comprised42 students picked from 4,000 applicants. They included C.K. Prahalad who would later go on to become aworld-renowned management thinker. Legend has it that at one point in their academic year some of theolder students went on strike for a day. They were protesting against the bad food. Sarabhai consoled thempersonally.

The food remained the same.

Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy's first job after graduating with a master's from IIT Kanpur was at

IIM-A's computer centre. He worked as a chief systems programmer and was hired at a salary of R800 amonth in 1969. Dancer Mallika Sarabhai, Vikram Sarabhai's daughter, is also an alumni of the institute Shegraduated in 1974 and then completed a doctorate in organizational behaviour from Gujarat University.

Best-selling authors Chetan Bhagat and Rashmi Bansal, and sports commentator Harsha Bhogle are somealumni who have gone on to do things not exactly in the syllabus. The institute has produced severalbusiness thinkers and managers.



In a survey conducted in 2009, it was estimated that over 60% of all chief executives produced by the IIMsystem in India were graduates of IIM-A.

THE GEOGRAPHY For the first one year of the institute's history, the offices and skeleton staff operatedout of Sarabhai's house “The Retreat“ , located in the Shahibaug area of the city. “The Retreat“ would alsohouse the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, while it was being established. Today the buildinghouses part of the famous The Calico Museum of Textiles.

The main campus as seen today was built from 1962 and was designed by American architect Louis Kahn.Kahn's work has been called monumental and monolithic in style. Kahn's campus for IIM- A was entirelyconstructed in bare red brick without any structural adornments, save long sweeping arches, high corridorsand brutal play with light and shadows.

In memory of the architect, the central square of the campus, used for functions and the annual convocationceremony, is called the Louis Kahn Plaza, or LKP for short. The campus is frequently visited by local andinter- national students of design and architecture seeking to learn Kahn's work. His other popular buildingis the National Assembly Building in Dhaka.

Across a road, the old campus is connected to a new campus that began to be occupied in 2003. The new

campus, modelled out of bare concrete and some brickwork, comprises classrooms, offices and severaldormitories. The two campuses are connected by an undergound tunnel that also serves as a makeshiftgallery.

Both old and new campuses also have tall service towers that are visible from some distance. The towerscontain piping and water tanks.

THE TRADITIONS In the initial years, IIM-A worked in partnership with the Harvard Business School. Thisexplains the institute's dependence on the case method of teaching. But in addition to pedagogy this hasalso led to several traditions such as the Harvard Dinner every Friday night that is, theoretically, supposedto be a more elaborate affair than usual.

Each year the incoming batch participates in a series of talent com- petitions over several evenings that is

called, however, Talent Night.

This might be inspired by a similar event at Harvard.

First-year students are also subject to the WAC run. Written Analysis and Communication, or WAC, is asubject in which reports need to be submitted to a strict deadline, usually on weekend afternoons.Normally students can be seen running to submit printouts of reports in the classrooms. En route they haveto battle obstructing seniors and the occasional bucket of water flung down from dorm room balconies.

This flinging of water, or dunking, is a constant event. And can often happen unexpectedly. Some leniencyis shown towards people carrying paper documents or electronic devices. But not always.

Gujarat is a state that prohibits alcohol consumption. Yet the campus hosts frequent all-night dance

parties that are, ostensibly, fuelled with non-alcoholic beverages.

50 years of iima

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