Visitor’s rights outweigh insider autonomy in the Indian Institutes of Management

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‘Complete academic freedom at the top’

Professor G Raghuram, former Director of IIM Bangalore and former Dean of IIM Ahmedabad is against the government controlling the IIMs.

He told South First, “No. The more the government steps away from IIMs and for that matter, higher educational institutions, the better off it is. The government must instead empower these organisations. There were some instances of some IIMs not using autonomy in the right manner. What is important is to learn from mistakes. A small amendment from the government like setting up an enquiry committee would have been enough.”

He argues in favour of “complete academic freedom at the top”. “It is not just about education but creativity and innovation are the basis for such institutions. The government must recognise the importance of academic freedom in creative institutions.”

The President has been made a “Visitor” of the IIMs through whom the government can exercise control over institutional appointments of the top leadership. The eligibility criteria for IIM directors have also undergone a change following a controversy over the alleged misrepresentation of educational qualifications by the director of IIM Rohtak at the time of his re-appointment for a second term.

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2023 vs 2017 Bills

These and other changes occurred after Parliament passed the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) (Amendment) Bill 2023 in its Monsoon Session this August. In short, it empowered the government to control and audit the institution’s functioning.

The give-away signs of control are:

• The President is the ‘Visitor’ of each IIM
• The Board will now have to obtain the prior approval of the Visitor to appoint directors
• The Visitor will have the power to initiate reviews or inquiries into the affairs of any IIM
• The President has the power to appoint or remove directors
• The President has the power to dissolve boards
• Changes in the eligibility criteria for IIM directors

In contrast, Parliament passed a similarly named Bill in late 2017, which, after the President’s assent, became the Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017.

The government gave extraordinary powers to the IIMs through this Bill:

• The Board of Governors was empowered to appoint its chairperson and board members, directors and the chairpersons of the Coordination Forum of the IIMs.
• Government members on the Board were reduced from four members to two.
• The Academic Council of each IIM were given the authority to determine the academic content, develop criteria and process for admission to courses, and guidelines for conducting examinations.

The critics said, by reversing the IIMs’ powers, the government has handed over the power back to the bureaucrats and the politicians.

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Reclaiming the power to intervene

Some experts felt that the 2023 changes have weakened the autonomy of the IIMs, which would now be governed the same way the Union government manages Central universities. But not many are taking precise positions on the issue.

Professor Shekhar Chaudhuri, former director of IIM Calcutta, told South First about the changes: “I was director for two terms between 2002 and 2013. At that time, the Government of India appointed the director after a thorough selection process and was finally approved by the Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet. After the 2017 Act came in, the prerogative rested with the Board (of Governors). But the situation has changed now; if I compare, today’s situation is the same as before 2017.”

Asked why the government changed its mind after 2017, Professor Chaudhuri said, “The government, in its wisdom, thought it would give full autonomy to the boards, but certain problems cropped up. There were many representations to the government, but they could not intervene because they had given away all the powers through the IIM Act. This has resulted in the Government intervening through the amendment to the Act.”

The pros of the 2023 changes, according to the government, are:

• The Visitor’s presence enables greater oversight and scrutiny of the functioning of IIMs
• The Visitor’s power to remove directors is aimed at those who are lax in discharging their duties or are charged with misconduct.
• The autonomy granted in 2017 created a lack of accountability and few checks and balances
• There was a lack of transparency and decision-making, as a result, lacked objectivity
• The constant rise in IIM fees was unjustified, with no link to the actual costs of the courses
• Complaints of Directors in some newly established IIMs accused of misusing their power

The cons of watering down the 2017 Act, according to the critics, are:

• Government control can mean pushing through ideological conformity
• Government insistence on social equity can mean introducing the reservation system
• The call for implementing ‘social justice’ in IIMs can raise the quota versus merit controversy
• Any call for lowering the bar for selecting candidates in special categories will lead to a debate on centres of excellence versus populism.
• Institutional autonomy must mean the freedom to decide on fees and build a healthy corpus
• The IIMs have come a long way since, at the instance of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Planning Commission recommended in 1959 the setting up of a national institute for management studies.

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IIM-Union government skirmishes

American management specialists and academics oversaw the establishment of two institutes in Kolkata and Ahmedabad, with two more at Bengaluru and Lucknow coming up later. Subsequently, nearly every Union government tried to set up IIMs in states, taking the number to 21.

Evolving as the premier institutions spearheading management studies in India, they came to represent the essence of management principles necessary to modernise the country’s industry.

As they gathered as much respectability as the IITs, the government’s attention fell on them, and since then, the management and the government have had several skirmishes on how to run these institutions.

Trilochan Sastry, Professor, IIM Bangalore, has a clear view of government control over institutions such as IIMs.

He said to South First: “Let us go by international norms. Oxford and Cambridge in the UK and Berkeley, UCLA, and so in the US are all government universities. There are rules governing them, but they also enjoy autonomy. In these Universities, though the government ‘owned’, the Vice Chancellor or President is not appointed by the Government. If we aspire for true world-class recognition, Government control is not the only issue — there are other issues as well.”

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The present issue

At present, the issue is what brought matters to a head that the government decided to bring in a new Bill in 2023 to counter its own Bill of 2017.

The government’s main complaint was the IIMs’ indifference to the former’s queries. Some of the actions of the directors of IIMs were seen as being arbitrary, like the change of logo of the Ahmedabad IIM, which also decided to bring down the Louis Kahn structures, growing confrontations between the directors and faculty in some IIMs, including in Kolkata.

The government sought to highlight other issues, prime among them the question: Who are the Boards of Governors accountable to? It worried that its Board representation was reduced to two, while the rest of the members came from the alumni or industry.

On the possible impact of government control of institutions like the IIMs, Prof Raghuram said: “There is this instance of a student in IIM Ahmedabad who was researching on political parties and based on his research came to certain conclusions. They (the government) wanted a copy of his PhD thesis, which was denied since that is not part of the process. Now, as long as there are processes to ensure that he has followed the required academic rigour, there must be intellectual freedom.”

“Yes, his work can be challenged, but after it is published and becomes public. The worry is since the request from the Government was denied, as per the new amendments to the Act, the Chairperson or Director can fear losing their positions when the institutions are controlled through the Visitor, which is effectively the Ministry of Education. It can hurt intellectual freedom.”

“Beyond this, the control that is now vested with the Visitor can make the Academic and Board leadership more ‘submissive’ and thus not be creative or innovative in the institution’s interest,” he added.

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Union govt claim

Another matter that the government wants to push is the social justice plank. While introducing the 2023 bill, Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan said:

“Some members questioned why the country’s constitutional requirements, including reservation in faculty recruitment, are not followed in the IIMs or why students from weaker sections are not admitted in these institutions. As long as we don’t fix the accountability, the institutes are not answerable to anyone. Therefore, the bill has brought that accountability while keeping academic autonomy intact.”

Pradhan said the second objective of the amendment was to seek an answer to why the IIMs were not adhering to the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019. He asserted: “Previously, they were not answerable. But now they will be.” He did not clarify further, and none of the IIMs reacted to his statement.

The impact of the government’s new remit will be known the next time an IIM director is appointed. How these sweeping changes impact the performance and performance of the IIMs also remains to be assessed.