IIT Chandigarh: Many a slip between the cup and the lip

This is the story of how India missed having an IIT at Chandigarh. A large number of people have told me parts of the story and it is possible that some parts are not authentic. But it is a fascinating story anyway.

Late 1950s. After no one challenged the establishment of IIT Kharagpur through an act of parliament, it was time to establish the other three IITs as suggested by Sarkar Committee Report, one each in North, South and West. It was decided to set them up at Kanpur, Chennai (then Madras) and Mumbai (then Bombay). Since IITs were to be at a level higher than any other engineering college in the country, foreign help was sought and received. The three new IITs would be setup with the help of US, Germany and Russia.

UK wasn't happy that it wasn't asked to play a role in India's development, and it offered its help for any other engineering institute. But their offer initially was less than what other countries were doing for the other three IITs. Indian government welcomed the offer, and was thinking of two options: Starting a new college which will not be an IIT, or converting an old college to an IIT. Both options will need less support consistent with the offer of UK.

A small college in Chandigarh had a great visionary as its Principal, Prof. R N Dogra. To add to that, Dogra family was rather close to Nehru family. And Chandigarh was the most favorite city of Pt Nehru. He brought more state guests to Chandigarh than to Agra. This college which was the oldest college East of Thomson College in undivided India, and had a great reputation, sent a letter to Government of India asking that it be made the 5th IIT of India.

However, the Government in Delhi had other pressures. There was to be one IIT and two RECs in Northern India. The IIT had gone to Kanpur, and one of the two RECs was to be in Allahabad for obvious reasons. The central government was keen to convert Delhi College of Engineering into REC Delhi, but people in Delhi protested. So the second REC of the North was planned for Srinagar. An earlier Chief Minister (the post had been abolished in 1956) had been demanding that a city of the stature of Delhi must get a second engineering college. Eventually, central government decided to establish an engineering college in Hauz Khas with the help of UK. Soon thereafter, UK decided to increase its commitment, and the college was renamed as IIT Delhi. For the Chandigarh college, there was a slip between the cup and the lip.

Not only the college in Chandigarh was not converted to an IIT, but its visionary leader was snatched away and made the founding Director of IIT Delhi. He had built PEC from scratch. We had shifted to Chandigarh only in 1953 and a lot more infrastructure needed to be built, lot more labs, new departments, more faculty, and what not. He had done all that, but more needed to be done to be truly world class.

At IIT Delhi, the initial architecture/planning/hostel names borrowed a lot from PEC. But while he built the new IIT, he remained loyal to his first love. If we could have a 5th IIT, why not a 6th IIT. He lobbied with Indira ji, the daughter of the then Prime Minister. And finally, the government agreed. The date was decided. IIT Chandigarh were to take admission from 1963. But in 1962, the China war happened. The finances which were already stressed became much worse and the date for conversion was postponed to 1964. Once again, there was a slip between the cup and the lip.

A new condition was added for the conversion. That Punjab Government must continue to fund this IIT to the same extent as the funds they provided to PEC at that time. This wasn't too difficult. Shri Pratap Singh Kairon was the Chief Minister, who had been arguing for the establishment of a world class college in Punjab long before he became CM. He had helped in getting the 146 acres of prime land in the new upcoming city of Chandigarh for relocating PEC. But he was fighting to clear his name of corruption charges, and there was this Punjabi Suba movement. IIT Chandigarh wasn't the top priority at the moment. But as soon as the the commission of inquiry exonerated him of corruption charges, he suddenly resigned in June, 1964, and Shri Gopi Chand Bhargava who was the first Chief Minister of Punjab after independence, was made a caretaker Chief Minister for two weeks. Within this brief period, he called a cabinet meeting and approved that Punjab Government would pay the same amount that they granted to PEC that year for eternity. While it was too late for July 1964 admissions, the central government decided that IIT Chandigarh would come into being in 1965.

At the 3rd Inter-IIT Sports Meet at IIT Madras in December, 1964, Brig. Sisir Kumar Bose had announced that from the next year, there would be six teams participating in the sports meet, the sixth one being from IIT Chandigarh. He hadn't realized that with the death of Pt Nehru, Chandigarh had lost its biggest supporter in Delhi. No notification of IIT Chandigarh came. Instead, it was decided to seek another letter of support from Punjab Government, since the earlier letter was from a caretaker government. There was a slip between the cup and the lip.

The Punjab Government decided to wait till the picture of division of Punjab was clear. The Punjab Reorganization Act was implemented on 1st November, 1966, creating the states of Punjab and Haryana, merging some of the hill districts with the Union Territory of Himachal Pradesh and making it a state, and most importantly for us, converting Chandigarh into a Union Territory. The PEC was no longer in the state of Punjab, and therefore, there was no question of Punjab Government promising any financial support to PEC (or IIT Chandigarh).

India had to survive without a sixth IIT for the next 3 decades.