Vijay Singh
New Delhi [India], June 12: The recent book, IIT: The Story of India’s Most Prestigious Educational Ecosystem, by Prabhat Kumar, IRS officer and Chairman of PanIIT Alumni India, presents an extensive report on the evolution of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) from an ambitious post‑Independence nation‑building project to a globally influential educational and innovation hub.
The narrative traces IITs’ history from 1951, when the foundation stone of the first IIT, IIT Kharagpur, was laid at a site that had been used as a colonial prison: the Hijli Detention Camp in West Bengal. The book contends that the conversion of a colonial prison into an institution of learning was symbolic of India’s future, marking a critical turning point in India’s scientific and technological development.
Fast forward to today: India has 23 IITs, with alumni numbering more than 500,000 worldwide. Many of them are top leaders in technology, business, government or academia. The book documents the contribution of IITians to major national initiatives such as Aadhaar, UPI, space missions, infrastructure and the burgeoning AI ecosystem in India.
The book also shows that the IITs story has reached a new phase in which there is rapid growth, a multi-billion-rupee industry of coaching, increasing mental-health concerns and a strong startup culture. The book offers a compelling, richly written and data-driven narrative of this amazing journey combined with compelling policy insights and solutions.
The book documents the context in which some of the most exciting deep-tech breakthroughs in India are happening – deep-tech in space, deep-tech in agriculture and Indian-language AI models, all coming out of IIT campuses. The book also examines how students are coping under high intellectual and social pressures and documents how IITs and other institutions are trying to support students.
The book projects to 2047: where are the IITs in the future? What is the vision? The book is a vision for IITs to become research centres, innovation hubs, centres of excellence and centers of talent that will help India grow the vision of becoming a ‘developing nation’ in 2047.
