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The Fellowship of Those who Wait

Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell

When William Morriss wrote the words Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell in his 1888 novel, The Dream of John Ball, he could hardly have imagined that this aphorism would resonate so strongly among the graduate students in India in the present decade.

Of course the Morriss quote meant something quite different in its context: the Fellowship is a brotherhood, and the lack thereof, the hell, is professional isolation. Nevertheless it is telling that the quote applies so appositely to the manner in which Ph. D. studies are supported today in our system of higher education.

For the most part, Ph. D. scholars need institutional support. For one thing, at the age when most enter the Ph. D. programme, they can scarcely rely on others financially. And furthermore, research scholarship is a national need: across the world, governments support their research scholars. Except that in India, this support is intermittent for the most part.

The intermittency is most evident in the manner in which the funds finally reach the research scholars. Without exception, what unites Ph. D. scholars across the length and breadth of the country is a continuous concern about financial support, waiting for funds to arrive, paperwork to be done, and the fear that for some new reason, things will be delayed… again. Except in research institutes where the fellowships are given directly by the research institutions (and where it must be acknowledged, the numbers are fairly small), and in the IITs and IISERs.

The problem is not unsolvable, but as the years pass and the number of national scholarships increase, it seems that they get more and more difficult to manage. There was a time when the fellowships were only given by the UGC, and then by the CSIR, and then… Today, the DST, DBT, CSIR, UGC, ICMR, ICHR, ICSSR, ICPR… There are many more agencies involved, each with their own modus operandi, their own scales, entitlement and so on.

As research supervisor, I have frequently seen university students suffer- support does not arrive for months together, and then there are months of plenty. Years of famine, years of abundance, so to speak. Contingencies are not paid for years, and then they vanish altogether. And the sheer indignity of it all, having to prove time and again and to various officials, that they are bonafide students. Research is difficult enough without these hurdles to cross.

And this is not a problem that is easily solved by university administrations either. Over the past few years, funds have indeed dried up. The problems and delays are quietly transferred to the administration’s doorstep, and for the most part, this is a body that is ill-equipped to deal with it.

So in the spirit of trying to find a solution, here is a Modest Proposal for Preventing the Research Scholars From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.

1. Have a single scale for the Ph D scholarship. No disparities between the different agencies, no disparities in ancillaries such as contingency or house rent allowance.

2. Have a common code. If a Ph. D. takes five years on average, fund for five years. Not for four (as the UGC non-NET does) or for any length of time (as many institutes do). Or have a proper (and uniformly applicable) funding protocol: Rs. N1 for the first year, N2 for the second, and so on. Put a ceiling: one may be entitled to state support for a research studentship for M years at most.

As it happens now, there are many different levels of funding operational in one institution- some get funded for four years, some for five, and the amount of money can vary widely, even when it is the same funding agency! The point here is that there is a common source: our taxes. And some sensible planning should make it possible to respect all disciplines and fund them equally well.

3. Link the fellowship to the individual in a more transparent manner. Have them register with a unique ID- some state governments use the Class X mark sheet- and monitor the entitlement directly. Each person should be able to avail the support only once. (Today, there are many examples of people hopping between fellowships in an unmonitored way, simply because Agency X does not talk to Agency Y.) So if one takes the fellowship for 2 years at one university and moves to another, one can only draw on the balance number of years (M-2), not the full M again.

4. It might be simpler if the funding agencies would communicate directly with the student. They fund, and they should trust, or at least learn to trust. And also to take a breach of this trust as a serious and punishable offense. As it happens there is a small number of students who will abuse the privilege of being supported for the Ph D by not taking the enterprise seriously in one way or the other- not working with integrity, not completing a study, or by willful fraud. And a similar small number of research supervisors are culpable as well. However, to tar every scholar with the same brush and put in place a tortuous set of rules is a case of agencies being unnecessarily overzealous. Ultimately, this has hurt the cause.

5. Universities could take some of responsibility as well. Today, given the level of funding of the public universities, once students are admitted to the Ph D program, they are left to the not-so-tender mercies of the funding agencies that can take a year or more to simply “verify” papers. University funds are also typically insufficient to cover an “advance”, especially when it not clear when or if the agencies will pay up: the amount of monies owed by the agencies to our public universities are fairly substantial.

The fact of the matter is that research needs to be supported publicly, and it should be supported well. Not just in the declared amount of fellowship, but in the manner of its delivery as well. The present methods adopted by the funding agencies almost conspire to ensure that none but the most dedicated will pursue research in a public institution. I’m sure the above proposal – modest or otherwise – will not find public favour, but it is worth making all the same. Today’s research translates into a better tomorrow, and we need to recognize and respect that.

On reading Matthew

The holy Bible Most of the schools I attended as a child, as well as the college where I did my Bachelor’s, were Christian establishments. Although it was typically not required, as students we did acquire some amount of Bible instruction, some through osmosis and some through disciplining… And this has stood me well over the years.

As I have indicated in recent posts, the overall funding situation for higher education in the country (and for most Central Universities, and the UoH in particular) is very worrisome. The XII Plan allocations from the UGC and MHRD have been less than generous, and one parable from the New Testament strikes a chord. This is the miracle of the five loaves and the two fishes recounted in the Gospel of St. Matthew (14:13-21), and here it is in the New King James Version:

13 When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities.
14 And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
15 When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”
16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”
18 He said, “Bring them here to Me.”
19 Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.
20 So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.
21 Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

It is difficult not to see this as an allegory of the funding of public universities in India. There are many of us- the forty Central Universities and the few hundred State Universities- that are all primarily dependent on the government for funds, to pay salaries, build infrastructure, and to deliver education and carry out research. And at meetings when University administrators gather to discuss the state of finances, we are always told that funds are severely limited for one reason or another…

Maintaining our University at our present level (let alone taking it a notch higher) with the quantum of funds that are given to us by the UGC is going to need nothing short of a miracle. Like the feeding of the five thousand, and that too without a messiah on the horizon.

Even better Khabar

The news that Prof. C N R Rao has been awarded the Bharat Ratna should be warmly welcomed in our University. After all he is one of ours, being conferred an honorary doctorate of the University in 2005. And importantly, he has been a mentor, directly or indirectly to many of our colleagues in various science faculties at the UoH.

He was on the faculty- one of the biggest stars of the stellar Department of Chemistry- at IIT Kanpur where I did my M. Sc. (Chemistry) in 1974. Actually, he was on the interview panel that selected me for admission in 1972 – no entrance exams then- and although I then did not know who he was, I can still remember one question he asked me then: How many molecules of water are there on earth? It was a serious enough question, and as I was grappling with estimating volumes, dividing by 18, multiplying by Avogadro’s constant and doing all that I could to come up with an answer, he added: When its not raining!

I took Physical Chemistry from him the next year- he was an inspiring teacher in many ways- and over the years I have stayed in touch with him enough to be very very impressed by his tenacity and his passion for science. In Kanpur when he was already famous and had nucleated the Department of Chemistry, he was just about 40. That he has stayed current and obsessed with his science for the next four decades (and this shows no sign of abating) is phenomenal.

But the news of the Bharat Ratna to him is welcome in many many ways. It is, as he says, also a recognition of the value of science, of scholarship, of research. Having seen the institutions he has built, one could give it for that alone. And CNR does not mince his words- he is an outspoken advocate for research, and has let government after government know that funding for science is inadequate. As we all recognize only too well, funding for higher education is inadequate, and our only hope for excellence is that we get funded at reasonable levels. In the past two days alone, he has raised the sensibility of not just the political class, but indeed the public at large of the need for funds, for support. We need more champions like him.

Gang aft agley

Recent events, more of a personal nature than public, brought Robert Burns’ To a Mouse to mind. The University lives, as it were, from plan to plan, and like those best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men in the poem, they don’t always work out quite as one wanted. The plan above should really be Plan with the capital P, referring to the Five Year Plans that are overseen by the Planning Commission. We are now into the twelfth (XII) of the Plans that started on April 1, 2012, the date being quite a cruel joke on all of us.

The UoH did well in the XI Plan. Well, in this context, is really in the money that was granted to the University via the UGC and other funding agencies, the total being about Rs. 210 Cr, and one should also count the additional grant that came as a result of the OBC expansion, Rs. 154 Cr. This really enabled the University to dream big, building new hostels, new buildings, new major equipment, new infrastructure, and so on, and the results are there for all to see.

For the XIIth Plan, the UGC and the MHRD initially asked us to dream even bigger, and keeping the then rate of growth of the Indian economy in mind, the Central Universities were asked to project plans that were three or five times the grant we got in the XIth Plan. That’s serious! But that was also at a time when the body politic seemed robust and secure, and also not in a state of limbo as it has seemed to be in the recent past…

Anyhow, we rose to the call and made a XII Plan Proposal that was commensurate with these ambitions. Big plans. But now, when it has come to the implementation stage, there have been subtle (and not so subtle) indications that the budget allocations will be nowhere near as generous as they (or anyone) had hoped… The economy has not been so good, there are massive cuts, everyone is suffering, one “reason” after the other. But more to the point, ten months after the so-called start of the new Plan, we still have no clear idea of what the UoH has been allotted, not in terms of money, not in terms of positions, and not in terms of programmes.

The fact of the matter is, a five year plan period does not really make much sense anymore, least of all for the higher education sector. The world changes too fast in five years, and so do priorities. And five years is not a natural timescale on which anything particular happens in the world of academe, so why quantize it that way? There is no logic to it, and the fact is that by the end of every sacred Plan Period there is always unspent money. (And that accounts for something like Rs 65 Cr out of the 210 that we got in the entire Plan, which comes to nearly one third of the total amount!) I think it would serve us far better if we made proposals for shorter periods – it would help us project our needs better, it would help us to adapt to changing scenarios, and it would help the University to stay competitive instead of locking us into a firm commitment that may eventually evolve into something unrealistic over five years…

One plans and plans, and plans so… and then! Being at a University should prepare one for such uncertainty though. As it happens, I find myself admiring Burns more with the passing years, and seeing through his eyes and words, more of the universality of the human condition. The next stanza of the poem captures perfectly the angst of the moment,

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e. On
prospects drear! An’ forward, tho’
I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

So what’s Gang aft agley? Och, the sorry fate of the best-laid plans of mice and men…