Click to play videoAhmedabad: IIM Ahmedabad Director Dr Bakul Dholakia will step down from the post, but more than being remembered as the man who catapulted IIM-A to the best B-School in Asia, he will be remembered as the academician who took on the HRD ministry over the issue of autonomy.
Five years ago on October 10, 2002, management education was not what it is now as that was the day when Dr Dholakia took over as director of IIM Ahmedabad.
And in five years the man has transformed the way the world looks at Indian management studies.
He has led a team of world-class academicians who have churned out some of the finest young managers.
IIM (A) is among the best B-school campuses in the world so Dholakia has reasons to be a proud man.
"I step down with a sense of satisfaction of having achieved a large part of the vision with which I had taken over,” says Dr Dholakia.
If you ask him about his several altercations with the HRD Ministry – whether Murli Manohar Joshi during the NDA regime or Arjun Singh more recently --and Dholakia becomes emotional.
After all when it comes to autonomy he has been the face of academic resistance.
“If institutes of higher learning need to sustain and improve on excellence, then greater flexibility is needed and that cannot happen without operative, administrative and financial autonomy,” says Dr Dholakia.
And not that Dr Dholikia is saying goodbye to this campus he has helped nurture, he has still five more years to serve out as a professor.
He is only saying goodbye as a director or the brightest of students enrolled in IIM-A, it's not yet time to sing To Sir With Love
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