Click to play videoInfosys chairman emeritus NR Narayana Murthy's statement that engineers coming out of the IITs are not of good quality has led to a war of words with noted author and IIT almunus Chetan Bhagat calling Infosys a body shop.
Bhagat spoke exclusively to CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose on the issue and more.
Sagarika Ghose: Hello and Welcome to this CNN-IBN special. Today we're bringing you someone who is a youth icon. He's the author of best-selling books. He's someone incredibly popular among young people. He's been a former investment banker and he's arguably one of IITs most famous graduate and even a graduate of IIM. Chetan Bhagat is with us and he's going to tell us about his new book 'Revolution 2020'. He's also going to tell us about his writing and going to tell us about his new political ideas as well. We are very privileged to have him with us.
Chetan thanks a million for joining us.
Chetan Bhagat: Thank you Sagarika and thanks for bringing me outside the studio and to your ex-college.
Sagarika Ghose: To my ex-college, St Stephen's College. Isn't it beautiful? More beautiful than IIT?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes. So it seems that the nostalgia trips of college are not just mine. They are yours too.
Sagarika Ghose: There's something about students in these elite colleges which is different. Isn't it? It's like an aura around.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes. This is the Stephen's. Stephen's you say it or Stevens?
Sagarika Ghose: St Stephen's.
Chetan Bhagat: St Stephen's and I was, like, I better pronounce it properly and I know you guys don't have a canteen, you have a Cafeteria and all these little knick-knacks. And it's so wonderful. I saw these pictures of a play from 1945, I mean where do you get to see that. So, I think you are very lucky to be from here.
Sagarika Ghose: And Chetan, you know you are, of course, from the IIT and many would say you are IIT's most famous graduate. Your best selling book 'Five Point Someone' was about the IIT. What is it about the IIT that inspires you and draws you? Why do you want to recapture that experience?
Chetan Bhagat: Well, it seems to be something. My country also seems to be very inspired by it. Every time I see, even the tiny news about IIT becomes so big. But for me, you know, that was my first stepping out of home and getting into an IIT, it's not like you just enter an IIT. You prepare for years and years about something you don't even know what it will be. Then I got in there, you know, and everybody had come after a lot of hard work, a lot of dreams. So it is really a melting-pot place where everybody from India comes after working super hard. So, it was transformative for me to be out of my sheltered home and be in the hostel there, and to learn so much about India, about how elite colleges are. So I think that's where the inspiration had come from.
Sagarika Ghose: And, of course, If you talk about the IIT you inevitably, these days talk about controversy, don't you? I mean you have Jairam Ramesh saying the students are better than the faculty. And now you have Mr Narayana Murthy, himself, saying that, in fact, the engineers being produced at the IIT are not of that high quality. To which you had a very strong reaction. You said, you know why is it that someone who runs a body shop speaks this way about the IIT.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes. You know he said something high-handed and I admit I reacted by saying something high-handed. I think it's like something ingrained in us. If someone takes an attack on your college, you've got to defend it. Won't you? I mean if someone makes unreasonable comments like '80 per cent of the students are not good', I mean, they are the best kids in the country. They've worked hard for years and they have come here. What I do fail to understand, Sagarika, is the obsession with the IITs our country has. We should be obsessed with the education system which affects everybody. Primary education, higher education and all percentiles, not just these colleges. What's the IITs, we are just a bunch of nerds.
Sagarika Ghose: We're just a bunch of nerds who can't get girls?
Chetan Bhagat: I think so. I mean what is the big fuss all about. It's just a tech school. I don't know why it makes front page news, why it makes primetime news. I don't think anywhere else in the world a tech college, like an engineering college, makes such big news. Everyone seems to be interested in giving an opinion on them.
Sagarika Ghose: But do you regret what you said about Mr Narayana Murthy and Infosys?
Chetan Bhagat: No, not really...I mean I wanted to. My point is very valid. And in fact, I was speaking to the Infosys people and they have agreed that, you know, why bring the students in to it. Why judge the students? It may even be true that he has something he feels about the quality of the students. But, it's very high-handed. Same way, when I call Infosys a body shop it's high-handed.
Sagarika Ghose: You were being high-handed when you called Infosys a bodyshop?
Chetan Bhagat: I was, but just to prove the point that it hurts. You should be careful. You should suggest improvements. Someone at a higher super stature like Mr Narayana Murthy, he is an ex-alumnus of IIT, he has the power to talk to policy makers and fix the JEE system if he feels like it's wrong. Why is he saying the students are not good? You know, haven't the students worked hard for years. If I start saying Infosys is not Google, Infosys had so many people but they have not made a Microsoft office, it's super high handed. They are very good at what they do and they are trying their best, and so are these students, trying their best. His pointing a finger at the students was not fair but I didn't say it in a very angry mood. But, it's like college loyalty. You've got to take it for your college.
Sagarika Ghose: so you don't want to give an apology to Narayana Murthy for saying he is running a body shop?
Chetan Bhagat: Come on. I don't think he needs one and I don't think I need too. I mean, what have I said that is so offensive? It's just a corporate and I have given my view. This term called body shopping is not my term, its a term that has come from the software sector only. It's something, which you will hear in hushed voices from a lot of software programmers. My brother was in software.
Sagarika Ghose: There are a number of IITians in Infosys.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes, there are a number of IITians in Infosys. They come and they hire people by the hundreds. Really, they hire by the hundreds. So, I think he has benefited from the IIT. He has a point that the coaching class system is taking away something from good students. But to say that 80 per cent of the students are bad, I mean, it's like me telling you, 'you're not BBC'. It's like I am forcing you to be on the defensive. It's like all the good work you have done, I am ignoring and I think this is an attitude in India where people, who are at a certain stature, often do. But it's a very harmful, elitist attitude for the country.
Sagarika Ghose: That brings me in fact to my next question. When you are talking about elite institutions or elite educational institution, you were saying something very interesting to me earlier, that if you're not in the elite education institutions like IIT, like St Stephen's, sometimes you just fall of the map.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes, it's like we keep talking about these elite starting salaries and all what's happening here - whether Stephen's has a new water cooler will make news, or whatever. But most people are not in these institutes. For most of the kids, if you are not in top five-ten per cent, there are just not enough good colleges. So, if you don't make it to the good places, the drop in quality is enormous. It's like you fall off a cliff. And then those kids when they graduate, you suddenly find 'wow there's a big difference, we can't hire them, we don't think they are of the same caliber'. I think that's what we should focus on.
Sagarika Ghose: Which is why when someone says, like a Mani Shankar Iyer pause con on say Hanraj College, it becomes very cruel and it is a reminder of elitism.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes its counter productive. If he really feels something, it s not like, again I am not questioning the validity, I don't know about Mani's point, but I am not questioning Narayan Murthy's point. I have written, you have read the book, it's about quota and I present it in a very realistic manner and it says how quota is suffocating places. But to tell that because of this the students are bad, I mean, that's not very good. I think he can suggest policy improvements, he can straight away say that the JEE needs to be changed. But to say that the kids are of poor quality...I mean it's not.
Sagarika Ghose: It's not fair. It's not fair on the institution. But let's come to your new book. It's about the education sector and about commercialisation, corruption in the education sector. Is it something you feel strongly about, and if it is, then why?
Chetan Bhagat: Very, very strongly. You know I've become a motivation speaker in the last two years and I've been to 75 cities. And like I said, I have often addressed audiences in non-elite colleges. That is why I even had an interface with them because I am form IIT, I am meeting friends who are my batch mates, people like you, it's a very different world for me. But when I go there I see these kids, they want to learn but the quality is really not being monitored properly of these institutes. I have nothing against commercialisation.
Sagarika Ghose: So these are fly-by-night, commercial organisations?
Chetan Bhagat: Well, yes. See commercial is no problem Sagarika. You are a commercial organisation, my books are commercial. However, it's the lack of ethics in education, because right now the law of the country says if you are in a private college, you have to be a non-profit trust, which means you can't make money off it. Now it costs thousands of crores to set up universities. So the government believes that every year there will be people with goodness of their hearts, who will open colleges and provide education to the millions who need them. That never happens. So we have people who can exploit these non-profits and take money out of it. So we have liquor barons, you have mithai shop owners, you have these people opening colleges and they flout the trust rules. They take black money, they make fake contracts and they make money anyway. But good people will never open colleges. If we allow, for example, commercial colleges, then an Infosys can open a college, a Reliance can open a college. Now, at least will have some quality. And the shareholders will allow them to open a college because they are allowed to make a profit. That is a very simple policy fix and that can be done. I don't want to go on a fast for it and I don't want to scream anti-politician slogans for it. It's just so sensible to do so that the good people will be attracted to this sector.
Sagarika Ghose: And perhaps this is why the youth, or such a large section of the youth, are frustrated because they simply don't have the opportunity to get a good education. Is that something that you want to reflect on as well? The aspiration of the youth today and the system failing to meet those aspirations - failing to provide opportunities.
Chetan Bhagat: Well one of the themes is on corruption of ambition. When I talk about ambition, you know someone wrote a mail to me once. A fan mail came, and he said 'we are the generation with the ambition but without the opportunity'.
Sagarika Ghose: Do you see yourself as of a sort of spokesperson of that generation? Or talking to their generation?
Chetan Bhagat: No, I am no official spokesperson but as a writer.
Sagarika Ghose: But reflecting their anger?
Chetan Bhagat: As a writer it will naturally come in my work. I am writing work that touches them and obviously it will be something that they can connect with.
Sagarika Ghose: Let's talk about your role in the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement as well. You were famous for that tattoo that you had on your arm 'mera neta chor hai'. Do you still have it?
Chetan Bhagat: No, no. That was made with a sketch pen.
Sagarika Ghose: Right. But when you had that slogan, which a number of people criticised you for...for being too anti-politician, why did you feel you have to have a tattoo which says 'mera neta chor hai'?
Chetan Bhagat: Well we needed something that would work. I needed a campaign that could go viral. That 'mera neta chor hai' comes from a very famous movie called 'Deewar', right. It was a line from 'Deewar', someone puts it on Amitabh Bachchan's forearm that 'mera baap chor hai'. So it is inspired by that and I had to maintain that. I can't put a disclaimer that 'kuch neta chor nahi hai'. I never said 'saare neta chor hai'. I just said this is the feeling people are carrying in their hearts. But if you put it here and you walk around with it in a shopping mall or even your auto driver might ask, 'why have you written this?', so then you can explain that we are saying this because they don't want to pass an anti-corruption law. It was a shock value in effect but obviously I claim and I know some politicians who are honest, I know them personally. I think 'saare neta chor nahi hai' but 'kuch hai'.
Sagarika Ghose: But were you also reflecting the angst against and anger of the youth? A number of youth do feel that and they participated in large numbers in the Anna Hazare movement. Were you trying to reflect their sentiment?
Chetan Bhagat: In fact, this book on corruption, I had started writing it two years ago, far before Anna happened, far before Egypt happened. I gathered that the youth are feeling very frustrated by what's going on. Imagine paying money to get admission, imagine the colleges paying money to get permission.
Sagarika Ghose: And there is no one talking to them, no one reaching out to them. No one giving them their voice.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes, and frankly, I haven't really done much for them, I have only given them a story, which hopefully will be read by lots of people.
Sagarika Ghose: Chetan isn't it true that as far as the elite institutions like IIT are concerned, as far as the elite work space is, like Infosys, are concerned, there are very justifiable criticism. There are criticisms being made that IIT does not produce genuine engineers who can apply their knowledge and there are criticisms also on Infosys that why hasn't it produced a Mark Zuckerberg or a true software genius. How would you respond to those criticisms?
Chetan Bhagat: No, I think they are valid and they are all coming from an education system that doesn't focus on innovation much. I think it's very undervalued trait in the country that you have to be innovative and come up with new things.
Sagarika Ghose: So do you agree slightly with Narayan Murthy when he says that the engineers coming out of the IIT are not innovative?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes I agree with him and even if I agree with or not, the results are for all to see. I mean look at the amount of inventions the IIT makes and there are reasons for it. The point is who do you blame for it? You can't really say that the students are poor or the professors are bad either, as Jairam Ramesh said. I think it's to do with the system we have designed, it's to do with our cultural beliefs because innovation and creativity, for example, needs a lot of rebellion, questioning what is going on and saying no let us change this. That is something that is not very well appreciated.
Sagarika Ghose: We don't have a questioning culture?
Chetan Bhagat: No. It's considered un-Indian to question the norms.
Sagarika Ghose: And would you say the same thing about Infosys?
Chetan Bhagat: I am no expert on Infosys but I would say yes, in the sense that when you say, again I am being high handed. I do admire Infosys for what it's done. They have done good for the country, yes, but are they innovative, that's something they should really comment on sometime.
Sagarika Ghose: So, this is our elitist culture that our elitist education and work culture creates this kind of veneration and not thinking out of the box?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes, it becomes almost like a shrine that oh you said something against IIT. I think people should be allowed too, if they want.
Sagarika Ghose: You should be allowed to speak against Narayan Murthy if you want?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes. I never spoke against him. I said his choice of words was high handed and I would. It's not something I have said that I wouldn't say it face-to-face.
Sagarika Ghose: Do you think there's too much of deification of public idols, of public figures? You think Amitabh Bachchan can't be spoken about, or Sachin Tendulkar can't be spoken about or even a Narayan Murthy can't be spoken about?
Chetan Bhagat: But Chetan Bhagat can be spoken about, and a Sagarika can be spoken about. So see there's a difference.
Sagarika Ghose: Are there demi-gods in our public life?
Chetan Bhagat: I think we are quite insecure about our icons. If the icons are truly icons, opposing opinion should be okay. It's no big deal.
Sagarika Ghose: But there is a need for irreverence. There is a need for thinking out of the box.
Chetan Bhagat: There is a need and I think society benefits. That's the young generation.
Sagarika Ghose: That's the young generation, what you in many ways represent. You also represent something quite new in, say Indian writing in English. Indian writing in English has always been very academic, very elite but you have actually popularised and in a way democratised Indian writing in English. In that sense, have you taken some flak for that because a lot of people will say 'oh Chetan Bhagat is not a serious writer' or 'Chetan Bhagat's books are like ketchup' as I read somewhere.
Chetan Bhagat: I like that compliment. Ketchup goes with everything. That's in the context that yes, it may not be gourmet food but it is so yummy that everybody wants to have it. And I think it's fine.
Sagarika Ghose: But do you think that's important to be a bridge builder? Even though you come from an elite background, its important to make yourself accessible?
Chetan Bhagat: These elite places are wonderful whether it's the elite school of literature or colleges, if you keep making them you can keep making them more and more wonderful and keep feeling good about it by admiring the shrine, so as to speak. But what is the benefit? the benefit is when you make a channel, you make a bridge, to impart some of the things that have made that place good to these non-elite places, when we lend a hand to people who, you know, who do not speak such good English.
Sagarika Ghose: English language you believe is a big aspiration. It's a sweeping aspiration?
Chetan Bhagat: It's an aspiration because of its economic value. I mean, if they've been kids with same qualifications, the one with good English will make four times the money as a non English kid would. It's a very easy tool for Indians to come up with in life and they have the right to it.
Sagarika Ghose: So its important to democratise the English language? Is that in some sense why you set your novel in Varanasi?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes.
Sagarika Ghose: Because you wanted people in Varanasi also to read a book about the place in English? About the education system there?
Chetan Bhagat: Yes, one of the place like Varanasi. In fact, if you read the book, you would pretty much know that these people actually must be talking in Hindi, but its written in English or even the guy works in a Hindi newspaper, you know.
Sagarika Ghose: So, this is a break from the IIT kind of student? It's about a very different kind of student. It's about the non-elite student.
Chetan Bhagat: I felt guilty that part of the reason I get so much attention is because I am writing about IITs and IIMs or whatever. But I said can I make a compelling story out of the non-elite places, people who don't make it, can I actually give their story on a national stage. I hope people accept it. You've seemed to have liked it.
Sagarika Ghose: And basically, just on this point again of being the voice of the non-elite youth or being the voice of the non-elite ambitious youth, do you feel that now increasingly people with privilege should shut up about their privilege? This is not the time to display privilege and display snobbery. Those days are gone.
Chetan Bhagat: Exactly. I think that is one definite trend. Thirty years ago if you were privileged you would flaunt it and you know people would commend you for it - he has it and he is flaunting his privilege...whether its degrees, people would hang their degrees on the walls and anywhere they would go they would give their business cards. That's going now, you know. If you have privilege its a little vulgar to flaunt it and I think its really good because we want to be an equal society.
Sagarika Ghose: Closed systems, elitist systems, flaunting of privilege those are not good. Chetan Bhagat is an IIT, IIM graduate. He's a former investment banker but he now writes in English, books that can be accessible to all those who believe English is an aspiration for them. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.
Chetan Bhagat: Thank you, and thank you very much for calling me to your college, you know, I sometimes do wish, this is a secret thing, now that I have become a writer I do wish I had studied more literature and this would have been a wonderful place to learn it.
Sagarika Ghose: St Stephen's is beautiful but IIT will get there soon enough in terms of beauty.
Chetan Bhagat: Yes. Well the buildings are more beautiful but I can't say about the people, you know.
Sagarika Ghose: Thanks very much.
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