Masters Speak: Management Education In India

By Vinay Nangia

Management education in India has had a phenomenal transformation since the sixties. In Masters Speak, Vinay Nangia, who has four decades of experience in management, brings together an array of leaders and pioneers in the field.
These exclusive interviews offer an insight into how management education has transformed over the years and examines the issues, challenges and relevance in today's competitive, professional scenario. The views and opinions of prominent educationists allow the reader to a better understanding of what management education actually is, and its prospects in the Indian context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9789384898120

Book preview

2014

ONE

Professor Abad Ahmad

Dr Abad Ahmad has been a Professor of Management at the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi. He was Pro-Vice Chancellor, Director South Campus and Dean of the Faculty of Management Studies at the University of Delhi. He was also the Executive Director of the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.

Dr Ahmad has been a visiting Professor at the Indiana University USA and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has presented papers at several international conferences and seminars and has been invited for lectures and consultancy assignments in several countries.

He obtained his MBA degree from the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada, where he was a Commonwealth Fellow. He participated in the International Management Education Programmes of the Harvard Business School and the Graduate School of Business at the Stanford University, USA. His areas of specialisation have been Applied Behavioral Science, Organisational Change and Strategic Management. He was instrumental in designing and launching the first full-fledged university based full time MBA Course at the University of Delhi in the year 1967.

He has served on many important committees set up by the Government of India such as the J&K Development Review Committee and the Committee on Policy Perspectives for Management Education. He has been a member of the National Commission on Population.

Dr Ahmad is a founder member and fellow of the Indian Society of Training and Development and the Indian Society of Applied Behavioural Science. He was president of the Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS). He was awarded the Ravi Matthai National Fellowship for Life-Time Services to Management Education in the year 2002 by AIMS. He was Chairman of the All India Board of Management Studies. At present, he is Chairman of the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation (India).

He has done extensive consultancy assignments on organisation development, top management team development, vision building and executive development programmes for a large number of public and private sector organisations.

He has published several articles and books. His well known books are: ‘Management and Organisation Development’, ‘Developing Effective Organisations—the Indian Experience’ and ‘Designing and Developing Organisations for Tomorrow’. His latest book, based on an empirical study of outstanding Indian organisations, is titled ‘Passion to Win—How winning companies develop and sustain competitive edge?’

What was the purpose of management education, when it started in India and how far has the purpose, as thought of in early days, been achieved? Has it changed over a period of time? What is the current purpose of management education?

PROFESSOR ABAD AHMAD

I would like to begin with my understanding of the historical development of Business and Management Education in India. This will enable us to examine the purpose with which management education was started, how it has changed over time, what it is at present, and what should it be.

Business education in India was confined mostly to commerce courses offered by almost all universities. It was assumed that commerce education would enable people to become successful businessmen and managers, and will help students in getting good jobs in business organisations. There was little or no awareness of the importance and distinctiveness of management education as developed by reputed Business Schools in North America for developing competent professional managers, till almost mid-fifties of the last century in our country.

In mid-fifties of the last century, several initiatives were taken by the Government and industry for developing management education, training, and professional development. On the recommendation of an expert committee of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), three year part-time post graduate diploma courses in Business Management and Industrial Administration were proposed in four universities at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Delhi for industry sponsored working executives. The Committee recommended setting up a Board of Management Studies and also establishment of the Administrative Staff College patterned on the lines of Staff College at Henley in U.K. After establishment of the All India Board of Technical Studies in Management in 1953, in 1954 these four universities started such diploma courses. The Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) was started in 1956 and conducted management development programmes for executives from Government, public and private sector enterprises, and also to do research and consultancy. In 1957, the All India Management Association was created with the support of Government as an apex body with membership of business and industrial organisations and managers to develop professional management ethos in organisations. It established local chapters in several cities of the country. The Ministry of Industrial Development established the National Productivity Council (NPC) in 1958 on the recommendation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Keeping in view this historical perspective, it is evident that the purpose of management education in the beginning was to develop professional management ethos in business and industrial organisations as well as in the Government through education and training of working executives and officers.

In 1959, the Planning Commission invited Professor George W Robbins, Associate Dean of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a consultant to the Ford Foundation, to formulate a scheme for establishment of an All India Institute of Management. On the basis of his recommendations, the Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta (IIMC) was set up in 1961 in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the IIM at Ahmadabad (IIMA) in 1962 in collaboration with the Harvard Business School (HBS). The decision to keep IIMs out of the conventional university system was probably to ensure freedom to IIMs in all academic and administrative matters, as most of the Indian Universities were found to be very slow in decision making and reluctant to accept management education as a fully academic discipline They were not willing to create institutional structure like that of business schools in the Western countries that provide more autonomy, flexibility and delegation of academic, financial and administrative authority for this purpose—a situation which continues in most universities even now. Further, there was high resistance from well established Commerce Departments in Universities to any such initiative. Later, based on the success of the IIM model for management education, the IIMs were established in Bangalore (IIMB) and Lucknow (IIML), followed by many more recently.

The purpose of management education was thus broadened by the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Management and aimed at educating bright young graduate students, both freshers and with some industry experience, selected through a rigorous system of test, interviews, etc. The main aim of management education then became to develop a cadre of young professional managers who would transform the Indian business and industry through high quality knowledgeable professional managers. The emphasis was now more than only training and development of working executives. It was to develop the whole field of management education as a multi-disciplinary, applied and professional education that would advance the frontiers of knowledge in the field through research, like the business schools in the western countries. Further, it expanded the scope of management education to serve the needs of sectors other than business and industry, e.g. in Agriculture and Rural Management.

The purpose of management education has been changing over time. In order to fully appreciate the changes we need to look at the total management education system as it has evolved in India.

The Universities in India have been very slow in accepting management education and the MBA courses as disciplines for higher education. The earliest MBA course was started by Andhra University, but it was more like a Commerce course with the nomenclature of MBA, as it did not incorporate the basic elements that distinguish management education from other traditional disciplines including Commerce.

The University of Delhi (DU), which was running the three year part time Post Graduate Diploma Courses in Business and Industrial Management at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) since mid-fifties, took the initiative under the leadership of Professor A Dasgupta and vision of Professor VKRV Rao to establish a new Department of Business Management and Industrial Administration. It started the full time MBA course in mid-sixties on the pattern of MBA courses in North America. The Jamna Lal Bajaj Institute of Management (JBIM) Bombay University also started the Master of Management Studies (MMS) programme. The success of these programmes led to a chain reaction. Several universities started the full time MBA programmes and created separate Departments of Management.

A parallel development that happened in India was the development of private institutions for management education. Among the private autonomous institutions, XLRI, originally established in 1949 became a registered society in 1969 and offered post-graduate programmes in management. A host of other private institutions were later established across the country. With the liberal policy for granting approval to private institutions since mid-nineties by the AICTE, the number of such institutions grew phenomenally, which is now around 3,800. In addition to institutions offering MBA and post graduate diploma courses in management, many sector-specific institutions and courses were also started. There are also several distance education programmes like diploma programme offered by All India Management Association (AIMA), and MBA by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), and a large number of such programmes are offered by other institutes and universities.

These developments have no doubt increased the size and diversity of management education, but its purpose has been considerably diluted and changed. Now it has become more a degree/diploma awarding business proposition than a high quality development of management education and grooming of competent professional managers and business leaders, except in a limited number of leading institutions.

At this point I would like to state my understanding of the distinctive purpose, character and orientation required for professional education in management as contrasted with higher education in other disciplines in sciences, social sciences, humanities, as well as in technical education. There are many commonalities in higher education across the board, like imparting state of art knowledge with depth of understanding theories and concepts, developing a critical mind, broad awareness, scientific temper, research orientation for advancement of knowledge, sound values and liberation of human mind from narrow prejudices. However, in addition to these commonalities, there are some very significant differences in orientation and purpose in professional education like management and medicine, which are generally not understood and appreciated by the people with background of single disciplines and technical education. That is why most universities have failed to appreciate the role and requirement of professional management education, and they continue to treat the department of management like any other single subject department.

As we all know, organisations require broadly two kinds of roles: Technical and Managerial. For technical or functional roles, people with domain knowledge in specialised areas are required, who have to apply their knowledge and expertise directly to problems and situations for developing optimal or practical solutions. In managerial roles, contribution is made by managers to obtain results through and with other people individually or in teams. That is why persons with excellent technical skills or specialised knowledge when promoted to managerial roles are not necessarily effective and successful managers or team leaders, if they lack competencies required for the managerial and leadership roles.

The essence of managerial role is that managers make resources productive by analysing and solving problems, making right decisions, motivating people to give their best and work as teams, develop innovative and creative solutions to deal with challenges of complex human, organisational and business problems. They create value for customers and safeguard interest of stakeholders. They achieve higher levels of excellence and performance of the organisation and its sub-systems that they lead. They are essentially visionaries and inspiring leaders in addition to being effective planners, organisers, implementers and problem-solvers. They distinguish themselves with their high motivation, commitment, positive attitudes, communication, negotiation and relationship building skills, and above all with sound professional ethics and values. Good quality management education requires identifying and developing such talent for managerial roles, business leadership and entrepreneurial roles.

Keeping in view the above requirements of managerial role, the purpose of good quality management, therefore, in my opinion, should be to develop and impart state of art knowledge in the multi-disciplinary subjects and functions related to management; to develop analytical and decision-making skills by application of knowledge and creative problem-solving; to develop leadership skills, and to imbibe the professional and broad humanistic values that leaders must possess for steering the teams and organisations to achieve higher levels of excellence and performance in the highly challenging and changing environment; safeguarding the interest of all stakeholders, including society and ecology; to develop the human resource for this purpose, and to create value, wealth, services, and employment through the organisations that they lead and manage.

Please tell us how your academic journey began and what the high learning points were?

My own association with this field also has a history to it. I had my graduation and Master’s degrees in commerce. I was at the Aligarh University where I was able to complete all my courses with distinction and gold medals. I also happened to be the first PhD of the Department of Commerce in Aligarh University. During my long association with commerce education, I consistently had two feelings: One that it is very narrow; it is confined mainly to impart descriptive knowledge of subjects like finance, accounting and some other subjects related to business, and knowledge about institutions like banks, financial institutions and stock exchanges, etc. It did not have analytical rigour like economics, or strong empirical research orientation like sociology and psychology. It did not develop analytical and decision-making skills and the ability to apply knowledge to real life problems.

I would like to illustrate this point with my personal experience. My doctoral thesis was on costing systems in Indian sugar industry. I had thoroughly studied sugar industry and examined all the known systems of costing being followed at that time. When I completed my work and obtained PhD degree, I got a letter from Mawana Sugar Mills which I had visited for my research, with a request to help them to develop a costing system for their factory, but I did not know how to do it, as all my knowledge was theoretical.

This experience jolted me, and made me very seriously consider that business education in India needs to be changed. I realised that unless I go abroad and study in a school like Harvard which follows case methodology for management education, I cannot acquire knowledge and skills required for managerial roles or suggest any change in our business education. So, I applied to Harvard and other universities. Harvard accepted my application for post doctoral work, but did not offer any financial assistance. It was a phenomenal amount totally unaffordable for me.

At the same time, I had applied for a Canadian Government fellowship for higher studies in management. I studied information about all the B-Schools in Canada and found that UWO’s Business School followed Harvard pattern and it was considered the ‘Harvard of Canada’. It followed case methodology and had most professors educated at the Harvard Business School. I went for the interview. Professor Dasgupta was one of the interviewers. He asked me many questions on management thoughts and concepts, to which my responses seemed to have pleased him. I was further asked about my study plan and why I wanted to go to the UWO. I said I wanted to study the case methods of management education for which UWO was most suitable in Canada. Eventually, I was offered the fellowship. So I went to the UWO’s Business School in Canada in 1960.

When I went there to join the Business School, I had another unforgettable experience. I was completing formalities for registration, and there was an elderly person behind me waiting in the queue. As I stepped aside, the person had brief conversation with the secretary on the counter and went away. Then I asked the secretary for some help, and she told me that the Dean wanted to see me. When I went to meet him, he was the same person whom I saw in the queue. That was my first culture shock. As he sat down with me to talk, he told that it was the first time somebody with a PhD degree had come to their Business School. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to study case method for management education. He asked me how would I do that? I said I would like to meet different teachers at this B-School and other B-Schools in Canada to know their views on the subject, read all possible literature about case methods and finally will write a thesis on this subject. He asked me whether I wanted to write a thesis or learn the case method. I immediately realised what he was talking about, and told him that I wanted to learn the case method. He advised me to leave the idea of writing a thesis, and offered to admit me directly to the MBA second year, and do all courses as credit courses, and not as audit courses. He further said that he would give me the best case teachers and would award the MBA degree in one year, if I qualify. After that, I could pursue my further advanced work. So, I went directly to the second year of MBA. It was a very competitive programme and was rated the highest amongst the Canadian programmes.

As I entered, I saw ninety people in the arc shaped stadium like classroom with name tags. Mine was in the last corner, as I was a new entrant. All of them were much older and some almost twice my age because they were all highly experienced people from the industry who came for MBA after working for several years. For each course, we were given a whole set of cases, reading material like classic articles, and sets of books. We were supposed to read and study on our own. There were no lectures. All classes were based only on case discussions. It was a totally different learning paradigm. As soon as the instructor would come, students would be ready for discussion. All the students prepared the case in advance. We worked in small groups and spent hours together in the study rooms. No case could be missed because the process was that the professor could ask anyone to start the discussion, and that was his or her D-day. So one can imagine how much pressure was there to be prepared.

As the discussion started, the professor only noted the key points on the chalk board, and asked very sharp questions to be sure that the student’s thinking was highly analytical. Why do you say this? Where are the facts? What in your view is the problem? What do you think has led to this situation? What are the alternative courses of action? What would you do if you were the manager in this situation? What are the implications of the suggested decision? So, the minds were being trained. The cases were based on real life problems that had happened in organisations. They were all written after very thorough investigation; there was nothing like an imaginative case. It was a taboo to think of writing a case out of your own imagination. It was considered unethical. Thus I went through rigorous training in analytical thinking and decision making. The examination was also based on written case analysis. I felt happy that I was able to complete the course in ‘A’ grade. On completing the MBA course, I felt that the experience had completely changed my view of learning and management education.

Another high learning point was a close and intense learning experience with Professor Craig Lundberg, who had graciously become my mentor during the second year of my work at the Richard Ivey Business School. He is a great professor, thinker and writer of Organisational Behaviour and one of the pioneers of Applied Behavioural Science. I had attended the elective offered by him on human relations, group dynamics and leadership. He put me through rigorous training in process observation, doing field research, writing and teaching cases. I wrote several cases under his guidance, which were tested in the classroom. He made me teach through cases and gave me feedback. Further, he inducted me to the field of Applied Behavioural Science and experiential learning like Sensitivity Training (T-Groups) with which he was experimenting as these were just developing at that time. Because of exposure to this experience, Applied Behavioural Science and Experiential learning became a life-long learning orientation for me. The whole philosophy of education was learning by doing as the key. The entire onus for learning and research was on the learner. It was a totally new paradigm of education.

The next high point of learning for me was during my participation in the one year international programme for management teachers from across the globe (ICAME) at the Stanford University in 1965-66. There I interacted with some of the most renowned thinkers and writers in the field of personnel management, organisational behaviour and management at that time, like Dale Yoder, Etzioni, and many others. During this visit, I attended a conference organised by the Western Academy of Management, where I met Professor Fred Massarik of the University of California, Los Angeles. When I shared with him my interest in experiential learning and experience of participating in T-groups conducted by Professor Craig Lundberg, and co-training with Professor Rolf Lynton in India, he invited me to the National Training Laboratories, Bethel, Maine, where I participated in two advanced laboratory training programmes, one of which was conducted by Professor Fred Massarik himself.

This experience developed a life-long relationship with Professor Fred Massarik. He invited me to conduct Sensitivity Training based course on Leadership at the UCLA Business Schools, for which I visited UCLA several times in the following years. Professor Fred Massarik helped us to develop the Indian Society of Applied Behavioural Science in 1968, which is now offering a wide range of T-group based programmes, Professional Development programmes for T-group trainers, as well as for Organisation Development professionals.

My third high point of learning was my participation in the International Teachers’ Programme of the Harvard University in 1971. In this programme, I interacted with some of the outstanding professors of Harvard Business School. The programme enhanced my interest in the area of Strategic Management, which has also been my area of interest in addition to Applied Behavioural Science.

The combination of these two, and closer working with Professor Fred Massarik and Professor Udai Pareek led to my deeper interest in Organisation Development. I studied the subject, published some papers, and also had the opportunity of doing consultancy experiences in leading organisations like Holy Family Hospital, BHEL, ITC, NTPC, etc. My first book entitled ‘Management and Organisation Development—A Behavioural Science Approach’ was published in 1972. This was one of the first books on OD in India. The next book was based on my OD consultancy experiences entitled: ‘Building Effective Organisations—The Indian Experience’. Thus OD became my area of expertise and enabled me to learn a great deal about real life problems of organisations and effective process of introducing change in them. Further, it enabled me in institution building and turning around or transforming the institutions with which I was associated in a leadership role, like the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) as Dean; Management Development Institute Gurgaon as Director; University of Delhi’s South Campus as Director; and as Pro-Vice Chancellor of University of Delhi.

How is management education different in India as compared with America or Canada?

The first thing I noted in America and Canada was that management education was treated as professional education like medicine. It was inter-disciplinary and applied in orientation. Almost all students in the MBA programmes were people with considerable practical managerial experience. There was very close interaction with the industry, so much so that most of the professors were engaged in case writing, research, management development programmes and consultancy for industry.

The involvement with industry was so high that, for example, in one case of strategic management (the course was called Business Policy at that time) when the case was given to the students, they didn’t know that there were three persons sitting behind in the last row from the organisation on which the case was written. So, when the case discussion started, the students were tearing apart the case and its top management, and giving many new solutions. When the case was over, the professor announced that key members of the top team of the company in the case were there with them. They wanted to know how students would analyse the case. They were thankful to the students for giving suggestions. Here, we must look at the level of openness and collaboration between industry and academia. It was a keen desire of the industry to learn from B-Schools and vice versa. In fact, just as in medicine, students cannot be educated without clinical experience in a hospital; management education must also have a similar relationship with organisations in business, industry, and other relevant sectors. Their concept is very clear: Unless you have close association with the industry for case-writing, research, executive development, consultancy, and sharing knowledge and experience, you cannot have a good professional management course in management.

Second, management education was open to take ideas and utilise knowledge from different disciplines. For example, for the course I did in Organisational Behaviour, concepts and theories were borrowed from sociology, anthropology and psychology. Similarly, in other courses, they would borrow from economics, operations research, mathematics, engineering and technology. The curriculum was highly inter-disciplinary. They also treated business problems as inter-functional and not confined to specific functional area. The students were all working executives and came from different backgrounds like science, arts, technology, etc. and wanted to study management education on purpose.

The whole purpose was to develop decision makers, business leaders and professional managers with a scientific temper and analytical approach, holistic and creative thinking, decision making ability and leadership skills, with deep understanding of various aspects of business along with theory. There was a strong empirical research tradition in all functional areas. One needed to know all elements of the problem. Courses like strategic management were integrating and holistic courses. There were functional courses but in each course there was a multi-dimensional view constantly raised to make the students understand inter-relatedness of functions and their practical implications. Learning from peers was as important as from the teacher, therefore the classroom process was highly interactive. Another important point was that real life situations of business were brought into the classroom in various ways like cases, simulations, business games, etc., so that students could learn to deal with the practical realities. They were also sent to various organisations to do assignments, field studies and research in the industry.

There is high emphasis in the western B-Schools on obtaining accreditation from independent accreditation bodies like the AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS, etc. They are not regulated and controlled by a central government body like the AICTE.

In India, management education at the MBA/PGDM level has a larger number of fresh graduates, although there is increasing trend to prefer and give weightage to candidates with managerial experience in leading business schools. The interface between business school and industry is very limited in our country. It is confined to summer internship, final placement, a few lectures from people from industry. Closer interaction for research, Executive Development Programmes (EDPs), and consultancy with industry is limited to the leading institutions. Most institutions follow lecture method and a syllabus bound approach to teaching like traditional disciplines. Management education in our country continues to be largely theoretical. Further, it is highly controlled and regulated by bodies like the AICTE and the University Grants Commission (UGC).

These I see as the major differences between management education in North America and India. In this I also see a grave risk to the quality and relevance of management education in India. No wonder we are facing a shake up in the market, and marginal schools offering poor quality management courses are closing down.

Is autonomy one of the main reasons that Harvard Business School stands apart?

There is no doubt that the academic, financial, and administrative autonomy enjoyed by the Harvard Business School is the key factor in its development. Harvard was the pioneer in using case methods in business education. It also stands apart because of its philosophy of ‘learning by doing’ and strong emphasis on case writing and empirical research. It has positioned itself as thought leader in management globally through path-breaking researches and publications. As we all know Harvard Business Review is the most widely read journal.

In the American continent, B-Schools are highly autonomous although they work within the University framework. They have close interaction with the industry and other departments of the university. I was allowed to attend courses in other departments like economics and sociology. I had the privilege of going both to Harvard and Stanford and each one of them had a different character which is the aim of each leading business school, rather than centrally controlled uniform pattern being forced by the regulatory bodies as in India. Every school has its own philosophy and broadly there are two major schools of thought on management education: Chicago School and Harvard School of thought. Chicago is known for its high theoretical emphasis and quantitative modeling. Many schools including Stanford come close to this model. Harvard model focuses mainly on case methods and practitioner oriented researches. In this model, theoretical learning is left to the student’s own initiative. In spite of these differences, the basic orientation in terms of inter-disciplinarily approach and industry linkage is equally valued. Only the learning methodology and emphasis on theory is different.

Thus autonomy to Business Schools to develop their own unique character and approach to management education in the western countries has contributed to their high level of excellence.

What is the difference between a school and a department?

This is where the fundamental differences come in, and in all universities in the US as well as Canada, the business school is an autonomous institution with multi-disciplinary and applied orientation, just like a medical school or medical college. They have academic, financial, and administrative autonomy within the broad university framework. The Dean of the School is the administrative and academic head. The School has its own budget, academic committees and other committees, etc. like the IIMs in India. Of course, in the west almost all the schools work within the larger framework of the university. They raise their own funds and charge their own fees. They have complete autonomy in financial, academic and administrative matters.

The departments in universities in India, as we all know, are highly restricted by university’s regulatory and administrative structure. They have very little freedom in their academic, financial and administrative matters. For all decisions they have to send papers to Registrar, Finance Officer, or Vice Chancellor. Even for small decisions of utilising funds for various activities, participation of faculty in Faculty Development Programmes or seminars, proposals for each activity that has financial implications; have to be approved by central authorities. The requirements for interface with industry, faculty recruitment, rapid changes in syllabi, conducting Management Development Programmes (MDPs), various student activities to expose them to industry, responding to consultancy requests, all take enormous time because each matter requires approval from centralised offices like Registrar, Finance Officer and Vice Chancellor. The basic approach is that management department is treated like any single subject department like English or Mathematics department. All departments have to follow uniform policy and centrally controlled operations in all academic, administrative and financial matters. This results in serious constraints in the working and development of management departments that require quick decisions, quick response to changes, and suitable policies to develop effective relationship with business and industrial organisations and enable students to have a wide exposure and experience of real life work situations in organisations. No wonder most Indian university departments remain pigmy departments in academic stature, conduct archaic syllabus bound courses and have poor interface with industry, except in a very few leading universities.

It is because of this narrow perception of management education in the Indian universities that has stunted the development of management education in the university system and in their affiliated colleges, and the autonomy of the IIMs and other leading private institutions has enabled them to grow to great heights of excellence and innovation.

What made you come back to India?

On completion of my learning at the Business School of the University of Western Ontario, I was employed in the Personnel Division of the Northern Electric Company in Montreal. However, being fascinated by the MBA programme I wrote to ten leading universities in India to start the MBA programme on the same model. I got no response. In June 1962 I got a letter from Professor Dasgupta, Head of Department of Business Management and Industrial Administration at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi. He had written that if I would come back by 16 July 1962, he would offer me the position of a Reader in Delhi School of Economies in his department. I had no practical experience of teaching and was very young. Readership (Associate Professor) in DSE, where the teachers at that time were stalwarts like Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, KN Raj and many other distinguished scholars, was a rare opportunity and great honor. I could not believe it. I went to my Vice President and told him that I wanted to go back to India. He was shocked. He asked me whether they did not give me a challenging enough role commensurate with my qualifications? On my responding in the negative, he asked me what salary I was being offered. I told him that if I would convert it in dollars, he would probably laugh at me. I expressed my feeling that it was not because of money, but because it was a rare opportunity and great honour to get such an academic position in one of the most renowned institutions in my country. I told him that I saw the position offered in India as an opportunity that I would not like to leave at any cost. He gave me his card and said that if ever I wanted to come back to Canada, I should contact him. I thanked him and returned to India, even though many of my friends and relations there tried hard to persuade me to stay back in Canada.

How were your first few years after you came back to India? How was management education introduced in Delhi University?

When I came to India, Professor Dasgupta was very generous in his support to me. I did not go through any formal interview process. He took me to the then Vice Chancellor, Professor CD Deshmukh who had a brief informal discussion with me. He then told Professor Dasgupta that he had got the person of his choice and I was appointed on the position directly. That’s how most of the professors were being brought at that time to the Delhi School of Economics. Professor Dasgupta gave me free hand to develop the MBA course, but when he sought the approval of the University for starting the