The
above article appeared in The Hindu
of 2022-01-13. And, I have strong criticisms.
“Stop!”
I hear you shout. “Why write a blog in your space? You should have written a
letter to the editor, or even an opinion piece.”
I
have my reasons why I did not do what you suggested. One, letters to the
editors are not worth the paper they are printed on. Yes, there was a time when
at least some letters were substantive and even contrarian. Now, they are just
rewording of the news item. Take a fortnight worth of The Hindu and check the truth value of my statement.
Two,
if you want to be published in the opinion pages, you better have a weighty
affiliation. Yes, there are exceptions – The by-line of Gautam Bhatia shows him
as a lawyer in Delhi; likewise Suhrit Parthasarathy, in Madras High Court. By
the strength of their arguments, and also the high frequency with which they address
issues that resonate strongly with society, their simple by lines are
attractive in themselves.
However,
most of the opinion pieces are from established institutions, JNU, CMC,
Vellore, erstwhile Planning Commission, its current avatar, NITI Ayog, AIIMS, and
others of their ilk.
Well,
I am a lonely voice. Hence, my lonely lament resides in some unlit corner of
media space.
Now,
to the meat of my post.
The
news paper opinion piece is full of jargon. In 16 column-inches, “ecosystem”
appears five times! Once every three inches.
Perhaps
people in the know would be able to identify an ecosystem if it hit them on the
head, but common people like me cannot. It is one of those words that exist
because they are not defined but pretended to be defined. This is in the self-interest
of the reader! Why expose yourself by asking, “What makes an innovation
ecosystem?”
The
piece sidesteps such an inconvenience. The only doubt I have is whether “ecosystem”
is a cliché or a jargon. Let us say it is both!
And,
“ecosystem” is not a singleton. “[E]conomic accelerators”, “inclusive
atmosphere”, “incubators”, “incentivise” are all fellow travellers of “ecosystems”.
I am sure I have missed spotting a few more uncatchy words, phrases.
Jargon,
by definition, ages very fast and for every occurrence beyond one, it
effectiveness halves. By this measure, at the last mention of “ecosystem”, its
effectiveness is only one sixteenth!
The
piece argues for integrating liberal arts within engineering curricula, to be further
garnished with fundamental science. Remember, all these to be done within seven
semesters, one semester of a four year course devoted to internship/industrial
exposure.
The
write-up says that to “turn our university campuses into powerful economic
accelerators,“ requires an “understanding how innovation works.”
Innovation
by itself does not work; rather it leads society to work towards greater, meaningful
(beyond P/L in terms accounts understand) productivity. Innovation reaches
maturity by failing. Ask Steve Jobs and his NeXT
computer, which had layers and layers of innovations but became integrated with
computing ecosystem (?) only after many false starts. In the process, NeXT disappeared! By the way, NeXT computer used GUI invented by PARC of Xerox company.
No
Indian university of whatever kind is going to bear with such failures, hoping
for a fairy godmother and her magician’s wand.
One
last point. The article, for all its advocacy of innovations and newness, is
ages behind, asking for geographical clusters!
“[W]e should start connecting institutions nearby.” Oops, that is so
twentieth century! Bring yourself to twenty first century, please! Distance is
no parameter at all, isn’t it?
What
I learnt that if you depend on jargons and clichés in your advocacy, you are
bound to skip a beat, or, as in this case, half a century.
Advocacy should have depth, way deeper than where jargons can get you.
Advocacy must be based on reasoned conclusions arrive through old-fashioned thinking, ruminating, and using a judicious combination of old
and new tools.
People
would then have a reason to listen to you.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
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