Even though I had been part of CREC/NITC for 42 long years(1969 – 2011), I could not work under the first principal of the college, Prof.M.V. Kesava Rao. During my career in this institution, I had the opportunity to work under three principals in Calicut REC and four directors in NIT Calicut. Each one of these bosses had their own peculiarities and let me mention some of these as seen by me. I may not be absolutely correct in these, but being part of the history of the institution, I have to mention these administrators. Sometimes the truth as perceived by me may not be very pleasant.
I joined as
Associate lecturer in
Electrical Engineering in 1969. I was promoted as
lecturer in 1971 on completion of
the probation period in 1971. The period from 1970 –
1983, generally the situation in RECs was not
very bright or rather the institution was going
through a dark period in its history. The major reason
for this in the first instance was the congenital defects,
the problems in the very
formation of the RECs under the dual control
of the central and state governments. As the
capital expenditure was fully borne by the central government,
these institutions were able to get very generous grants
for infrastructure development. However,
these could not be effectively utilized for instructional
purposes mainly because these
institutions were affiliated to
the university in that area and did not
have any academic autonomy.
The administration was under the
Board of Governors with
members predominantly from the state
government headed by the Chairman none other than
the state education minister and director of technical
education, higher education secretary and finance secretary
all playing to the tune of the minister. It was also felt
that the step-motherly attitude of
these members from
the state government was another reason for the
stunted growth of the institution. The
status in short was that of ‘ a
child with two mothers ‘ who will not get
enough milk to survive’.
From 1968 –
1981, the head of the institution
was Prof.K.M. Bahauddin. He had taken his M.S. from
Manchester University in UK and was a Civil engineer and
eminent educationist. However, in spite of all his
academic distinction and administrative capabilities,
many felt that he had his own weaknesses. There was always a coterie
behind him who wanted to exploit his weaknesses. As the head of
an institution of this size, it
was practically impossible for one to know all the
details of what is happening in the institution unless he is a superman. He had to depend
on a few persons who volunteered to
give the information on day to day
happening in the institution. It looks
he believed in
these volunteers implicitly without cross checking.
Very often allegations of personal
favouritism were in plenty during his
regime. This created discontent and mistrust among
the employees and
almost perpetual confrontation between the
principal and teaching staff association
and non-teaching staff organizations. Even,
poor me, had some bad
experience in which he acted
strangely to put me to difficulties as I have mentioned
in these columns earlier. Since the principal
enjoyed almost unlimited power if
he was in good terms with the Chairman of the
BoG, sometimes he was obstinate that what he
says is the rule and everyone has to follow whatever he
does without any dissent. Several court
cases resulted because of
the difference of
opinion between the employee’s associations and the
administration. Most of these, the principal took as a personal
fight which resulted in further rift. If the Chairman and Principal Secretary agreed, anything would be possible,
but the moment this was disturbed,
administration would reach a stalemate. Such a situation
resulted when the state education ministry was entrusted with another party
after a long tenure of another party strong in the
Northern part of Kerala. As
the Chairman and Secretary(Principal) fell apart, a
situation was created in
which the principal had to leave the college. So,
he left the institutions as Pro-Vice Chancellor of
Aligarh Muslim University. It is to be
mentioned that even after leaving CREC, he had held
several important positions in education under
the central government, including member of National
Institute of Education Planning and Administration(NIEPA),
New Delhi. Unfortunately, due to the
frequent wrangling ,he could do practically nothing to develop
the institution by bringing in
additional ug or pg courses.
After Prof. Bahauddin left, the
senior most professor Prof.P.K.Charlu
became the professor in charge and held this position for almost a year or more. It
was interesting to
hear a slogan from some of
the students shouting “ Principal Bahauddin, resign,
let Prof.Charlu take over
after fitting his dentures” (Prof.Charlu had
got his teeth removed for
fixing new dentures at that time). As he
was only in-charge principal, no
policy decisions were taken by him. It is only then
new Chairman was appointed and Dr.S.Unnikrishna Pillai was appointed
as Principal in 1983. He was professor in Civil
engineering in College of Engineering Thriruvananthapuram
and then joined REC Calicut and had taken his
PhD from Queens University, Canada.
Without any doubt, the period in
which Dr. Unnikrishna Pillai
(UKP for his students) was the principal
was the golden years of REC Calicut. He has
done a lot for development of the
college starting new undergraduate and
post graduate courses and bringing in more infrastructure in the
campus. With new courses started,
additional positions were available for promotion to
the members of the teaching and nonteaching
staff. The stagnation at the lower posts suffered by many
senior teachers could be removed and those who
had acquired higher qualifications and could compete
with candidates from outside
could get selected to deserving posts. There were a
few cynics as usual even at that time,
but things were relatively peaceful during his regime.
He had left his family at Thiruvananthapuram and most of
the time was working for the institution without any personal
motive. Only incident I can
remember was a student struggle in which the
rampant students started damaging the equipment in the
hydraulics laboratory when he requested
the police to intervene and students were
asked to vacate the hostels within a few hours which
invited lot of criticism. As head of the institution his
decision was absolutely required to
stop further damage to the valuable institutional
property. This also resulted in a lot of enemies for him
in the institution. There was a general complaint
that he was not giving due
consideration for the humane side of many
things. Some of the decisions he
took towards the end of his term in 1996
was opposed by most of the employees. During
his term of 13 years as head of the
institution, he had been respected and held in high esteem for the
first 11 years. He never allowed any
coterie to advise him and he took
decisions based on his own conviction and judgement,
which was good for the future of
this great institution even if it might have resulted in
some heartburns for a few individuals. For
this reason, most of the students and members of staff
loved and respected him. Personally, there was
a few occasions in which I
had serious difference of opinion
with him on certain points and argued with him but I am
sure he had given proper attention to these even
if he did not accept it in public. In short, it
was his single-handed effort which brought Calicut
REC as an institution of
national importance and to a
certain extent place it on
the international map of good academic institutions.
After Dr.S.U.Pillai retired in 1996, Dr.M.P.Chandrasekharan (MPC)
became Principal against all odds as everyone expected Dr.Pillai’s right hand man who was
the Professor of Training
Placement to be appointed as the
next Principal. During MPC’s
time, RECs were converted
to National Institutes of
Technology and the incumbent Principals were allowed to continue as
Directors of the NITs. After a year or so, Directors were
appointed and as a policy, the
Directors were not
from the same institution but from other
institutions appointed on a
contract basis for five years. When MPC could
not get selected as permanent
Director, he resigned and joined a
self-financing college in Tamil Nadu. Dr.S.S.Gokhale followed as Director followed by Dr B .N Nagaraj (in charge), Dr.G.R.C.Reddy,
Dr Bandyopadhyay, Dr Shivaji Chakravarthy and now Dr.Krishna Prasad. I superannuated
when Dr
G R C Reddy was the Director. As Dean (PG Studies and Research) , International Liaison
Officer and Coordinator Academic Quality
Management Initiatives , I had
very good cooperation from him in
implementing academic decisions which I
thought to be right
for the progress of the
institution. My only regret was
that later some of the good decisions to
implement academic audit and
strict enforcement of ordnances and
regulations for masters and research were either diluted
or dropped altogether for reasons known
only to the bosses and their
associates.
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