IITians should serve their fellow countrymen: Murli Manohar Joshi, Senior BJP leader

Bharatiya Janata Party veteran and former Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi believes that Indian talent has now lost the charm for the so called lucrative offers in foreign countries. Joshi, the octogenarian Lok Sabha MP from Kanpur talks to Ashok Kumar of OneWorld South Asia on the need of retaining Indian educated engineers and technocrats for the cause of poor. Excerpts from the interview:

OneWorld South Asia: Do you think elite institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have failed in nation building to their full potential given the fact that a fairly large number of students leave the country for better opportunities abroad?

Murli Manohar Joshi: Some IITs have been doing wonderful work and now many of them are concentrating on India.

Indian students used to travel abroad in search of higher research opportunities and better job prospects. But, of late, after having an experience of the outside world, they are coming back to their original world.

Those who had gone to foreign lands in search of some greener pastures found that the land is now not as green as they imagined. It is being corroded and is more of a desert now. Therefore, they are now coming back to serve their motherland and also for their own good.

OWSA: Do you think Indian government should introduce guidelines for making it mandatory for students from elite institutions to serve in their own country first?

Joshi: I don’t think government can frame guidelines in this regard. The students should be mindful of their country’s expectations from them.

People only have to try and infuse this element of patriotism and service to the nation. But in a democratic country, you can not force anybody to do this.

OWSA: How can the sense of ownership be instilled into budding engineers and technocrats?

Joshi: Engineers of the day need to understand that it is this country, which has made them capable for higher studies and job prospects in their respective fields.

Therefore, engineers have some resposbilities and duties to this country also. There is a bigger duty to human kind but there is also duty to Indian kind.

OWSA: How do you think that IITians shoud reach out to the last mile person like the tribal peoples or rural poor?

Joshi: IITians can reach out to the last mile people in many ways. They can come forward to develop technology that suits these people.

It is techology what they are producing and there can be so many ways of producing techonogy in the service of poor man. I personally wish that they live here to serve their country and their countrymen.