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statutory force that the recommendation cannot be easily ignored (by requiring, say, a majority of a special bench of the Supreme Court to find against the Lokpals recommendations). Such a separation of powers is essential. Without it, the Lokpal runs the risk of becoming its own worst enemy. Policy imbalances cannot be remedied by ombudsmen and Lokpals, however strongly armed. That requires a very different kind of movement.
Notes and References
1 Prashant Bhushan (2011), Jan Lokpal Bill: Addressing Concerns, The Hindu, 15 April, viewed

on 16 April (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/ lead/article1696970.ece). D P Singh (2006), Slum Population in Mumbai, Part I, Population-Environment Bulletin, Vol 3, No 1, March, Population-ENVIS Centre, International Institute for Population Sciences, viewed on 16 April 2011 (http://www.iipsenvis.nic.in/Newsletters/vol3no1/Slum_Poplation_InMumbai.htm) See also: Government of Maharashtra, Human Development Report 2002, pp 28-29, viewed on 16 April 2011 (http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/ stateplan/sdr_pdf/shdr_maha02.pdf). Jeremy Page (2007), Indian Slum Population Doubles in Two Decades, The Sunday Times, 18 May, viewed on 17 April 2011 (http://www.timesonline. co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1805596. ece). Priya Sahgal and averee Bamai, Rich Lawyers: The New Nawabs, India Today, 4 December 2010, viewed on 17 April 2011 (http://indiatoday. intoday.in/site/story/rich-lawyers-the-new-nawabs/1/122053.html). Corporate Chiefs Getting Crores in Salaries: 100 and Counting, Business Standard, 13 June 2010,

viewed on 16 April 2011 (http://www.businessstandard.com/india/news/corporate-chiefs-getting-crores-in-salaries-100counting/97757/on). No Move to Regulate Corporate Salaries: Government, Indian Express, 25 June 2007, viewed on 16 April 2011 (http://www.expressindia.com/ news/fullstory.php?newsid=88642). G S Radhakrishna (2011), Jagans Assets Feat, Telegraph, 15 April, viewed on 17 April 2011 (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110416/jsp/ frontpage/story_13861166.jsp#). Mushtaq han (2006), Determinants of Corruption in Developing Countries: The Limits of Conventional Economic Analysis in Rose-Ackerman, Susan (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), pp 216-44. Amitabh Sinha (2011), Lokpal Should Have Powers to Tap Phones, Prosecute: Non-Government Reps, Indian Express, 17 April, viewed on 17 April 2011 (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lokpal-should-have-powers-to-tap-phones-prosecute-nongovt-reps/777209/0)

Governance of IIMs: A Critique of the Bhargava Committee Report

Amit Gupta, Ganesh N Prabhu

The recommendations of the Bhargava Committee report on the governance of the Indian Institutes of Management are self-serving in seeking to destroy the decentralised faculty governance structure of the IIMs. The report fails to recognise the faculty as stakeholders and seeks to minimise their role in governance. This will have dire consequences for the future of these important public institutions.

Amit Gupta (amitg@iimb.ernet.in) and Ganesh N Prabhu (gprabhu@iimb.ernet.in) are at IIM Bangalore.

he Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are structured for decentralised governance with the faculty chairing administrative positions, and all major policy decisions being taken with the involvement and concurrence of the faculty body. The IIM board is not involved in academic decisions and it is only consulted on major administrative decisions that exceed the powers of the director. This decentralised governance is effective in involving the faculty as stakeholders and creates checks and balances to ensure that poor decision-making, if any, is corrected by the faculty body. It enables faculty to assume leadership roles preparing them to become directors in future. Faculty participation in governance creates a sense of involvement in engagement with and ownership of the institute. The ideal role for the director is to nurture the faculty and enable them to do their best. It is in this context that we should examine the Bhargava Committee report (GOI 2010) on the new governance structure of the IIMs, co-authored by three current directors. It is a blatantly self-serving report by directors who seek to centralise power and destroy the decentralised governance structure that has made the IIMs
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institutions of excellence. R C Bhargava, current chairman of IIM Ranchi, is not new to heading committees that do a poor job. The last Bhargava Committee to review the IIMs led to a report (GOI 2008) which faced considerable flak (umar 2008). The new one makes several unfounded claims and suggestions that will only benefit current directors. The constitution of the Bhargava Committee itself is questionable. Among the three directors, two have very little experience of heading established national public institutes. Such a committee should have had at least one former IIM director who would have had the benefit of direct experience and yet the ability to take an outside and longer-term view. The committee operated in isolation and without any consultation with the only permanent and major stakeholder the faculty which is likely to bear the direct impact of its recommendations. The report was prepared in great secrecy for the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and was given to the IIM faculty only after it was tabled and minuted. In seeking to destroy the decentralised governance that has been the strength of the IIMs, the Bhargava report justifies it thus:
The management of the IIMs has also suffered because of divided responsibilities between the government, the board, the director and the faculty. All of them have some role in the management of IIMs with no one having clear and unambiguous responsibility and accountability for managing the IIM.

However, the key to efficient functioning of the IIMs is their decentralised governance
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structure. It has enabled the IIMs to respond to the changing environment through a process that ensures that a majority of the faculty support major changes such as curriculum change and launch of new programmes. Moreover, the report states:
The [academic and] administrative functions are combined in the IIMs and faculty members are involved in many administrative functions. This is despite the shortage of faculty and their lack of experience in administrative work.

The report misunderstands the philosophy of having faculty in administrative roles that can create competent directors among IIM academics over time. It also seeks to concentrate power with the directors on the assumption that only the board and the directors can manage the institutions and giving the faculty any role is detrimental to IIM interests. However, if the current role of the faculty in challenging the policy decisions of the director is done away with, then ill-conceived decisions of the directors will go unchallenged to the overall detriment of the IIM! Moreover, if governance is centralised, there will be more resistance, leading to poorer outcomes and a lack of engagement with and ownership of the institute. It appears that the directors have displayed their ineptitude by attributing wrong motives to the faculty.

While the report emphasises the need to ...create an environment in which the IIMs can continue to move towards excellence, it immediately thereafter states, The faculty cannot be expected to play the role of an owner . On the contrary, the faculty and the staff are the only permanent stakeholders who are directly affected by the reputation of the IIMs. While the report correctly states that all other stakeholders like the society, the government and the ministry have been unable to fulfil the role of an enlightened owner, it fails to recognise that it is the faculty which has played the true role of the owner, owing to their high stake in maintaining and enhancing the reputation of the IIMs, which, in turn, enhances their own status. The report then overemphasises faculty income from executive education without adequate data:
...substantial incomes [are] being generated through conducting management and executive development programmes. About 50% of the faculty spend up to 50% of their time on these programmes...a substantial part of the income generated goes to the faculty involved in the programmes. While this has resulted in some part of the faculty earning a substantial income, and the IIM attaining financial solvency, it has resulted in teaching hours for the PGP [postgraduate programme] being limited and little time or incentive existing for doing research work.

value to offer by which they draw executives to their programmes, the report only emphasises that some faculty are teaching in executive programmes and are making money which they somehow do not deserve!

Guided by Flawed Assumptions

The Bhargava report also displays a poor understanding of what motivates faculty to join the IIMs and to perform in their academic and administrative positions:
The new IIMs will largely be unable to conduct such management development training programmes for some years and so will not have this source of income either for the IIM or the faculty members. This will handicap their ability to attract faculty especially in disciplines where supply is limited.

Apart from this flawed assumption, it is implied that faculty join the older IIMs only because of this additional source of income and not because they offer a collegial environment to excel in! The report suggests that the board should evaluate the IIM faculty:
The boards have not also instituted any system of evaluation of performance of the faculty, and does [sic] not insist on setting of annual targets for each member of the faculty. The faculty members determine their own work schedule.

Ignoring Faculty as Stakeholders

The report does not acknowledge the significant contribution of the faculty in building the reputation of the IIMs much more than the director, the board or the IIM society. Instead, it only mentions the shortage of faculty:
There had been a chronic shortage of faculty, and this problem would only become more acute as the new IIMs, and other management schools in the private sector, were established. This would make it very difficult for the new IIMs to attract reasonably competent faculty.

The priority does not seem to be nurturing current faculty, but on emphasising faculty recruitment, assuming that the current faculty will stay on in the face of better options. The new IIM faculty is selected by the current faculty if high quality faculty is to be attracted and retained, current faculty involvement cannot be ignored.
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There is no data to support these contentions. In fact at IIM Bangalore, the median executive programme sessions in a year were only 17 per faculty member. While no faculty member is deterred from teaching executive programmes, the highly effective faculty usually get invited to teach more in the IIM executive programmes and their courses are also oversubscribed in the postgraduate and doctoral programmes. Also, the payment to faculty is typically a minor proportion (about 9%) of the revenue generated. Moreover, executive education is a core mandate of the IIMs; it enables the faculty to learn about and improve management practices, adding to their research and teaching capabilities. The statements in the report relating to the faculty are largely negative and show contempt for the faculty. Without recognising that the faculty has a legitimate

The IIM faculty enjoys substantial autonomy in allocating their time beyond their teaching commitments, an autonomy that is critical to excellence and productivity at the IIMs. The report then states:
There is no system of evaluating the academic performance of the faculty, once they have been promoted to full professor, which generally happens in about 8 to 10 years, little incentive for them to attain teaching excellence or do research, and payments relating to performance.

This is a gross assumption and fails to stand the test of reason. It is true that some faculty who become full professors lose their motivation to publish, but this does not apply to all. The most sought after faculty in training and consulting at the IIMs are typically full professors. Almost all chair professorships that are given on the basis of research output are occupied by full professors. They are on the board of government committees and policy bodies; it is unlikely that they

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would occupy these positions without being up to date in their research and teaching. Moreover, we wonder why directors are appointed only from among full professors! Just like in any other profession, faculty join academics with varying motivations and goals full professors who enjoy research continue while others strive for personal growth in other areas of their interest such as consulting, teaching or in becoming directors. Evaluation of faculty performance by a director or a board is unlikely to be of motivational value unless the board members and directors have credibility as academicians of repute. Faculty would rather seek peer evaluation on their research, industry evaluation in consulting and programme participant evaluation in teaching. Further, the report recommends, The board should also review the academic performance of the IIM annually. Does the board have the competence to do this? Academic performance can only be evaluated by peers or programme participants. It is very clear that the Bhargava Committee members have a prejudiced opinion of the IIM faculty that is not in line with faculty accomplishments. The report takes a Taylorian approach towards faculty work by stating:
The appointment letter of faculty members should clearly set out all the duties expected of him/her. This should include adequate teaching hours for the PGP. Annual targets should be set for each faculty, and reviewed at the end of the year. This would include teaching, research and service to the institution. Each of these could be converted into hours of work for purposes of evaluating persons who do different amounts of work in each of these areas. Performance linked pay should be paid in addition to the normal pay. Each IIM could evolve a scheme for this based on its own priorities.

faculty. Allowing the faculty to determine their own growth path within broad norms is far more effective.

Overemphasis on Role of Directors

The Bhargava Committee report grossly overemphasises the role and importance of directors as stakeholders. In the recent past, many IIMs have had directors from other IIMs who have taken leave and returned to their parent IIM on completion of their term, without choosing to move permanently to the IIM they head, thus making them temporary stakeholders. For example, the current directors of IIM Bangalore, ohikode, Indore, Tiruchirapalli and Rohtak are all listed as faculty members on leave from their parent IIMs. While this may be essential in the case of the new IIMs, it is inexplicable in established IIMs. If directors are selected from among the faculty from the same IIM, then they are part of the larger faculty community and have a high stake in better governance of the institute, since they return to the faculty community after their tenure as director. However, with faculty from outside the IIM being appointed as directors, this social control mechanism is lost. The low stake of the directors in the IIM they head poses serious questions for the governance and

management of the IIMs, as their tenure and decisions, however disastrous, have no negative consequences for them. In some cases, directors who lack academic eminence and administrative experience have been appointed, thus damaging the IIMs reputation and its ability to attract high quality faculty. The report becomes sharply self-serving when focusing on director incomes. Unlike in the corporate world, the directors of IIMs may not be drawn to their position for higher incomes alone. Though the report emphasises the need to increase the income of the directors on account of their position, it does not offer guidelines on how directors will be evaluated, to justify their proposed higher income. The report states, The director of the IIM, with a fixed pay for five years, earns less than the faculty who are involved in the training programmes. Why is this considered relevant by the committee? In knowledge industries, employees with specialised skills usually earn more than their administrative bosses. Moreover, there is no evidence to support this contention, as we need to compare how much a professor earned on her academic expertise before being made a director with her total remuneration and benefits as a director. It is clearly unfair to compare the remuneration of directors with poor teaching skills and low

Committed Communities Development Trust

Assistant Director, Research
Committed Communities Development Trust (CCDT) works with rights-based approach in the field of Health and Education and engages with varied issues of vulnerability. It aligns with efforts that seek to enable and empower the most deprived for a sustainable change in society. CCDT is in the process of developing a Resource Center that would seek to blend academic rigor and grassroots level experiences in the field of development sector research and training. The role and position of Assistant Director, Research, is pivotal to this effort. The Assistant Director Research, reports into Director, Training, Research and Alternative Communication (TRAC). Responsibilities include: Defining, conceptualizing, developing and designing the research needs of the organization Identifying research needs and develop successful experiences into replicable intervention models Developing and pitching proposals for research studies Mentoring and guiding team members QUALIFICATIONS: The candidate must be a Post Graduate in Social Sciences with seven years experience in quantitative and qualitative research of which the last two years must have been in managing research projects and initiatives. Experience of having worked in a full-fledged research institution will have an added advantage. For detailed information, refer to website www.ccdtrust.org Interested candidates may email their resume to arunkumar@ccdtrust.org latest by 10th May, 2011.
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Requires

This is clearly not realistic. It might be easy to evaluate teaching and service quantitatively in number of hours, but the quality of effort is dependent on the faculty. Similarly, it is better to evaluate research on the basis of publications in quality journals using independent rankings of research journals rather than on hours spent in research. It is also impossible to list down all the tasks that a faculty member is required to do and what leads to the development of an effective and reputed

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industry demand, with that of eminent IIM professors in high demand. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent an IIM director from consulting or from teaching in executive programmes. The argument that directors are too busy to teach or consult is analogous to the argument that faculty are too busy to do research! Amusingly, the committee states that the directors relationship with the faculty is not well defined and over time a situation has developed where he cannot evaluate the performance of the faculty nor have any disciplinary control over them. Why this excessive need to control? Further, it states:
The directors of the IIMs are selected from a comparatively narrow field, as their terms and conditions of appointment are such that a large number of competent persons, including faculty, do not apply for the post. The directors do not have adequate financial and administrative powers to function as the CEO of the IIM.

that they may currently lack? This is followed by:

The president cum dean should be helped in his work by the boards creating a suitable structure, consisting of vice deans and vice presidents, as may be required in the context of the sie of the work load.

faculty? It is very clear from the above statement that the Bhargava Committee does not understand the role and functioning of the board of an IIM. The report quotes from a book Governing Academia as follows. The board will
select and support the CEO of the IIM, formulate and pursue the institutions mission and purposes; oversee the educational programme; nurture the institutions tangible assets; and care for the institutions intangible assets, especially academic freedom, the commitment to excellence and impartiality and its ethical standards.

If competent people do not apply or want to become directors, then do we want to risk giving more powers to the directors who by the logic of this report are clearly incompetent? Such statements only admit to a lack of leadership ability among the directors. If the IIMs have gained repute with decentralised governance, without the director having any disciplinary control over the faculty, then it is better that status quo is maintained and the IIM faculty are given the freedom to do what they have been doing. To assign disciplinary control over the IIM faculty to a director who has apparently lost her ability to teach, consult or do research on par with the faculty is indeed more dangerous. The report suggests:
The director should be the chief executive officer (CEO) of the IIM and carry out all the functions entrusted to him by the board. He thus has to combine the role of the president as well as the Dean in American management schools and colleges. It is recommended that his designation be changed to president cum Dean.

This statement sends a very wrong message of the intention of empire building by the directors. Moreover, there is no role for the faculty in the governance structure this will decimate the collegial structure that not only supports and advises the director but also sometimes acts as a check on the director. For instance, an egoistic director in favour of centralisation can have administratively inept faculty with little collegial respect appointed to administrative positions so that she can directly control them. This not only has an adverse impact on the governance of these institutions but also creates a climate of negativity that might in the long run undermine their excellence. The committee intends to reduce the legitimate role of the faculty and increase the illegitimate role of the directors and the board to control the faculty. The role is illegitimate as it is built on preset powers rather than on the reputation of the directors based on academic and administrative excellence and their ability to carry the faculty along, even though this may be a time-consuming and difficult process.

Apart from the obvious incongruity of this cut and paste statement with the negative tone of the rest of the Bhargava report, there is an assumption that the new avatar of the board will be dramatically different in form and function from the current or the old board. This is a questionable assumption as the report does not suggest what new processes will ensure this change in board functioning and effectiveness, except to centralise powers with the director. If the IIMs have come so far without their boards having any control of the type proposed in the report, then where is the need to introduce these systems now?

Role of the IIM Society

The most absurd recommendation by the Bhargava report states:
The society...as an enlightened owner having a long term commitment towards the IIM...persons who remain there for a long period of time...have motivation for working as trustees. We believe that the most effective way of bringing this about is by making the payment of a substantial donation to the IIM as a condition for becoming a member of the society.

Role of the IIM Board

The Bhargava report states:
...the boards of the IIMs have not proved to be effective in managing the IIMs on behalf of the society...Most board members believe that they do not have adequate financial and administrative powers to really govern the IIMs. Many key powers are with the government. The system of having board members who represent different interests has not resulted in creating effective boards, where members add value because of their wide and diverse experience. The attendance level of the board members, particularly the outstation members is low. The boards rarely have alumni as members. The director and the chairman are both appointed by the government.

The infatuation with borrowed titles is difficult to understand. Why should the director be called CEO or president except to cater to her ego? Does the committee seriously believe that the designation of CEO or president will get the current directors the respect among faculty
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If this is the state of affairs at the board level, do we want to empower the board to take up active interest in the organisation and to even evaluate the IIMs and the

It is not very clear how payment of substantial donation will result in a person becoming an enlightened owner with motivation and commitment. In fact this is a backdoor entry to privatisation where people with money will take over the IIMs and might seek a significant return on their investment by serving their own interests. This will further the corruption potential in the IIMs and may even influence the student admission process into the IIMs as board members who are donors seek personal favours and quotas.

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Continuing with this absurd recommendation, the report mentions:

The donations so received by the IIMs from society members should be kept as a separate corpus, and the interest thereon used to promote academic excellence. This could mean hiring excellent faculty on contract at a higher salary than prescribed for regular faculty, and also paying a performance linked incentive each year to the directors and the faculty.

money has not been a problem at least for the established IIMs (Boruah 2011).

process-oriented IIM model with all its frustrations and problems.

References
Boruah, Maitreyee (2011): Executive Courses, IIM-Bs Cash Cows, Source: DNA http://www.dnaindia. com/academy/report_executive-courses-iim-bscash-cows_1525303, accessed on 29 March. Government of India (2008): Report of the IIM Review Committee, Negotiating the Big Leap IIMs: From Great Teaching Institutions to Thought Leadership Centres, 25 September, available at http://education.nic.in/tech/IIM-Reviewcommittee.pdf. (2010): Bhargava Committee Report on Governance of IIMs by R C Bhargava, Pankaj Chandra, Debashis Chatterjee, Shekhar Chaudhuri and Subhash Dhar, Ministry of HRD. umar, T rishna (2008): IIM Review Committee Report: A Critical Examination, Economic & Political Weekly, 27 December, pp 17-21.

Conclusions
The entire report is based on the premise that there is a governance problem with the IIMs. The new avatar of the society, board and director will be radically different from the old one and will magically fix everything. There is no reason to believe that this would be so. The IIMs have so far resisted from becoming fiefdoms of political parties and ministers they should not now become fiefdoms of people with money. It is critical to preserve the democratic and

Rewarding new faculty with higher pay on joining before they show results is unlikely to be effective and will be demotivating to high performers already within the IIM. Moreover, shortage of money or availability of ideas to generate

Why Jat Reservations?

Ajit Kumar Singh

Instead of the image of a prosperous and dominant community, the Jats of Uttar Pradesh have socio-economic indices comparable to Other Backward Classes like the Yadavas and Gujjars. The recent protest by Jats in Uttar Pradesh asking for OBC classification and reservations in government jobs is driven by the extended government neglect of their backwardness.

ecently the Jats in Uttar Pradesh (UP) resorted to public protest and blocked rail traffic on the Delhi Lucknow route in support of their demand for reservation in central services. The state government deliberately took no steps to clear the rail tracks till the high court intervened to force the government to take necessary steps in this direction. The Jats have threatened to resume their agitation if their demand is not met in a time bound fashion. To many, the demand of the Jats for reservation did not seem justified, as in the public image they are a prosperous and dominant agricultural caste. A question that needs to be asked in this context is why are increasing number of communities resorting to violent agitation for reservation and competing with each other to get the status of a backward class. This article attempts to address this issue.

Roots of the Agitation

The Jats constitute about 2% of countrys population and are spread over several states in north India from Jammu and ashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, UP, Madhya Pradegujash (MP) and Gujarat. There is a larger concentration on Jats in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP. Economically, politically and socially the status of Jats is not the
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Ajit umar Singh (aksingh101@frediffmail.com) is at the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow.

same in all these states. The general economic condition of Jats is relatively better in Punjab and Haryana as they have larger landholdings. Religion-wise Jats belong to the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions. In the brahminical system Jats had an illdefined status and were put below the upper castes, though not subject to practices like untouchability. Upper castes still look down upon Jats as a rustic, uncultured and socially backward community. In Rajasthan, which has the largest concentration of Jats, they enjoyed a low social status historically, except in the two princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur. They were mainly tenant farmers at the mercy of the Thakur landlords and subject to social discrimination. Rajasthan was the first state to give Jats the Other Backward Classes (OBC) status for reservation. Later, the governments of Himachal Pradesh, UP and MP also granted OBC status to Jats in their respective states. The Central Backward Classes Commission, which examined the issue of reservation for Jats in the late 1990s, found the demand of Jats of Rajasthan for reservation to be justified. The commission gave short shrift to the demand for reservation of Jats in UP, without examining the question in all its dimensions. Subsequently, on the recommendation of the commission, Jats from Rajasthan were granted reservation in central services also. To many the demand of Jats for reservation appears to be unjustified. In common perception, the Jats are regarded as a rich and dominant agricultural class. This is far from reality. The Jats are not a
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