Malcolm Adiseshiah - Vice-chancellor of Madras University

Vice-chancellor of Madras University

On August 1, 1975 Adiseshiah assumed the duties of Vice Chancellor of the Madras University for one term. He was a man in a hurry to rejuvenate the then fast degenerating institution. He announced immediately after assuming office what he wanted to accomplish during his term. He did not forget to review what he had accomplished in the three years when he relinquished office in 1978.

He prepared a fifteen year perspective plan for the University. He decentralised its functions. He divested the university’s responsibility of preparing the syllabi for matriculation course and conduct of the matriculation examinations. He was categorical that university should confine itself to higher education and that school education should not be part of its responsibilities. He centralised admission to PG courses in the university with instruction that the selections should be processed with merit as the chief criterion subject to the provisions for reservations for the under-privileged. He fashioned schools of science, arts and languages. The conveners of these schools were requested to give him weekly feed back of academic progress and the needs of the departments. He started new departments such as econometrics, education, adult education, area studies, molecular biology, polymer sciences and defense studies. The Institute of Basic Medical Sciences got its own building and the necessary laboratory facilities in his period.

Before he took over, most University departments were manned by a Professor and a Reader, and were exclusively concentrating on research. Till then most departments avoided undertaking teaching responsibility. He insisted that all university departments should combine both teaching and research programmes. His new policy meant more courses, more staff and more students in the University. The state government was reluctant to extend financial support. But he persuaded the UGC to grant additional funds to meet the immediate requirements. He initiated the system of rotation of the headship of departments once in every three years. He was keenly aware of the need for inter-disciplinary research. He set up an inter-departmental council consisting of all the heads of departments and senior professors. A committee of conveners of schools of cognate disciplines also was constituted. These bodies met regularly under the chairmanship of the VC. The minutes were circulated within 24 hours urging follow up action.

He gave autonomy to the two post-graduate centres of the university at Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore and appointed directors to head them so that they need not have to depend on Chennai for every decision. This paved the way for their smooth transition into new universities at a later date. On the basis of the recommendation of the Kothari Commission, he gave autonomy to a few select colleges which had achieved reputation for their excellence.

He encouraged thorough updating of the courses. He regularly sent notes to Boards of Studies drawing attention to current relevancies and applied possibilities of the subjects concerned. He introduced the semester system in all the institutions falling within the jurisdiction of the University. Alongside, he introduced examination reform. He designed a system in which 40 percent of the marks allotted to a student in a subject were based on continuous assessment by the teacher concerned (through assignments, seminars, internal tests and the like) and 60 percent on external examinations. He constituted a monitoring cell to oversee the working of the system. A new format was adopted for the question papers. Three categories of questions – short ‘objective’, medium ‘concept’ and long ‘essay’ types were judiciously mixed to test the comprehension of the students at different levels. He arranged reorientation courses to the college teachers for adaptation of the new system. He introduced a rural reconstruction and community service scheme and made it part of the curriculum. It allowed its smooth substitution as the National Service Scheme.

He launched the central valuation system to expedite publication of university examination results. He computerized the processes for conduct of the examinations and the publication of results. He permitted the revaluation of answer scripts on payment of prescribed fees to bring transparency in the procedure of examinations.

He initiated the steps for the construction of houses for the non-teaching staff of the University at the housing colony in Palavakkam, Chennai.

He was accused with toeing the line of Ms. Indira Gandhi during ‘the Emergency’ by inconsiderately suspending a few University faculties on instructions from the central government. However, Prof. C.T. Kurien has recalled an instance which shows quite the reverse. Kurien had then been invited by Adiseshiah to be the Director of MIDS which was being actively considered to be a constituent of ICSSR national institutes. Kurien informed Adiseshiah that he had a confrontation with the police in the second half of 1976 because he had taken a stand against the ‘emergency regime’. So he told Adiseshiah that he was free to withdraw his offer of directorship. Adiseshiah was reported to have replied:

“One of trustees of MIDS (M.S. Appa Rao) has been arrested and the director-to-be has been warned. If they want to withhold (national) recognition to the Institute, let them. But there will be no change in my decisions. And you do what you think is right.”12

He asserted the autonomy of the university by implementing the scales of pay recommended by University Grants Commission to the University faculty even though the Tamil Nadu government had not taken a decision about it till then!

Another widely prevalent view among Tamil teachers of those days was that Adiseshiah was trying to lessen the importance of Tamil by allowing the Board of Studies in Commerce to take away the hours allotted to Tamil teaching in B.Com course and transfer them to the teaching of commerce subjects. Adiseshiah’s inputs to the cause of Tamil language are given separately in a subsequent section. In reality Adiseshiah would not interfere in the decisions of the Boards of Studies.