On 18 August 2026, the day the IIT system and IIT Kharagpur marked 75 years, a philosophy lecture at IIT Gandhinagar brought together around 280 engineering undergraduates. The instructor posed a question that had lingered for some time: could the students name any IIT student, faculty member or alumnus whose original social, scientific or technological contribution had changed the lives of a substantial share of India’s population?
The question was not meant to diminish the institutions’ achievements. The IITs have long stood as symbols of technical excellence, producing graduates who lead global technology companies, contribute to India’s space and defence programmes, and drive innovation in software and engineering. Yet the inquiry pointed to a deeper issue: the relative scarcity of transformative, original work that reshapes society on a large scale, and the broader challenge of why India has not produced more Nobel Prize-level breakthroughs in the sciences while working within the country.
The Record and the Gap
C.V. Raman’s 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics remains the sole science Nobel awarded to an Indian citizen for work conducted in India. Subsequent laureates of Indian origin—Hargobind Khorana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan—carried out their prize-winning research abroad. This pattern has fuelled recurring discussions about funding, infrastructure, brain drain and institutional culture.
Observers frequently cite modest research and development spending as a share of GDP, bureaucratic hurdles, limited incentives for high-risk basic research, and a system that often rewards incremental publications and administrative compliance over bold, original inquiry. These structural factors matter. Yet they do not fully explain the gap. Countries with comparable or even greater constraints have occasionally produced landmark discoveries. The missing element may lie in the habits of mind that institutions cultivate—or fail to cultivate.
The Culture of the Competent Authority
In many Indian academic and administrative settings, the phrase “competent authority” carries heavy weight. Decisions, approvals, research directions and even the framing of problems often flow from hierarchical sources that are rarely questioned openly. This culture can provide order and continuity. It can also discourage the kind of sustained, sceptical interrogation that underpins major scientific advances.
Science progresses when established ideas are tested, overturned or refined. Nobel-level work frequently begins with discomfort about prevailing assumptions. When students and researchers learn primarily to master existing frameworks and satisfy institutional expectations, the space for genuine intellectual risk narrows. The philosophy classroom at an engineering institute becomes relevant precisely because it can introduce habits of questioning that technical training alone may not prioritise.
IITs and the Measure of Impact
The IITs have excelled at producing highly skilled professionals. Their alumni occupy influential positions worldwide. The institutions themselves have expanded dramatically and improved research output in recent decades. Yet the original question posed to the undergraduates remains pointed. Transformative contributions that alter the daily lives of large numbers of Indians—whether through fundamental scientific insight, widely adopted technology, or social innovation rooted in rigorous inquiry—remain less common than the institutions’ prestige might suggest.
This is not a failure of talent. It is more often a reflection of incentives and culture. Careers advance through publications, grants, administrative roles and alignment with institutional priorities. High-risk, long-horizon research that might eventually yield paradigm-shifting results receives less consistent support. Questioning the premises of a research programme or the priorities of a funding body can carry professional costs.
Philosophy, Critical Thinking and Institutional Purpose
Including philosophy and the humanities in the IIT curriculum is sometimes viewed as an optional enrichment. In reality, these disciplines can serve a more fundamental purpose. They train students to examine the assumptions underlying technical work, to consider ethical and social consequences, and to recognise that the most important problems are not always those already defined by existing authorities.
When engineering students engage with questions of knowledge, evidence, authority and value, they gain tools that can later inform how they approach research problems, design systems or evaluate claims of expertise. The capacity to ask whether a prevailing approach is the best one available is not a distraction from technical excellence. It is a condition for originality.
Building Conditions for Breakthrough Work
Addressing the scarcity of Nobel-level and society-changing contributions requires more than increased funding, though greater investment in basic research remains essential. It also requires institutional environments in which questioning is not treated as disloyalty or disruption. Leadership that prioritises intellectual independence over control, evaluation systems that reward genuine insight rather than volume of output, and a wider cultural acceptance of dissent within academic settings would all help.
The 75-year milestone of the IIT system offers a moment for reflection. The institutions have demonstrated that India can build and sustain centres of high technical competence. The next challenge is to create conditions in which that competence is regularly directed toward questions that no competent authority has yet fully framed—questions whose answers might one day change how large numbers of people live, understand the world, or organise their societies.
Until the habit of rigorous, independent questioning becomes as valued as technical mastery, the gap between potential and recognised transformative achievement is likely to persist. The philosophy lecture’s simple question remains a useful measure of progress.
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