Are Iims in the business of hoarding creamiest of the creams for two years and then selling to the highest bidder? The letter of IIM–A director to Flipkart is similar to one that a petty broker would write when they lose their commissions. The MBA shops should be in the business of churning out well trained skilled workforce to meet the business needs of 2016 not act as head-hunters and placement agencies. Unfortunately the line between a guru and the latter is diminishing.

I understand the importance of placements in giving a good jumpstart in the budding student’s career. But I don’t give a shit about it. Here’s why:

1. The students are not starving. The average per capita income of India is roughly 60k per annum. So why should I be concerned for someone whose starting salary is 100 times the median? If they could not make this opportunity work, they might find another which might pay half, but the student will still be 50 times richer than the rest of the country.
2. Student loans are tough, but almost all student loans have a provision to defer re-payment by 6 months post-graduation without any penalty. So a MBA institute that claims to place 100s of students in hours/first day should be able to help a select handful in 180 days.
3. This is not government job. More than half of the IIM graduates don’t join or change their job in the first 12 months. You don’t see companies complaining for such unprofessional and callous behavior of the batch so why should the institute complain when Flipkart is only paying back IIMs in their own coin.
4. Indian online companies & esp. e-commerce is going through a rough patch. Employees who have been with the company since inception have been asked to go. Yet the company is not renegading on its promise to the batch of green freshers just deferring it by a couple of months and paying partially for it too. But the faculty is out of touch with the industry and this press shenanigan is only to bully the industry into compliance.
5. Job guarantees: Most people realize that Indian labor laws are dated and there are too many job guarantees and hire-fire restrictions that is the leading reason why Indian industry esp. manufacturing is lagging behind. Yet IIM A director wants to develop on these policies and extend the same to its batch. It is another sign that shows that the faculty has lost its touch with the problems faced by the industry.

Those who ride on their high saddle and look down upon the rest of the workforce should never expect sympathy when they fall face first. The letter was full of arrogance and was written with intentions to bully. Hence it arouses no empathy or emotions for me.

Read any press release made by any of the IIMs in the last 5 years. You will get realms of news-clippings on their selection process and placements. But hardly any data on their education methodology, the Industry exposure to the faculty/students, the teaching methodology. Is this is the center of excellence in the Indian education sphere?

The selection process of IIMs and IITs were designed during License raj where hoarders manipulated the prices by controlling the supply. After all they don’t select 99 percentile; one has to be be 99.9 percentile to even qualify for a selection interview. If the quality of the output is as good as IIM A director claims, then students should not worry, it will be a matter of seconds before any of the 200 other companies that visited the campus.