ABSTRACT

In an institution set up in the high noon of his institution building spree, it

is but natural that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of

India, should be the most visible presence in the Indian Institute of Tech-

nology (IIT) Kharagpur. Nehru’s shadow looms large in IIT Kharagpur, the

first of the ‘higher technical institutions’ established in post independence

India to translate the Nehruvian vision of a modern industrialized nation.

From his signature engraved on the foundation stone of the Main Building

and recordings of his speech at the first Convocation to the establishment of the Nehru Museum of Science and Technology recently, Nehru continues to

be the patron saint of the four hundred and fifty odd scientists and

technologists enjoined to ‘modernize’ India.1