The men who knew too little

When two worthies, both appointed by the government to harness their experience in offering ideas for the country’s intellectual and economic growth fall out and trade charges it public, it leaves a bad taste. What kind of example are they setting?

The unseemly spat between the chairman of the Knowledge Commission, Sam Pitroda, and vice-chairman PC Bhargava, instead of concentrating on intellectual issues, or indeed matters of principle, has regrettably turned personal with both the warring individuals deciding to fight it out in the media, rather than within the four walls of their institution.

The commission was set on the personal initiative of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to guide the government towards a vibrant knowledge economy and included some of the most distinguished names from  academia and industry. Its mandate was to prepare guidelines as to where India should head from its current status of being just an attractive back office to the world, and turn into a knowledge base.

The commission has had its share of controversies. Its members had dissenting views on the subject of caste-based reservations in institutions of higher learning, with two of them quitting because the final report did not match their views. Pitroda himself has come in for criticism for not spending time in India; he lives in the US.

But all that pales before this latest contretemps. Bhargava began by accusing Pitroda of “ignoring” other members, being highhanded and being too busy to allocate time to the commission. Yet, instead of discreetly discussing this with the chairman and other members, Bhargava chose to make his grievances public and in language that did no credit to him as an academic. Pitroda replied,  and now it has become a full-fledged war.

All of which makes us ask: of what use are commissions like this anyway? There are enough policy think tanks, industry associations and, of course, ministries to suggest and create policy. Time-bound commissions like these may sound grand and worthy, but hark back to a paternalistic time when governments knew all. In any case, as has become evident, the members are too busy — or, too egoistic — to sit together more than a few times. The best thing the government could do, instead of creating sinecures, is to give this and other similar bodies a quiet burial. They seem to be causing more harm than good.