About Bhaskar Ramamurthi from a professor's POV
Yesterday, I had a casual conversation with a professor in my department. His position is 'professor', so you can estimate that he is a senior faculty member here.
He asked me if I was facing any entry or exit restrictions in my department (Aerospace) due to the PM's visit. Yesterday the road wasn't closed, but today it was.
He was just amazed by how IITM has been losing its aura because of these stupid politicians' visits in recent years, since Kamakoti took over the director's seat.
He recalls the era of Bhaskar Ramamurthi, the former director of IITM. He said that Prof. Bhaskar was strictly against these kinds of political visits to an educational institution, which is a place of study, not for political gain. He tried to keep them minimal.
He recalls how Prof. Bhaskar was under pressure to invite politicians from both the Congress and the BJP, from state and central governments, to inaugurations and other events. But he faced it.
He especially told me about one incident when some Congress or BJP MPs' colleagues (about 50+ people) were asked to stay in the institute's guest house, but he was strictly against this because they did not want to pay. At the end, those guys stayed, but he made sure that every penny was collected from them.
He told me that his policy was very simple: in an educational institution, only students, professors, and visitors who can benefit the institution (like conference guests, etc.) should be there, and there should not be any entry for those who are not worthy enough to add any value to the institute.
He also recalled how the campus was police free before Kama took over. Prof. Bhaskar made sure that the police remained off campus as much as possible. He recalls that he could barely see any police on the campus roads, but nowadays it is so frequent for police to enter the campus. He told me that the police are using IITM roads as a shortcut to go from Adyar to Velachary, which would take about 30 minutes if taken via Sardar Patel Road. But they use our roads to bypass this. I thought that it was common for the police to enter the institute.
I genuinely feel that Kama, just for his own political benefits, is ruining and disturbing the campus life of students. Whether it is these kinds of political visits or by introducing this Online BS shit. Sure, Kama is a great researcher, but as a director, he is not capable. His statements to in-campus students, like 'those guys are just jealous of you', 'Gaumutra', etc., genuinely show how attention-deprived he feels.
I am a 22 Batch student and don't know how exactly the era of Prof. Bhasker was. The points above (except the paragraph above) were what I heard from the professor. Maybe I am wrong somewhere. Any alumini, if I am wrong, please do let me know.