New Delhi: On December 31, 2019, just hours before retiring, Virendra Kumar Tewari, a professor in the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department at IIT Kharagpur, was appointed as the director of the prestigious institute. At 65, Tewari was past the typical retirement age for faculty members at IITs, which is 65, and the official notice for the director’s position required applicants to be under 60, ThePrint reported.
Despite this, Tewari, who specialised in agricultural engineering, was selected over other contenders, including Partha Chakrabarti, the then director of IIT Kharagpur and Rajeev Ahuja, a professor at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Tewari’s appointment by then-Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal raised eyebrows due to his age and his background outside core engineering fields. He was born on January 1, 1955, in Rasra, Uttar Pradesh and has been with IIT Kharagpur since completing his B Tech and M Tech in 1981, followed by a PhD by 1985.
IIT Kharagpur faculty protest
As Tewari’s tenure as director comes to a close in January 2025, tensions between the administration and the faculty are escalating. The faculty is protesting the administration’s decision to issue show-cause notices to 86 faculty members who had signed a petition opposing disciplinary actions against members of the IIT Kharagpur Teachers’ Association (IITTA).
In September, the IITTA accused Tewari of favoritism and arbitrary faculty recruitment in a letter to the Ministry of Education. They called for the appointment of a new director with a strong academic record and inclusive leadership.
In retaliation, the administration issued notices to the signatories of the petition and replaced three department heads. A senior official said that 20 of the 86 faculty members had submitted apology letters, which were accepted by the administration. Faculty members, however, are contemplating legal action, including seeking a stay on the removal of department heads.
Faculty slams unprecedented actions
The dispute has sparked widespread dissatisfaction, with faculty members calling the administration’s actions unprecedented in IIT Kharagpur’s history. Despite allegations of attempts to recruit individuals with RSS connections, Tewari has no direct political affiliations.
