Tyranny of the masses

"How many of you agree with him", he looks around.

There is a general murmur rippling through the gathering; people shake their heads in disapproval.

He looks back at me triumphant, vindicated. The majority has given its verdict.

The "majority" that has made George Bush the most powerful person on earth.

The "majority" that returns Laloo Yadav to power in Bihar every general election.

The "majority" that allowed Hitler to rule.

The "majority" that is the elusive figure political parties in India are seeking.

The "majority" that is good enough to rule yet evil enough for rules to be framed to protect the "minority".

The "majority" that is made up of minorities.

The "majority" whose logic is "we are more numerous; hence we must be right".

The "majority" which, if he were to ask and had it been brave enough, would have told him that he is an ass.

IIT KGP as a psychic prison

I am pasting below from my MO project where I viewed IIT KGP as a psychic prison. Psychic prison is one of the metaphorical lenses of Gareth Morgan through which one can view an organization.

IIT Kharagpur as a psychic prison
This metaphor in connection with a democratic and liberal institution like IIT KGP may look extremely inappropriate. IIT KGP, by and large, is very democratic with the students allowed participation in all important decisions pertaining to their academics or social life. Rules in the place are very flexible. It may be puzzling, therefore, to think that the members of such an organization are suffering in a psychic prison the system has built around them. The psychic prison to be described in the subsequent lines is not a characteristic of IIT KGP alone; it is, in my opinion, a tragic part of all the IITs and to a large extent of the IIMs as well.
IITs in particular and IIMs to a certain extent, by virtue of being the most prominent of the very few world class institutes in the country, attract a lot of hype and hoopla. These institutes have built an aura around them and have extremely tough entrance exams. The result is, students qualifying these entrance exams are automatically marked as super achievers and whiz kids. They carry an enormous burden of expectations of family and friends – it becomes their duty to succeed. These students are not always equipped to carry such expectations and many of them wither under the tremendous pressure they face. The large number of cases of insanity and suicide that IIT KGP has seen over the last few years are testimony to the tremendous mental strain the students live with. Quite often, the students themselves get caught in this myth generated around these institutions. So, a number of students come with the expectations of instant success; the entrance exam for them is the destination rather than the beginning of the journey. When these expectations are not met, some get totally demotivated. Others delude themselves into believing in the supremacy of the much hyped IIT tag. They abet this process of mythicising IIT by enthusiastically spreading the success stories of IITians and their immense abilities. They get caught in this self-perpetrated myth and find it difficult to come to terms with the reality. Some IITians are so confident and smug about their extraordinary abilities, that they find it impossible to survive in any organization after they pass out. They find it ‘mortifying’ to be working with lesser mortals from the other engineering colleges and are unable to build relationships with the outsiders. Often, the IITians in an organization keep to themselves and form exclusive groups. This, more than lack of ability, has been the principal cause of the downfall of many IIT KGPians (and indeed other IITians). Many IITians attribute their failure to the deficiencies of the system and not their own, so ingrained is the myth of their own supremacy. When this myth break downs at last, it is earth shattering for them; they find it hard to face their ordinary and normal versions as opposed to the extraordinarily intelligent beings that they were led to believe they are. Tragically, this psychic prison is no fault of theirs and is a creation of the Indian society that has a tendency to make Gods out of personalities and institutes.