Single-sex enclaves work best in utopian literature. In the real world, men without women are dangerous, and women without men deadly dull — as anybody with an experience of barracks or harems would agree. So, it is hoped that the prime minister — who will remember the grimness of men-only Oxbridge — will shoot down the idea of a women’s IIT named after Indira Gandhi, as proposed, first, by the president and, more recently, by the Union minister and venerable member of the Congress, Arjun Singh. It would be silly to imagine that the proposal is the fruit of long and profound reflection on technology, education or women, for both elements of it seem prompted by misplaced and inappropriate concerns. First, why should a new institute of technology be named after Indira Gandhi, when none of the others, or the existing institutes of management, honours an eminent political leader? If Mr Singh is trying not to be regarded as a sycophantic Congressman, then such a suggestion would be a prime gaffe — especially when Meghalaya has rightly decided not to name the IIM in Shillong after Rajiv Gandhi.

The gender element is even more worrying and deserves serious critical thinking, especially because it is endorsed by the president. If science and technology have to be made gender-just, then segregating women at a crucial stage in their educational and professional lives can only amount to depriving them of experience and exposure, of the opportunity to work towards standards of excellence that are based on nothing but merit. Would Pratibha Patil have felt as good about herself if she had been made the president because she was a woman? To create an environment in which women do not have to worry about discrimination or lack of safety is a challenge for India’s educationists and policy-makers. But to meet that challenge by creating an institute for higher education only for women is to give up at the very beginning. Unthinking recourse to reservationist policy of one kind or another is the bane of Indian higher education today. This particular instance proves, yet again, that such a tendency is fostered, not by those who are going to be managing, teaching and studying in these institutes, but by clueless politicians whose stakes in the matter have very little to do with academic excellence.