There are those who cannot adjust to the academic culture in India, which treats insubordination seriously, treats age and seniority as paramount and does not value merit or freedom of thought are more likely to revolt against the system. Can you elaborate on this further.
In many parts of the Indian academic system, especially in traditional institutions, hierarchy often shapes behavior more strongly than intellectual independence. This creates friction for students or faculty who value questioning, experimentation, and merit-based recognition over obedience and seniority.
1. Hierarchy over Dialogue
Many institutions operate with an implicit rule: respect means compliance. Teachers, administrators, and senior faculty are often treated as unquestionable authorities rather than as participants in open academic debate.
A student who asks “why?” too often may be seen not as curious, but as disrespectful. Someone challenging outdated teaching methods may be labeled arrogant rather than innovative.
This creates a culture where silence is rewarded and dissent is punished.
2. Seniority as Legitimacy
In such systems, age and years served often outweigh competence. A younger researcher with stronger ideas may still be expected to “wait their turn” rather than be heard on merit.
Promotion, influence, and trust may depend less on output and more on institutional loyalty or deference to seniors.
This frustrates high-performing individuals who expect recognition based on contribution rather than tenure.
3. Insubordination as a Moral Failure
Disagreement is often framed not as intellectual opposition but as character failure—“indiscipline,” “attitude problem,” or “lack of संस्कार.”
This is especially true when criticism is public. Questioning authority can be interpreted as threatening institutional order rather than improving it.
As a result, reform-minded individuals are often isolated instead of engaged.
4. Examination over Inquiry
The system frequently rewards memory, conformity, and procedural compliance rather than original thinking.
Students trained to optimize marks may struggle to develop independent judgment. Those who naturally think divergently may feel punished for not fitting the mold.
The message becomes: correct answers matter more than original questions.
5. Why Some Revolt
Those who cannot psychologically adapt to this structure often react in one of three ways:
Exit: leaving academia, going abroad, or moving to startups/independent work
Silent disengagement: staying physically present but mentally detached
Revolt: openly resisting rules, exposing hypocrisy, or building parallel systems
The “revolt” is often less about rebellion for its own sake and more about refusing to normalize intellectual suffocation.
6. The Cost of Revolt
Rebels pay a price:
bad recommendations
blocked promotions
social isolation
reputational damage (“difficult person”)
institutional retaliation
Because power is centralized, even justified dissent can become career suicide.
7. The Larger Consequence
When institutions punish originality and reward conformity, they produce administrators more easily than innovators.
This affects national capacity too—research quality, entrepreneurship, scientific breakthroughs, and public trust all decline when institutions prioritize obedience over excellence.
A sharper way to frame it:
“Systems built for administrative stability often become hostile to intellectual excellence. Those who cannot perform obedience as virtue are treated as threats rather than assets.”
That is why some people do not merely fail to adjust—they become adversaries of the system itself.
I have read an article on PhD courses charging high amounts of fees, lack of support from university/government, high publishing cost and other impediments. There is also no spirit of inquiry and people in higher education only wield power and not reputation/excellence. How do scholars pursue PhD then? who should bear their costs?
For many scholars, pursuing a PhD becomes less a straightforward academic path and more a negotiation between intellectual ambition, financial survival, and institutional politics.
Why people still pursue a PhD
People continue because a PhD offers different kinds of value:
entry into academia and research careers
credibility in specialized fields
access to labs, archives, mentors, and institutional legitimacy
personal commitment to solving a problem they care deeply about
in some cases, social prestige attached to the title “Doctor”
For some, it is career strategy. For others, it is almost ideological—a refusal to stop asking difficult questions.
Who should bear the cost?
Ideally, not the student alone.
A PhD is not just private education; it is knowledge production. Society benefits from good research—whether in medicine, engineering, agriculture, public policy, or AI. That means funding responsibility should be shared.
1. Government
Public universities and state funding bodies should be primary supporters.
Organizations like UGC, CSIR, ICMR, and DST exist precisely because research is a public good.
If governments want innovation, they cannot expect scholars to self-finance it.
2. Universities
If universities demand publications, teaching assistance, lab work, and research output, they should provide:
tuition waivers
stipends
housing support
conference grants
access to journals and publication funds
Charging high PhD fees while extracting research output is structurally exploitative.
3. Industry
Industry should fund research where outcomes have practical value.
In countries with strong innovation ecosystems, companies fund university labs because future patents, talent pipelines, and applied solutions benefit them.
In India, this linkage is improving but still weak outside elite institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology or Indian Institute of Science.
4. Philanthropy and Foundations
Large foundations can support independent inquiry, especially in humanities and social sciences where market incentives are weaker.
Not all valuable knowledge produces immediate profit.
Why the current system breaks people
Many scholars face:
delayed fellowships
supervisor dependency
publication charges in predatory or expensive journals
pressure to publish quantity over quality
poor mentorship
administrative humiliation
little career certainty afterward
This turns research into endurance rather than discovery.
Some leave. Some compromise. Some persist out of stubborn conviction.
A harder truth
Many institutions confuse credential production with knowledge creation.
A PhD should be training for original thought. In practice, it can become apprenticeship in bureaucratic survival.
That is why some of the best minds avoid academia entirely.
A better principle
A useful test is:
“If the institution benefits from your research more than you do, the institution should pay.”
Teaching, papers, rankings, grants, prestige—universities gain all of these from doctoral scholars.
Treating them as fee-paying customers instead of junior researchers is intellectually dishonest.
The real answer
Serious scholars pursue PhDs either because:
they receive enough structural support, or
they care enough to endure the absence of it
The first creates healthy research ecosystems.
The second creates martyrs.
A country that relies mainly on the second will eventually run out of scholars.
