ThoughtfulChaos

I always wished the IIPM controversy to snowball into a bigger issue. A few hours ago it did but not the way I intended. I never imagined that things would come to this.

Gaurav decides to stand by what he wrote and quits from IBM. Yes... he has quit.

Apparently the Dean of IIPM threatened to do a real world drama and said that (quote is in 'first person' form and that person is Gaurav):

"IIPM Students Union had decided that if my blog posts were not deleted, then they would gather all the Thinkpads they had been given by the institute, and burn them in front of the IBM office in Delhi. Yes, that's right. Burn laptops!"

What bullshit! Utter crap... I am finding it difficult to find words to express my disgust and bewilderment. If the dean of IIPM can say this then it deserves all the crap that is being heaped on it. Can't they see that such a stunt would have damaged their reputation even further and this time the news would have spread in the real world instead of just the virtual world. Just picture hundreds of IIPM management students burning ThinkPads!

Is there a better way to damage your credibility? Would any sane employer ever hire a management graduate who burnt a laptop because she could not digest criticism leveled at her college? I am damn sure that the IIPM Students Union would have NEVER threatened such a step. Hey guys! Please speak out! Your reputation is at stake. Did you really threaten to do such a dumbass thing?

I admire Gaurav for his courage and integrity. Amit blogs about Gaurav's feelings and I again quote:

"You know, we bloggers are always writing about principles, about freedom of speech, about standing up for what we believe in, for the truth. It’s very easy to write all that. But here I’m being tested on those principles in real life. If I don’t stand by those principles now, I will lose all respect for myself."

Well said Gaurav, well said. I sure hope that I have the strength to stand by my values and convictions when it really matters. I also feel that there might be other things that happened behind-the-scenes about which we know nothing of and probably played a part in Gaurav's decision.

I am quite sad and very aghast but also at the same time a bit proud. I am proud of my fellow Indian bloggers who have blogged about it. Everybody has their 2 cents on it and many 2 cents add up to a lot of money.

The easiest and most effective way for IIPM to refute the (so-called) allegations was by simply presenting facts to the contrary. Instead they chose the legal route and the arm-twisting route to deal with. I am 100% convinced about the veracity of JAMMAG's article. This is going to be huge PR disaster for IIPM, one that they will not be able to remedy by pumping in truckloads of money.

The issue has now gone international with Neha blogging about it on Global Voices. DesiPundit says "Reputation is the biggest asset and IIPM seems to be losing it fast" and I fully agree.

Michael speculates on why IIPM is behaving in this stupid manner.

A big thanks to DesiPundit once again for providing constant updates on whole thing, even though it quite late into the night. DesiPundit also reports that IIPM is ranked 5th in the "Top Searches this hour" on Technorati. Well... they are wrong. Now IIPM is at rank 4 (screenshot). That indeed is a very big thing. Shows that many people want to know what the blogosphere is saying about the controversy.

UPDATE at 1:16 AM: Even I am wrong. IIPM is now rank 3 in Technorati (screenshot)

UPDATE at 5:01 PM IST on 2005-10-11: IIPM is now NUMBER 1 in Technorati search words (screenshot)

P.S. Andrew/Andy is on a commenting spree on my blog.