The PhD Factory: How Universities Manufacture Free Labour in the Name of Research
There is a quiet miracle happening inside Indian universities. It is not research. It is not innovation. It is certainly not academic freedom. The miracle is this: universities have discovered a way to run entire institutions on the cheapest labour imaginable—PhD scholars. For decades, universities claimed that doctoral education existed to produce knowledge, nurture scholars, and advance intellectual life. But somewhere along the way, the system quietly reinvented itself. The PhD scholar is no longer primarily a researcher. They are now a multi-purpose institutional appliance . They teach. They invigilate exams. They organise conferences. They design posters. They manage department events. They perform administrative tasks. They coordinate guests. They sometimes even do the work that permanent staff are supposed to do. All for free. Technically, of course, it is not “free.” A small scholarship is provided—an amount that resembles a stipend but behaves more like institutional pocket m...