Recently, I was doing research for an article about the salaries offered to the first-ever graduating batch of IIM Ahmedabad students and discovered some photos from their early days. I was fascinated by these black-and-white photos of the founding days, the library, the classrooms, the hostels, and the canteen which looked so different back then. But what particularly caught my interest from the archives were the photos of the Convocation Days. This reminded me of my Convocation day when I was looking forward to putting on the black robe, but instead, we were just given stoles to put around our necks (we didn’t even get to do the throwing it in the air thing!) I went down the rabbit hole of going through the images of all their Convocation ceremonies and found some really interesting images, some even featuring very famous faces.
Let’s take a look at some of the stills over the decades that describe the story of the famous red brick building, from its early days of possibilities to becoming the dream college of many.
1. The inaugural batch of 1964-66
2. 1974 Batch
The ceremony of the 1974 batch was the 9th Convocation of IIM Ahmedabad. This was the first time the Convocation was held at the famous Louis Kahn Plaza, and the tradition continues to this date.
3. 1984 Batch
A decade later, the Convocation of 1984 was the first time coloured pictures were taken of the graduating batch. They also released a video for the event for the first time ever.
4. 1994 Batch
The Convocation ceremony of the 29th batch was graced by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the then Finance Minister of India, as the Chief Guest.
5. 2004 Batch
The first Convocation ceremony of the 20th Century was the 39th Convocation of IIMA and the chief guest that year was Dr. Bimal Jalan, former Governor of the RBI.
6. 2014 Batch
The forty-ninth Convocation in 2014 at IIMA had Anand Mahindra, the Chairperson and Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., as the Chief Guest. It is documented in a 2 part video and is available on YouTube.
7. 2024 Batch
The Convocation of the latest batch had Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), as the Chief Guest. Long before she made history by becoming the first woman to lead the SEBI, she was a student of the ’88 batch of IIMA and was the only female student to pull out of the placement process.
If you have been there on your Convocation day or waiting for one, we are sure you can’t get over the thrill of the concluding day of your precious student life.
