Our Defense, Their Defense!

Of course I am going to blabber about PhD thesis defense and the difference between defense in Indian schools and their US counterparts.

Like many formal events, the thesis defense ceremony in US schools is a low profile, but important activity. Whereas, the PhD defense in Indian schools is still a big fat event where you need to prepare yourself and others for a sufficiently long time to fulfill every formalities of this gala event (which bears the typical Indian flavor of grandness of all important events of one's life, be it marriage or getting a degree). This gala event starts right from the day your adviser thinks that you now can be get ridden of the lab because you have demonstrated that your are fit for a PhD degree (read you have spent at least 5 years or so in captivity in the lab as a lab rat, on a lighter side!). Then several copies of your thesis go out to different destinations, home and abroad, for evaluation of the worth of your contribution. The whole procedure takes a big chunk of your time and energy, and not to mention the botheration of your adviser, administrative staffs and all external examiners. This goes on simultaneously with other normal activities of your PhD, like communicating your papers to good journals and getting the stamp of approval/acceptance of your work in the form of publications. And then in the final months, after several hundreds of e-mails between the examiners and your adviser, you are ready for the grand event: to defend your thesis in front of experts in your field who come from your school and also from other institutes to formally approve your work and bestow the degree.

The US schools have a rather practical and causal approach to the whole thing. They believe that once you have published several good quality papers in high impact journals, then that itself is a direct vindication/ratification of your work. And you no longer have to send your copies of your thesis to all other experts, in home or overseas, to get a stamp of approval. I believe this is quite logical and it saves a considerable amount of time and energy of everyone involved in the whole process. After this, the defense formality is a just a normal event where members of your PhD committee would gather for a final presentation -- and there you go -- congratulations, you are a Dr. now.

I think the Indian students go through more rigor (part of which is unnecessary in my opinion) to earn their PhD. Anyone out there to prove me wrong? and justify why such a practice is still there in the best Indian schools?