India, June 26 -- At a recent panel at Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Madras, directors from five of India's top engineering institutions offered a prescription: it's time to move beyond the coding craze. They urged students to pursue sustainability, semiconductors, and core engineering in their careers. "Put the country first," said one. Others described the herd mentality drawing top rankers into computer science.

Their frustration is real. They see firsthand the hollowing out of foundational disciplines and the skewed incentives. And they're not wrong to sound the alarm, though it is not a new one. Leaders have decried both the brain drain and the stampede towards computer science for decades.

I understand the tension between a...