Our Universities, Our Leaders and Foreign Universities

Recently the media in India has reported about two events at ‘University of California, Berkeley’ and at the ‘Center for International Security Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University’. At these events, the Vice-President of Congress party spoke to a group of students and Faculty Members about the political issues in India.

“720 years back, the ‘President’ of the world’s largest university, which attracted scholars from far and wide, was informed by his assistant that many horsemen were riding towards the university. The President waived his assistant off by saying that every horseman knew that he had to respect the university and that he should enter the university on foot, after tying the horse at the gate of the university. Within a few hours, there was a slaughter of more than 10,000 scholars and 3,000 Faculty Members by the 500 horsemen, led by Bakhtiar Khilji, a nearly illiterate swordsman, who was ignorant about the protocols at the great university. After killing any one, whom they could find at the university, the university was burnt down.”- This is the story of Nalanda University, India.

By the end of the thirteenth century, Nalanda and other universities in India closed down and India did not have any University till 1857. Today we have more than 760 universities. But like Nalanda university, most of our universities of today have continued the tradition of not studying other countries, their culture and languages in depth.

One of our universities decided to include, in its large MBA program, an intensive program of global studies. Besides other changes, the university included 2 courses on studying a country in depth. Since every group of 30 students were required to study one country, it led to the study of a large number of countries at the university. Over the next few years, the university worked to motivate the Faculty Members in many ways and the courses gathered strength. Tens of ambassadors and the ‘Chief Minister of a State of a large country (called the Premier of a province)’ visited the university. At this stage, a proposal for a School of Foreign Languages was approved by the Academic Council.

Since nearly all the Business Schools at other universities had worked without a School of Languages, the need for incurring additional expenses arose at the level of decision-makers. Moreover the university was investing a small amount of money and a great deal of time and attention for continuously strengthening the global studies program, while courses on international business had been taught at many universities, without incurring any additional expenses. So management decisions, which may look to be quite appropriate for any business entity, were taken by the Board of Governors and the authorities, not to incur the additional expenses. The two courses continue to be offered. But if the courses are to move towards academic excellence, the university has to continuously strengthen the Research Groups and their academic work so that the university can start attracting scholars from across the world to make presentations in an intellectually stimulating environment.

Every one knows that China is dominating the markets of the world. But only a few may be knowing that the success is based upon in-depth study of all the 270 countries of the world by the universities of China. Universities in United Kingdom, France, USA, USSR and China have large programs for studying countries of the whole of the world.

The world is fortunate to have some great universities, where highly knowledgeable Faculty Members guide researchers in global studies. Eminent persons from the whole of the world feel honoured to be invited to such universities. When an eminent person of a country is invited by one of the great universities, the media in the country prominently reports the event. The examples of two such events, relating to India are of the spirited speech by  Dr Shashi Tharoor at the Debate organized by Oxford Union Society on ‘Britain owes reparations to her former colonies’ in July 2015 and the address by  Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Prime-Minister of India, when he was  honoured by Oxford  University with a honorary degree of  Doctor of Civil Law on 8th July 2005. It takes years of sustained work to build academically strong departments at universities, whose work acquires the high reputation that some of the departments at the great universities of the world enjoy today.

India is a large country, with an age-old civilization, which had close inter-actions with all the countries of East Asia, West Asia and Central Asia. If our universities are able to  have the academic strength, similar to that of the great universities of the world, it may soon be found that the insights that can be obtained when one works with the background of our great civilization may be invaluable for the whole of the world. At that stage, some highly competent persons from other countries may start approaching our universities to organize programs like the ones, that were arranged by Dr Sam Pitroda for Shri Rahul Gandhi at the universities of California Berkeley and Princeton.

Akshai Aggarwal