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Journalism of Courage
Education, it is said, is what we retain after we’ve forgotten much of what was taught in our classrooms. It is the values we learnt from our teachers. It is the memories that remain evergreen decades after we’ve stepped out of our studenthood—of the friendships we struck, of the adventures through which we explored life, of the books we read or the films we watched, perhaps of our first love, perhaps of the interest we developed in this or that branch of knowledge.
I write these prefatory words because last month was something special for me. Two of my alma maters had reunions. First, there was the 25th year reunion of the batch that passed out in 1980 from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Then came the congregation of old students of the school in which I studied—Jadhavji Anandji High School in Athani, a small town in north Karnataka, which is moving closer to its centenary.
I confess that I have forgotten much of my civil engineering and much of my school biology. Yet, there is something that I received from my school and my institute that remains with me as a treasured bequest.
In ancient times, we had gurus and gurukuls. The pupils’ education was deemed incomplete until they had rendered some service to their gurukul and given their gurudakshina (offering to the guru). In the totally changed system of education we have now, I feel that one aspect must remain unchanged: the obligation to give something back to one’s alma mater.
Although it’s not much eulogised in the media, it’s a fairly widespread sentiment in our society. Go around the villages, small towns and big cities of India, and you’ll see innumerable instances of how a grateful alumnus has built a new classroom, a school in one’s parents’ name or instituted scholarships in one’s teacher’s name.
A few years ago, Sudha Murthy (it’s embarrassing to introduce her as the wife of Narayana Murthy, the Chairman of Infosys, because she is a popular writer in her own right and also a great philanthropist) built a beautiful auditorium in Athani in the memory of her late father, who was an illustrious alumnus of our school. Murthy himself has made a huge donation to IIT Kanpur, his alma mater. Indeed, all his top-level colleagues at Infosys (who, like himself, came from middle-class backgrounds) have donated many millions to their alma maters. Nandan Nilekani, the CEO of Infosys and an alumnus of IIT Bombay, has built two magnificent new hostels on the shores of Powai Lake. His colleague Mohandas Pai took me to his school in Bangalore a few years ago to show the ultra-modern computer lab he has set up there.
The number of people with a conscience among our educated elite, who feel for their alma maters and for India, is truly countless. The alumni movement in India, decentralised though it is by its very nature, can become a powerful component in our education system. All that’s required to unlock its full potential is an active bunch of alumni, a supportive management that instills confidence that the donations received are used transparently for worthy causes, and encouraging government policies that leverage, rather than obstruct, societal efforts to improve the learning environment.
Let me give two examples to illustrate my point. This year our batch of alumni collected a hefty fund, Rs 1.6 crore, for an ambitious cause: to clean up the Powai Lake, in whose idyllic environs IIT Bombay is situated. The lake, once the pride of Mumbai, is suffering degradation like much else in the city. It is shrinking rapidly due to silting, encroachments and dumping of debris by unscrupulous real-estate developers. However, its cleaning up and beautification can succeed only if both the central and state governments recognise it as a signature project for Mumbai’s urban renewal and lend their support.
One can think of many such projects in the domain of public-private partnerships in which the alumni of IITs, IIMs and various universities can participate. At a time when India’s well-educated professional class is prospering rapidly, a visionary government policy can certainly tap into their emotional attachment to their alma maters to promote public-private partnerships in education.
My second example shows what a government should not do. A few years ago, when the NDA was in office, alumni of many prestigious institutions (mostly those in USA who have become millionaires due to the tech wave) approached the government with offers to participate in several ambitious projects. Some even talked of setting up new IITs and IIMs. A highly attractive idea it was. Sadly, the HRD Ministry subverted it by setting up the Bharat Shiksha Kosh, which was the bureaucrats’ way of controlling the donations and their end-use. Unsurprisingly, the BSS was a non-starter with very little coming into its kitty.
Here’s a suggestion for the newly constituted, Sam Pitroda-led Knowledge Commission. Collect suggestions from alumni associations nationwide and prepare a bouquet of ideas on how to further enrich the culture of gurudakshina in our society. Launch an imaginative media campaign around the theme. Mention that gurudakshina can even be in the form of offers to teach part-time either in one’s alma mater or in any educational institution in one’s neighbourhood. This can be very useful, given that our institutes of higher learning are today facing a huge shortage of good teachers.
Here’s also an appeal to readers of this column. Since each one of you is an alumnus of some or the other institution, give something back to your alma mater—if you haven’t already done so.
Write to sudheenkulkarni@expressindia.com
