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Why
do some people see only the darker side of any
endeavor to create a great thing? Why do they
start having suspicion about the good intentions
of some who can dream, take lessons from the
failures in past and get ahead?
I came across one such article by Shri Sunanda K
Dutta-Ray on ‘ Reviving Nalanda’ in Business
Standard. Shri Dutta-Ray is ‘not sure whether
the $1 billion Nalanda Mark II project is meant
to be a temple of higher learning, a
money-making investment or an exercise in soft
power to strengthen ties with China and Japan,
draw Australasia closer and provide a cultural
focal point for ASEAN and East Asia Summit
countries.’ He goes further, “With most East
Asian Summit members endorsing the plan at last
January’s Manila summit, it sounds even more
like politics than academics.”
Why is Duta-Ray so concerned and skeptical, when
Amartya Sen is not? Why can’t he wait for a year
or two and see the progress, when he himself
mentions of “Amartya Sen, the NMG chairman,
announcing last week that Nalanda would be
‘functioning in a small way’ by 2009 with ‘a few
thousand students’ from all over the world. The
curriculum would include philosophy and Buddhist
studies, Asian history and classical and modern
languages. Scientific research will follow.”
And what is wrong if the retired South Block
mandarin bubbled about six-lane highways,
airports at Gaya and even Nalanda and deluxe
hotels, organised pilgrim tours, crash courses
in Hindu and Buddhist thought, yoga centres,
Ayurvedic clinics, meditation homes and all
manner of facilities for rich intellectual
pilgrims? Bodh Gaya is already an International
airport. It can expand as and when required. It
can be connected to the university site by a
six-lane road. An international city can always
be conceptualized and realized, though as
separate project, in the vicinity of the
University. It can consist of the second homes
of the intellectuals of Buddhists countries who
wish to spend their last part of life near a
place of pilgrimage. What used to be Varanasi
for Hindus, Boddh Gaya can be for Buddhists.
What is wrong if an eight-lane corridor is built
by China, the master infrastructure builder,
between Vaishali and Bodh Gaya as a good gesture
or a diplomatic drive? Rich Jains from Gujarat
can build hotels. Buddhist industrialists from
Japan and Thailand can set up a number of
technical training schools and help developing a
manufacturing hub along the super expressway to
make the people of the state, that gave them
their religion, a little more prosperous.
If one is to build a great institution, one must
dream. What is wrong in expecting some
benevolent India baiters from US such as Bill
Gates or John Chambers to set up the best
software engineering institute of the world in
the campus of Nalanda International University?
Why can’t some influential Indologists from US,
UK, and Germany make the best institutions and
the governments of their countries participate
in the project?
Why should Dutta-Ray be so skeptical if
Railway’s initiative failed as Japanese
travelers demand high standards of catering,
comfort, punctuality, hygiene and cleanliness?
After all our own managers have created Delhi
Metro too.
I have been writing about the project myself for
quite sometime. Even as a person older than
Dutta-Ray, I have a hope that at least this
project with interest shown by the present chief
minister, with the experiences of NK Singh, and
with mentors such as Amartya Sen, and blessings
from the former President Kalam and others, will
come up on a grand enough scale in next few
years to give Bihar a place of pride in the
world of education and knowledge. Why can’t
Nalanda International University become the best
in India and one of the best in the world?
Why should one bother why Singapore and China
have chosen to play a significant role in the
project till they keep on assisting in realizing
the big dream in interest of the state and the
nation?
And let Mr. Dutta-Ray understand that such a
project has been successfully established in the
country. ISB, Hyderabad is one such institution
and the person behind that is Rajat Gupta of
McKinsey. And Gupta happens to be from Bengal.
Vedanta University is another project of a huge
dimension coming up in Orissa.
I wish as an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur, Rajat
Gupta would have been also associated with the
project of Nalanda International University to
create one management school of Harvard or
technological institute of MIT fame in the
campus.
However, the success and uniqueness of project
in depth and breadth will certainly depend on
who becomes the de facto CEO, and how dedicated
is he to create something that the posterity can
remember and be proud of.
Mr. Dutta-Ray! Why don’t you put forward your
own ideas that you shall like to get
incorporated?
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Comments: |
Indra
ji, thanks for highlighting it.
Sunanda K Dutta-Ray's comments can
be called as intellectual
consternation. The expectation is
that nothing should change in Bihar,
so that all can criticize as and
when one feels like it. Time to
change such thought itself. -
Rajesh Kumar, Chennai - Aug. 9, 2007
Critics are necessary whenever we
are dreaming for an extraordinary
project at the state or country
level. It always gives us another
dimension to think about any
particular project so that the
project can achieve its long term
target. But the critics must have
positive attitude. Critics must have
a strong point or non-ignorable,
otherwise it's totally useless. I am
not sure or even it's not clear what
exactly running inside Mr Dutta-Ray.
If he is really concerned about
Nalanda project he has to come out
with the things very strongly which
may turn against this historical
project. I am very much sure that
this project will definitely achieve
its long term national as well as
international goals. Not only
because Mr Nitish Kumar (a poor
politician) has dreamed at least
about this project, but the group
headed by Mr Sen and so many
prominent people around the nation
are involved.
And by the way, if we have a world
class university then we also must
have world class facility. This way
the mindset and living standard of
the local people will be on a new
high. - Saroj Ray, Delhi - Aug.
9, 2007
Dear Indra,
I am delighted to endorse every word
you say about the restoration of
our, India's ancient national
heritage that Nalanda is. Of course
they all are welcome from China,
Japan, USA and other corners of this
corner-less globe of ours. Not just
Indians, but the whole world should
justly be proud to see this ancient
monument to world civilization
fructify in the Phoenix-like revival
of NALANDA and who better than
Amartya Sen to give it the lead?
When I see him next at Cambridge in
the coming weeks, it would be a
great pleasure for me to talk about
this dream-about-to-come-true with
Amartya, a very good friend of mine.
But would you take me to task if I
express a special and personal sense
of pride in seeing the
infrastructure coming up
encompassing my birthplace called
Gaya? My parents so named me after
the great Ashoka, the Mauryan
emperor who gave shape to Bodh-Gaya
and spread the message of the great
Buddha to far corners of the earth.
Regards,
Ashok Chatterjee, London - - Aug.
9, 2007 |
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