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'Saraswati mandirs will help tell the world what India truly is'

Arthur J Pais in New York

Indian venture capitalist comes to Columbia's rescue

Swadesh S Kalsi is in charge of the International Business Law Practice at the law firm Krieg DeVault Alexander & Caphart in Indianapolis in Indiana. He is also an adjunct professor of international trade law at Indiana University School of Law.

Kalsi is one of the busiest lawyers in Indianapolis, yet he makes time for a mission close to his heart -- making the India Studies Chair at Indiana University stronger. Through Kalsi and retired research scientist Dr Ramakrishna Nagarajan's efforts -- both are co-chairs of the campaign -- the chair raised $ 500,000 from the Indian community during the past year.

The interest on the sum helps pay the salary of Dr Gerald James Larson who teaches Indian philosophy and the arts. The chair is committed right now to Rabindranath Tagore studies -- it is the only programme of its kind in America. But when enough funds are raised, a multi-disciplinary programme in Indian studies will be effective. Larson believes it will take about two years to raise the money.

Meanwhile, some 1,500 miles from Indiana, Chandra Bhandari thought two years ago that she could not have asked for a better birthday gift. Only on July 18, the University of California at Santa Cruz announced the establishment of an Indian studies chair in her name, with a $ 250,000 gift from her husband, an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.

For Chandra Bhandari, who began as a Montessori teacher in India over 35 years ago, and went on to study Gandhian ideals of non-violence as a political science student at Purdue University, naming the chair after her was a small part of her overall joy, for it came about the time India was to start marking the 50th anniversary of its Independence.

"Fifty years ago, India launched the most ambitious democratic project in world history," said Narpat Bhandari, chairman and CEO of Vasona Systems, Inc, a start-up electronics firm in Santa Clara.

"I believe it is vital that we devote resources to the study of what is not only the world's largest democracy but also one of the world's oldest and most enduring cultures," he said. Among other things, the endowment will fund a rich variety of activities including distinguished scholars in residence, graduate fellowships, conferences and symposia and field studies in India.

"Through technology, UCSC can become an international focal point for India studies," Narpat Bhandari adds, "connecting the nine UC campuses, other universities worldwide, and even Sojat -- the tiny village (in Rajasthan) where I was born."

Historian Shiva Bajpai, who is a professor at the University of California at Northridge, shares the Bhandaris' pride in establishing the chair. For over two decades, Professor Bajpai has been urging the Indian American community to endow Indian studies chairs.

"At last the community is coming to understand the need for such chairs," he says. The professor is fully aware that while the community has spent more than $ 50 million in building and renovating temples in the past three decades, it has received only about $ 8 million for the endowments.

"We certainly need deva mandirs," Professor Bajpai says. "The building of temples shows that we are not thinking of ourselves as sojourners, that we are here to stay but let us not forget that Saraswati mandirs will help tell the world -- and especially the generations born here -- what India truly is."

"Some may think that the deva mandirs are useful at the end of one's life," Professor Bajpai says with a chuckle. "But educating ourselves and fellow Americans about India is a life-affirming and life-long mission. You may come out of a temple feeling good and blessed but if people who do not understand your culture and religion constantly surround you, how can you feel secure in the country of your adoption? Indian studies at colleges and schools can play a tiny but important role in changing the negative and wrong perceptions most people have of India."

"Education in an alien country in one's own culture is equally important, if not more important than building temples," he says, adding that the Indian community is slowly understanding the billions of dollars private philanthropy plays across America in building and supporting colleges, community centres and hospitals.

The University of California at Berkeley, which in July received an $ 500,000 endowment from Navin and Pratima Doshi, alone has 120 endowed chairs in such fields as education, history, law and medicine. The Doshi gift is a part of a campaign in which UCLA aims to raise $ 1.2 billion by June 30, 2002.

Professor Bajpai is glad that the UCLA endowed by his friends, the Doshis, was created specifically to teach pre-British Indian history. Such a course has not been taught at UCLA for the last 10 years. "Very little is taught in America about pre-British, pre-Muslim Indian history," he complains. "We have almost written off ancient history." He also complains that Leftist Indian historians have over emphasised the socio-economic factors in their research and books, and the courses taught in America in recent decades have reflected that trend.

"We need a balanced perspective," he continues. "This is not to say that we should overlook the negative but if we didn't do something right, could our culture survived thousands of years?"

Echoing Professor Bajpai's thoughts, Robert Goldman, a professor of Sanskrit and director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at UCLA at Berkeley, says: "These chairs are very few and far between… nationwide India studies has been sadly an underdeveloped discipline."

'I wish I had received a hefty grant from Indian philanthropists and the community'

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