Having pursued a liberal studies program from the Bachelor's level in School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, which was the 2nd batch of Liberal Studies/Education/Arts graduates in India, I was always curious about how it was started in India. This led me to me meet Prof. Indira Parikh. I met Professor in Chennai where she was travelling on work.
Prof. Indira Parikh is the Former Founder President
of FLAME (Foundation for Liberal and Management Education) Institute.
Previously, she was the Dean of IIM-Ahmedabad from 2002 to 2005. She was a
faculty member at IIM-Ahmedabad for over 30 years. She has also taught at
INSEAD, Fontainebleau and Texas A&M University. She has specialized in
organization development and design, and institution building.
She has been a
consultant to various national and international organizations both in private
and public sector. Prof. Indira Parikh is also on the board of several
companies. She is currently President, Auronya College, a liberal arts college being set up in Pondicherry.
Source: http://www.flame.edu.in/about-flame/leadership/governing-body/indira-parikh
How did you get the idea of starting a Liberal
Arts/Education/Studies College in India?
It’s not that I founded this movement of imparting a liberal arts education . I had it in mind. I have been
working with IIM for 34 years and the courses that I ran were not management
courses, but mostly people related which were part of understanding culture
and society, which made life changing impact on people. So at that point in
time, I kept thinking that education needs to be formulated and delivered like this but I had no clue
that it would turn out like this, Liberal arts education shaped the education eco system of the country in a
certain kind.
A lot of changes were influenced by the way I was brought up
because my family was education oriented..My father definitely
thought that education would enable children enter a different league of people. So we
attended the best of the schools, as children. He was a multifaceted person who could
play the flute, table, dilruba, sketch beautifully and used to make us listen
to Tansen, apart from other artistes, He also introduced us to swimming and
travelling. Two of my aunts were doctorate holders in Sanskrit and we grew up
speaking “shudh” hindi, grew up with the discipline of reading. All of this was
inherently a part of my childhood .I was married when I had just completed high
school, my husband was a Ph.D in Physics. Right after my marriage was a period
of intense travel, I went to Chicago, studied there for a year at the
University of Chicago,moved to Debmaek where I studied for a year and a half. We then moved to Rochester, from where I graduated. These
7 years, led me to meet “the men of the century” like Niels Bohr, his son,etc.
The one and a half years in Denmark led us to meet 15-16 Nobel Prize winners, we also travelled extensively
in Europe then. I studied liberal arts in America (social science) from
Rochester. I was messed up in Mathematics because I jumped three classes higher
in a stretch, due to the constant travel. I used to score a 100 in geometry,
algebra back in India but the foundation to learn higher mathematics were shaken. But at the
University, they counted my determination to study and I had a lot of support. We were visiting my husband's dean,he asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to
study, the dean looked at my husband and said, “Parikh let her study”, my
husband replied saying that he received only 20 dollars as allowance and was wondering
how we would manage,if I were to attend school. After a week, the dean called
him and said that his tuition fee was waivered and that I could attend school, this
led me to believe in the importance of a good education which I registered in
my mind, sub-consciously . The idea of a liberal arts education was inspired by
Shantiniketan, I had visited the campus twice, as a child, with the whole family in
a bus, and while entering, I could hear dance, music and that impacted me quite
a bit.
I had 3 years left in my term as a Dean of IIM, Ahmedabad
when the founders of FLAME came to meet me, in their quest to start a
management institute, but they came to me because I was incharge of IIM, Ahmedabad-a management institute and they kept saying that they wanted to establish a ‘pioneering institute’, I replied
that there are 6000 odd management institutes in India, so it was impossible to
initiate something new especially in the management education sector, neither could it be an IIM since it was started in a phase
when the country required management talent, but I told them that if they want it
to be pioneering, I would tell them how. “Actually, I had no clue on what to
say!” and asked them to meet me later, since I had to deliver a lecture and asked
them to meet me the next day and I remember having had such a conversation with
atleast 5 institutes previously. I was confident that they wouldn’t return,
but they were present at exactly 9 am the
next day, but I said I need 3 hours,to formulate a plan and that they would
have to come on a different day. They said "ok!" We then assembled in a classroom and
I translated my thoughts on liberal
education onto the board, in a seemingly logical flow, which encompassed thus:
1.
To be positively inclined to culture, family,
society and country
2.
Realistic about society (heritage and baggage
included)
3.
Multiple forms of education will have to be a part of liberal education (Arts, Science
and Commerce)
4.
Sports
5.
Performing arts
6.
Reality appraisal of strengths and limitations
7.
Strongly rooted in identity
Education should be designed where a young
student can wander and meander so that they can realise for themselves, what
they like. Based on that, every student should be fear from the free of maths and
science. Every student should study the social sciences and humanities subjects. They should learn a new language, should know the performing arts, and participate in
sports and experience one philosophical/spiritual experience of growth
(experiential growth)
While designing such a program, rural and corporate
experience, should form a part of it, ensuring that they connect disparate dots
and make it seem logical to the larger world. They should puruse research which
gives them a realistic appraisal of the country (not the British version of archaeology/history)
and they should have an understanding literature and study the works of Indian artists especially Indian temple architecture. Every student should know their mother tongue, and read
the works of poets and writers, in that language.
It should be a residential campus where the
students live in an apartment so that they can become independent, do their own chores thereby making them truly independent.
The founding management board of FLAME
responded that they knew of a foreign university which would be eager to tie up
for such a venture. I replied that the foreign university would ask them for land, infrastructure,
students and deliver a curriculum which is designed to make the students a
citizen of that country. They asked me if I would like to join, under those
circumstances and I said I have three years left in my tenure as the Dean,
IIM-Ahmedabad and I would like to complete it considering I was one of the few
women Deans of the Institute in its history. I was scpetical about joining an institution which was fully reliant and based on a foreign education model.
A delegation visited the university abroad
and they responded to the FLAME authorities, in the same manner that I had told them. They seemed to have reached a dead end and decided to work on an Indian model.
I told them that I would like to be in a
advisory role, guiding the Dean, FLAME, whenever they started classes. However, they kept pursuing me. Coincidentally, I was in Pune, for an Industrial consultancy
visit, and the founder chairman of FLAME, said that he would like to show me
the land set aside for the project. It was monsoon, and while walking, my feet
were covered in mud, and I saw a 1200 acre site in the valley (Lavale, near
Pune) and was impressed with the lush greenery. I felt that if I could build a
liberal arts college on that campus, I would build it there and I was mesmerised. It must have been close to ten minutes of silence, when the founder chairman,
asked me if I agreed to get onboard immediately, I said I would have to talk to
my husband regarding this and immediately he dialled my husband’s number, and I
stood there talking to him and agreed to get onboard. This happened within
those ten minutes.
Who, in your opinion, developed the idea of
a liberal arts education in India?
It was Rabindranath Tagore who laid the
seeds of a liberal education in India, through Shantiniketan.
How has FLAME developed in your
opinion?
Initially not many wanted to join, most
people thought it wouldn’t work but I knew that the youngsters of today needed
it, India was now an emerging economy. Individuals were being respected for
their talents, they were a part of the IT growth story. Families were becoming
smaller and Indians were becoming prosperous. Students were losing interest in
the existing education pattern. This led me to think that the students couldn’t
benefit from an old model of education made by the British,
which only created Babus and didn’t want people who innovated, they wanted people
who were subservient to their interests but this generation had no clue about that and would not like an education rooted in the baggages of the past and FLAME
worked!
I believe that ideas outlive humans and
hence I don’t go back to the institutions that I have worked with. I believe
that one should be committed to one institution at a time.
In this phase of my life, I am not attached
to any institution and I am able to freely move across projects, thereby
contributing more.
How does the future of Liberal Arts in India look?
It’s a lot like how it was when it
management schools were started, a lot of people wondered on how management education would be imparted. This is the time for a holistic education. Modi’s
increasing call for being a proud Indian and India acquiring visibility and
respect across nations, shall pave the way for a Liberal arts education to be one
of the major contributors to nation building.
If education is focused on identity and being proud of the country, in
making a difference and contributing to the society, it will add to the
national spirit. Pursuing just one branch of studies, will make it narrow. Liberal arts education, is always an added value. Liberal arts colleges are adding
additional dimensions, not taking away what is present. Liberal Arts education
is bound to become better and it will be participatory. It is a great beginning
and will help students beyond just pursuing a career or a vocation, it shall be
holistic education.
Many of my students have gone on to pursue
dance, theatre, films. A student of mine, wanted 3 months off to act as a hero
in a Telugu movie and I gave him permission, he said that the chances of him returning
to college were slim, I replied saying its ok, if you do want to come back and pursue
your education from where you left it, I will gladly accept you, since you are my
student. A strong moral responsibility is required in dealing with students
universally.
Liberal education is the need of this
world, but it will change and there will be a new wave, but these Liberal Arts
colleges will have to pioneer those new initiatives and ideas in higher
education, which is the hallmark of a liberal education.
