Back in 2005, bloggers at Sepia Mutiny (and me, on my own small blog) announced with some excitement the advent of MTV Desi, a channel geared to NRIs and Second Gen South Asian youth. Now there are news reports that MTV Desi is getting axed, along with its sister diasporic channels MTV Chi and MTV K, as Viacom is undergoing a restructuring. Hollywood Reporter has an MTV executive making the following statement:
“Unfortunately, the premium distribution model for MTV World proved more challenging than we anticipated in this competitive environment,” the company said. “As a result, MTV has decided to shut down its linear MTV World operation. However, we remain steadfast in superserving multicultural youth, and we are continuing to investigate ways to integrate the MTV Desi, Chi and K brands online and on our other screens.” (link)
Well, duh, if it’s only available via Satellite TV, you can bet that “Cheap Ass Desis” (to rip off a former SM commenter’s moniker) aren’t about to shell out a hefty monthly fee for it. I believe I’m the only blogger here who actually subscribes to MTV Desi — and it’s only because my in-laws came to stay with us for a few months, and the channel came packaged with the channels they really wanted — Star One, Star Plus, Star News, and NDTV. Still, I’ve actually spent some hours watching the channel, so maybe I’m the best person to do a little mini-elegy. (By the way, it’s worth noting that the channel is still on the air as of today.)
First, the positive. The best thing I ever saw on MTV Desi was the following inspired rant by Parag Khanna.
There are some statements he makes that miss the mark (India isn’t the poorest country in the world by the indices I’ve seen), but I appreciate the energy. Instead of being the embarrassed, cautious ABCD — do we really know enough about India to comment on corruption? shouldn’t we stay “positive”? — he’s taking a strong stance. (Parag Khanna might make a good blogger.) If MTV Desi is really dead, it’s too bad we’ll get less stuff like this. But it should also be admitted that the channel currently plays far too much repetitious programming. The repetition factor can be especially bad when the old programs are tied in with a particular holiday — as of last week, you would still see the occasional VJ wishing you a “Happy Diwali!” That’s pretty lame, considering it’s February.
Second, while I love having a TV channel that plays both cool Bollywood and Bhangra tracks and bands like Jahcoozi and M.I.A., far too many videos on the regular playlist are crass booty-shaking exploitation. I have a kid at home now, and while he’s too young to understand why there are all these scantily clad blond women shaking their hips while a brown guy lip syncs about his adoration of “Paisa,” it’s still faintly embarrassing. In an ideal world, I would take the Kailash Khers and the sweet A.R. Rahman songs, and leave the Bollytrash out.
Third, MTV Desi has some pretty lame skits. The “F*#@ing with Eames” skit never made much sense to me — why is it Desi? Who cares? The parody “Deep Throat” commercial was funnier, and it’s too bad Viacom has had it pulled from Youtube.
Most of the music videos one finds on MTV Desi can readily be found on Youtube. And they aren’t likely to be pulled for copyright reasons, since most of them derive either from Indie bands like the brilliant King Khan and BBQ Show, who actually want the potential for free publicity online, or Indian music companies, who simply haven’t been putting very much effort into that sort of thing.
So really, at the current moment there isn’t truly a need for a channel like MTV Desi, especially if you have to pay for something a dedicated blogger/video podcaster could do in her basement for free. Most of the music content could be aggregated, and original content (like the Parag Khanna rant above) could be generated by enterprising college students with video cameras, again for free.
Hey Chachaji, I was just trying to get Amardeep to write his next entry in poetic couplets. Sheesh. (But seriously though, you’re wrong–check the dictionary if you don’t believe me). Bananaz!
Well said vishakh, But I would like to add this… There is certainly a huge difference in the way ABD’s or Desi’s who grew up outside India and FOB’s like me think about India. But one thing is similar, its the self congratulation over whatever little we achieve or achieved. The best analogy I can think of is between Kal Penn and Indian Economy. ABD’s are proud of achievements of a B-grade actor like Kal Penn. Indians/FOB’s are proud of India’s progress in the last decade( Some time unnecessarily over the top and jingoistic)
Hold on….this is a post about the demise of a music station….and this dude with haemmoroids takes it as a personal slight. Amardeep, you seem to have a genuine psycho stalker with an inferiority complex — a real life SpoorLam chasing after you, teeth gnashing, bed wetting and all! Take care dude!
Oh right, he had a heart attack because of this Parag Khanna’s video!
Amardeep you should know your place, you uppity Sikh leftist. Stop tormenting this guy — how can you be so cruel?
Why was it not OK for the earlier BJP government to do an “India Shining” campaign, but it is good for the Congress government to do a “India Poised” campaign, using their surrogates in Indian media??? India changed that much in the last 4 years so that Times of India (aka Toilet paper of India) can do an ad campaign with Amitabh Bachchan and proclaim “India Poised”?? Congress had 55 years unapposed rule in India and only now they got India to “poise”? “Poised” for what?? KPS Gill noted in his op-ed in the Pioneer that since last few years the malnutrition problem has gotten worse. Is that what India is poised for??
Congress (aka Dynastic rule) should be ashamed to do this “India Poised” campaign. Will anyone call them out on their BS??
RC, I think it’s a bit disingenuous for you to say that “India Poised” is a Congress campaign, when it’s clearly just a TOI thing.
It’s definitely a BS campaign (see Amitabh Bachchan, spouting gas, on Youtube), but as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with Congress or elections.
One other thing, when Parag Khanna mentions Saddam Hussein, he’s clearly talking about the UN Oil-for-food scandal. As I understand it, that scandal involved Congress Party officials (Natwar Singh), who have been forced to resign from the current PM’s Cabinet.
So he’s not just trashing “India Shining.”
Amardeep, Dont you see the similarities between the two campaigns?? Namely “India Shining” and “India Poised”..
It sounds so much like the word game that played out in the US senate. The use of the word “Escalation”, was opposed by the republicans as it reminds of vietnam. Sec. of state Rice went as far as calling it “Augmentation” .. The height of ridiculous hair splittings over a word.
I smell the same thing in the “India Shining” campaing. Its a known that Times of India has a Congress bias. In New Delhi there is huge billboard (so they say, I haven not been back home in a while 🙁 ) with the “India Poised” campaign. Please also dont forget that some local elections are going on in Punjab and looks like Congress has learned from the BJP mistake and is having their surrogates do the “India XXXX” campaign, with “Augmentation” like word play.
It clearly smells. To me atleast.
i have seen people who hesitate to introduce their old parents to colleagues at office. this ‘positive’ clip too smells like that spirit. pride is a personal feeling. no one can take it away. insult, too, is something you can only let others do to you. but it is best to take criticism and learn from it, whoever delivers that in whatever form. Research says negative emotions allow people to get into the details, the innards of the machine, making people think and reflect. When people are upset and frustrated about a situation, they engage in more effortful, systematic, piecemeal information processing and also more accurate, unbiased, and realistic judgments. Read Andy Grove’s ‘only the paranoid survive.’
much needs to be done in healthcare, education, private property rights. at the same time, the trick is not to fall prey to other people’s metrics of success. Here’s one example from the inspired rant:
It is a good habit to catch such complex questions, break them in two parts, and play argue-argue with detached objective observers. Hold your smile, and don’t lose your cool. I am improving too. I am objective, I object to everything. Some muddle-headed post-structuralists say the object is subjective, the truth is in the question (like the one quoted above) etc etc. Don’t believe them.
Oh yes, trash this one too – Rising India campaign by CNN-IBN. What gas! Somebody is paying them. I don’t know who is it. May be Parag Khanna knows.
personally, I think we Indians do need to reign in the hype.
Well, it was a rant, and as rants go, it was fine.
The only part I didn’t understand was the conclusion:’the only stories that you should believe are the ones you go out there and make real’. What does that mean? What is out there? India? Does he really expect ABDs to move to India to bring about change there? I’ve never noticed any trend of that sort.
He’s actually published some stuff in semi-academic policy type journals, and might have something of a reputation to worry about, so I was a little surprized to see him rant, and rant with that kind of slant.
Nobody growing up on this side of the world really needs special instructions on how to see through hype – we live in a sufficiently hyped society ourselves. But he is setting us up for a larger and more dramatic schism between South Asian Americans (SAAs) and South Asians (SAs) – in outlook, worldview and perception of self-interest. No matter how big the schism between 1st and 2nd gen SAAs ever got, nobody ever questioned whether what was good for South Asia was also good for SAAs, even if through second-order effects. OK, nobody mainstream. Of course, people never agreed on what was really good for South Asia all the time. But now, by bringing in things like India’s nuclear aspirations, it’s supposed desire to have everything outsourced to it, the delicateness of the existing order of things in South Asia, etc. he is asking SAAs to question this piece of wisdom even more than they are already doing.
BTW, sakshi, in #19, India is 4th in gross GDP only on a Purchasing Power Parity Basis, it is 12th on a nominal basis. However, if you go to per capita GDP, it is still 122nd of 181 on a PPP basis, and 135th out of 181 on a nominal basis.
Chachaji, thanks for correcting. I should have mentioned PPP.
Thanks for the undeserved publicity, Amardeep….
Though I didn’t get to watch MTV Desi much, I’ll miss it b/c it did indeed give a lot of opportunities to unknown desi artists and definitely created a spirit around which to rally.
In fact, it was something to proud of b/c it was a celebration of India’s diverse cultural strengths, not the high-gloss, low-reality kinds of rhetoric that characterizes some of the economic debate. My rant was partially inspired by this disconnect, watching Indians (everywhere) get seduced into an undeserved jingoism which is dangerous not b/c it points rightly to a few positive developments, but b/c it is so quick — and eager — to overlook all that remains to be done. All research suggests that diasporas are very psychologically prone to glorifying their homeland (except Iranians!), and we desis are evidently no different. I was invited to do the rant on the assumption that it would be hyper-provocative, so please noone be silly and think that I am not very proud to be Indian (born there, moved here later), but it’s is a pity that the “jingoists” I rant against fall into every rising power’s trap of over-emphasizing Western indicators of wealth, military power, etc. and abandon the spiritual and cultural elements that truly make India great. (Arundhati Roy’s essay “The End of Imagination,” a rant of her own against the nuclear tests published in September 1998, stands out to this day as the finest statement in this regard.)
India is not North Korea – of course economic opportunities have advanced in the past 20 years. And a very narrow slice of India is taking advantage of that, using hard-work and brainpower to get ahead and work in the global market. But just look at how divorced they are from the reality of most of India. How can people take as their baseline “India is shining” when they are referring to the miniscule minority position? I attempted to reframe the ground reality and point out that much of India has not changed much, and the “Shining” camp would have us happily ignore this and trust them to elevate India. Well, I don’t trust them – and nor should you.
I spend a lot of time in India (many parts of India), and have run projects in the development economics area. It’s plain to see that the Indian government is hardly on top of much of India’s underdevelopment problem — the REAL India’s underdevelopment problem. Note that the government can’t really get much credit for the great things that are happening in the private sector, which begs the question: what are THEY doing all day? I’ve talked to a lot of officials on this and am left scratching my head. It is not the Indian government’s fault that India has an overpopulation problem that all but statistically nullifies some of its recent areas of progress — as Khushwant Singh said, “As we multiply, so do our problems.” But it is their responsibility to do something about it.
Let’s be clear about one thing: In diplomacy and global finance and other areas, whereas China is taken seriously BECAUSE of its massive population and economic strides for many of them, India remains a sideshow despite them. China (and Chinese) don’t need a rant like mine, but India/ns still do.
Parag Khanna
Comparison to China is a no-win game, progress in India will ALWAYS be slower and India will always look worse because of China’s authoritarian Govt and restricted media. The very fact that you are making this comparison shows the importance of ‘hype’. Where’s the foreign investment gonna come from if the investors don’t believe they are investing in a ‘Shining’ India?
Yes, you do see tons and tons of problems in the poorer sections of India, but I think FOBs like me (when does a FOB stop being one? Never, I guess.) who have grown up in India see the massive changes for the better in cities and towns all over. Granted, I have not spent much time in rural areas in India, but I don’t think the beneficiaries of this progress are a ‘miniscule minority’.
It’s annoying to see the very real progress that people like me have seen happening in India over the last few years dismissed as ‘jingoism’ by feel-good westerners.
Unfortunately, my stand probably puts me squarely in the ‘technocrat’ category. While I think Arundhati Roy is an awesome speaker and writes well, I do not agree with her non-constructive activism.
Parag, I largely agree with you. But your contention that “Note that the government can’t really get much credit for the great things that are happening in the private sector” is suspect. It is precisely because of Nehru’s obsession with the so-called commanding heights of the economy that some parts of Indian industry have been able to take off. In fact if India had stuck with its comparative advantage, it would still be exclusively extracting raw materials for export. Also let us not forget about the massive government investment in higher education (the massively subsidized iits etc.), which has produced high quality and cheap human capital and it is by precisely taking advantage of this human capital that some parts of Indian industry has been able to get ahead.In fact a lot of people have claimed that Nehru’s overemphasis on higher education is at least partially responsible for the woeful neglect of primary education in India. Now it is true that a lot of the above actions have been accompanied with myriad bureaucratic rules that have arguably stymied entrepreneurship; but even here the government was not the only actor. International regulation of business (and accompanying protection from international competition) was actively promoted by many actors in the private sector itself. Tangentially, as far as protection from foreign competition is concerned, there isn’t a historical example of a country that hasn’t done it. Every country has sought to protect its infant industries and every country has tried to “kick away the ladder” (in Fredric Lichts’s) phrase as soon as they Industrialized. So yes the license raj is responsible for India’s inefficient industrialization, but the Indian government is a big reason why India has a manufacturing base in the first place (the only partial exception to this I can think of is TATA steel, which began in 1914, if I remember correctly, but even here the TATA’s grew later because of not insufficient help from the independent Indian government). Two good preliminary sources of the political economy of state protection is Vivek Chibber’s Locked in Place, and Peter Evan’s Embedded Autonomy. Other than that, I agree with most of what you say, and yes “India Shining” etc, is utter bull. Do you read P. Sainath’s periodic dispatches? I recommend them to most “India shiners” and use them in my classes.
In a word, Parag is right. Few things need to be highlighted.
It is amazing to note what people can get used to. In academia it is called ‘duration neglect‘ – people remember peaks and ends of their experiences, not the duration. The reason why while walking on the streets in India, Indians happily ignore the old half-naked man begging for food. The same reason applies to the average American undergraduate living in his flag-waving make-believe world day after day, fed by positive reinforcement (nobody told him the combination of ignorance and a lot of money is dangerous).
We get the government we deserve. At the same time, it is crucial to take note of the fact that people moving in air-conditioned (a highly-rated luxury in the heat and dust of the field) World Bank/ UNICEF jeeps cannot just come and fathom what needs to be done in a day, write a report and boy, do we have a solution now! I have seen many such. As my prof used to say, ‘the poor are rich in their knowledge’. It is important to understand that, not dangle university degrees earned in a faraway classroom in front of them, and learn with humility. What’s more, the report writer does not attribute any ideas to those who shared their knowledge in the first place and claims authorship over the ideas. no ‘hat tips’ or ‘citations’. They don’t even share the recommendations with the knowledge providers (the surveyed poor, if ‘surveyed’ at all) in a language they can understand.
Two kinds of people generate immense irritation. First, the newly formed group of anarcaps. They think every atom in this world is on the market for buying and selling. Second, the group of muddleheaded arm-chair liberals. Postmodern rants (for heaven’s sake, never, never get labeled as a patriot), communist caricatures (don’t ever show filial piety), and minority appeasements come under this category. Both groups are immensely orthodox in their views (although both strike a pose of reasoning). Amartya Sen, who needs to be congratulated for his constant reminders to the Indian government the importance of health care and primary education, often comes across as the latter kind. In the action – structure continuum, both these groups lecture about structure (or for the lack of it), and seldom, if ever, get into action. Both these groups give short shrift to people who have taken the initiatives, who have instilled in us a bias for action. Note the neglect of Vivekananda in Sen’s Argumentative Indian. And take a look at what work they do. See here and here.
Anarcaps and postmodernists in their obsession with reasoning, never show any positive emotion. What’s more, Sen has appropriated Tagore nowadays, letting us know that Tagore’s lasting voice is in his reason. Bongs are the ones who ride hype-waves effortlessly, and often put together Sen and Tagore within the Nobel bracket. Sadly, the difference is gargantuan. More on that here.
All the best on your initiatives. We need a system that will allow pursuing of politics (if that’s a dirty word, replace it with public service) as a career. No doubt, the government needs to be kicked in the butt. Bunch of lazy uneducated people, with absolutely no enterprise at all. They have no excuse for their ‘duration neglect’. I have this bad habit of going on and on, and drifting from the topic of the original post. I am stopping here. No more. Thanks.
Typo, I meant are Vivek Chibber’s “Locked in Place” and Evans’s “Embedded autonomy”
Sheesh, another typo, I meant national regulation of business, not international regulation was promoted by many actors in the private sector.
Boss, you can keep the spritualism and cultural elements that truly make India great for your tortured ABCD soul, Ill take western wealth and military power anyday. If you are not the one who has to live under the shadow of the Pakistani and Chinese WMDs, you should not be the one to make comments about it. Take your own advise, and do something about nukes in your own backyard.
Thank you, Boss, for letting me know that the “miniscule minority” that I come from is not REALLY Indian… in fact, its not real at all. Major Existential Crisis ensues.. 🙁
But Seriously, what is your experience of India ? How long a time did you spend there on your ‘peace core’ vacation ? 6 months ? an year ? an year and a half ? The changes that I am talking about came over a duration of more than 15 years and unless you were there to see it, the only thing you would notice is – oh they are still so poor, still with a corrupt beaurocracy, miniscule minority is rich – and miss the bigger picture. Yes, people are poor, but if you were there 15 years earlier, they were even poorer ! with even less power over their own lives !
Tell that to CSN/Novelis/Vodaphone 😛 may be its clear to you, its certainly not clear to me and many others I guess !! as for the rant, thanks, but no thanks. It did not change my perception of my motherland one whit. If you have the time and the inclination.. take a look at these links, they have a number of interesting graphs about Indian income and distribution levels. Have fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHhdNEKwN50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VVa_YrpMpk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pizaZo6nUc
The economic changes that have happened in India since 1991 are very real. However, they have benefitted a very narrow section of society, and do not make up for truly abysmal governance and execution of social policy by the powers that be. According to the National Council of Economic Research, only about 6-10% of the population can be considered “middle class” in an Indian context, corresponding to a household income of approximately US$4,500 (Rs90,000) or more. Out of a total population of over 1,100 million, this means that fewer than 100 million people have access to a level of income that can provide them with all (or most) of life’s basic necessities, as well as a certain degree of comfort/convenience and substantial opportunities for advancement. The remaining one billion or so are struggling to survive under varying degrees of penury. It would be an exaggeration to describe this situation as “India ascendant” in nearly any context. Moreover, the population adds about 15 to 20 million people every year. It is as if a Mumbai or a Delhi is added to the population yearly. Most of these additions go toward swelling the ranks of the poor. So with regard to the touted reforms of the early 90s, is it possible that we are looking at a case of “too little, too late”?
Uh…this guy and a lot of other Indians abroad are missing the whole point. Nobody is saying that India is now the world’s most powerful country. Nobody is saying that India is the richest country. Nobody is saying that India is an ultra-superpower.
But you have to be blind to not see the amazing strides it’s making.
As for you people who claim that India’s growth “excludes all but the ultra rich”, take a look at this little statistic:
CHINA – Richest 1 percent of population owns 60 percent of the wealth USA – Richest 5 percent of population owns 60 percent of the wealth INDIA – Richest 10 percent of population owns 53 percent of the wealth
Take a look at the GINI index. India has less wealth disparity than US, China, Mexico, and Brazil.
Disparity will increase (obviously), but the wealth will trickle down. Take a look at America. Read a history book, the United States of America had the EXACT same situation (if not worse) during the Gilded Age. That era in US history is characterized by economic growth, growing wealth disparity, and widespread corruption. Sound familiar? It’s called a future world power.
Thank god I never paid for a channel that shows such an ignorant, narrow view of India. He literally said that you shouldn’t be proud to be Indian (based on extremely weak arguments). And I can’t believe that he compared India with the rest of South Asia. The chances of India “falling apart” are VERY low. According to a number of western studies (foreign policy magazine, fund for peace, cia, etc), India is far, far more stable than every South Asian country, Middle Eastern country, Latin american country, African country and even China.
So before you guys embark on your little “India hate rants”, take a look at the facts. And remember, I’m not saying that India is currently the world’s only super power, I’m saying that it is pretty much guaranteed an excellent future.
Here’s one fact I like to leave with people who seem to be blind to the fact that India’s is growing:
1950 – Life expectancy of the average Indian = 32 years 2007 – Life expectancy of the average Indian = 65 years
Hmm… it’ll be hard to write this without sounding like a shameless plug for my movie’s release this friday – so let me get that out of the way first! Yes, “Indian Cowboy” is releasing friday Feb 23 with an advance screening (and ONLY screening) in NYC tomorrow (i.e. thursday). All mutineers wanting to attend will be comped if they just rsvp to press at indiancowboy dot com.
Now that that’s out of the way — just a few days ago, Deep, Ami and I were interviewed at AVS and one of the questions we all were asked was whether the community should support the artists within it. That question is quite profound at this point where media-shaped perception impacts and will continue to impact our and our children’s daily lives in both subtle and major ways.
The MTV Desi issue fits in two ways –
Recycling content is not the way to reach the audience here. Companies see it as a cheap way to get in, but it’ll fail. Companies should be ready to spend the money to support the voices emerging from within the communities here to garner and earn the interest of the communities here. Did MTV do that when it created MTV Desi? Not really. I think they put out a shoestring budget and expected it to just fly (or it was a smart loss-leader campaign for what will definitely become viable online properties)
Now, whether the community should go out and spend dollars to prop up a commercial venture that is targetted to them is a trickier question — but one that we must consider. Your answer might vary on whether you believe there is a connection between media and your own daily life. I believe we should support voices that show our own selves through the eyes of our artists – good, bad and ugly. I’m not saying the community is obligated to pay for this — but I do believe the community should atleast consider supporting this, and should most certainly avoid buying pirated product or renting illegal VHS bootlegs for heavens sake!
Sorry if my comments seem tangential, they are all well-connected in my head, believe me. But its late. I’m tired. And I’m off to bed!
Ciao! Nikhil
Amartya Sen making some of the points I made above (or should it be the other way round?)
sigh!, in the market of ideas, it is important you claim your intellectual property soon enough, or else you will miss out on ‘hat tips’ and ‘citations’.
So, Infosys owes it to Bhaskara! And this dork thought Infosys owes it to the liberalization and the tenacity of its founder team.
Another gem: “IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has depended on what we can call TI, that is, “talkative Indians.” So the more you talk, the more you get better at coding!
The US had its land grant universities as early as 1862, and Nehru could have learnt some lessons from that initiative (he had close to 85 years of history to learn from) to start India-wide institutions. And we know that not much research gets done at the IITs and IIMs; they are mostly a ticket to prosperity. The excellent US universities spread all over this country make me immensely envious. Everyday I note down the practices that catch my eye. The lack of it in India only frustrates. We missed that opportunity in independent India’s formative years. The lesser said about Nehru, the better.
Ram Guha had a good article in The Telegraph few days ago. There are no good quality journals, and talkative Indians seldom take action. Even for sustaining debates, you need institutions that will make sure the argumentation continues (example – Sepia Mutiny). Sadly, those who are known to be master arguers, have not created any such institution in India. The challenge as I see it, is to break free from text. The West knows it. They harp on things that matter – architecture that inspires, infrastructure, institutions and discussions amongst talkative Indians degenerate into text, and the esoteric. Tagore did. Vivekananda did. That was sincerity, not mere argumentation.
The US had its land grant universities as early as 1862, and Nehru could have learnt some lessons from that initiative (he had close to 85 years of history to learn from) to start India-wide institutions. And we know that not much research gets done at the IITs and IIMs; they are mostly a ticket to prosperity. The excellent US universities spread all over this country make me immensely envious. Everyday I note down the practices that catch my eye. The lack of it in India only frustrates. We missed that opportunity in independent India’s formative years. The lesser said about Nehru, the better.
US Universities is a product of a very wealthy nation. Land, sea, and air grant just means that their funding at the state level is appropriated through revenues from land, sea, air. Broadly speaking, it is revenues from tax payer’s money. A land grant has money appropriated from revenues from land of that state – namely farming, etc. Historically, then they (Unis) would then have serious outreach for people who funded them (local people). A land grant Uni. would have departments related to land based economy of that state. A sea grant would cater to sea-based economy of coastal states. These are state Universities who appropriate their funds to education as they see fit, and beneficial to their state. Texas A & M and UT Austin own oil wells in Texas that were appropriated to them 100s of years ago by the State. A private University like, Cornell U. has shares in diamond mines in South Africa.
However, the bulk of research in US Universities are done through Federal grants, be it private or public, and they have nothing to do with their classification (land, sea, air) but their infrastructure, personal, and grantsmanship potential.
Indian U. are also funded by tax payers money in a similar manner (state funding/ DST (Department of Science and Technology)/ local concerns and all) – the kitty is orders of magnitude smaller – that is where whole the difference shows up. Research requires money, lots of money.
IITs are modeled on MIT. In fact, even to the syllabi level, again difference in the wealth of the nation. IIT (Kanpur) and IIT (Kharagpur) had a lot of input from US through PL 480/ Ford Foundation grants, especially at their birth.
Thanks for the info! Can you please share any reference?
In India, the land could be earmarked. Vision drives practice.
I understand that these universities gather money from their respective hinterlands. But, it is also true that big scale fund raising goes on in the US universities from private parties. I remember reading on CNN that Cornell has just started off a campaign to raise $ 4 billion. That’s a modest Rs. 18,000 crores. Columbia and Stanford are eyeing similar numbers. The number of fund raising staff at Cornell was close to 120, and the ‘star’ fundraisers’ salary was $ 2,00,000 or more.
We know from Dutta and Robinson that Tagore also raise funds (I think Amardeep wrote about it), Vivekananda also did. Capital is indeed important. Ask Gurukant Desai.
Recently Calcutta University received a grant of a paltry Rs.100 crore in its 150th anniversary year.
Direct Quote from:
Oil Benefits to Texas Higher Education
Many thousands of students attending Texas universities have benefited from oil. The boon that they have enjoyed began with Mirabeau B. Lamar, known as the “Father of Texas Education.” During his tenure as president of the Republic of Texas, he urged the Texas Congress to appropriate public domain to support education. In 1839, the Congress set aside 50 leagues (221,400 acres) of land for the endowment of a university. (Land was also set aside in a separate endowment for public elementary and secondary schools.) In 1858, the university endowment was increased to 1 million acres, with the stipulation that the endowment be good agricultural land.
However, the writers of the Constitution of 1876 evidently felt there was no need to appropriate arable land for an as-yet-nonexistent university. The first million acres in the endowment were located in Schleicher, Crockett, Terrell, Pecos, Upton, Reagan and Irion counties in arid far-west Texas.
When the University of Texas opened in 1883, the legislature added a second million acres in Andrews, Crane, Culberson, Dawson, Ector, El Paso, Gaines, Hudspeth, Loving, Martin, Ward and Winkler counties. The fledgling university was backed by an endowment of a vast amount of land of extremely dubious value.
Around the turn of the century, the University’s Bureau of Economic Geology began exploring the possibility of finding oil and gas on University Lands. In 1916, although most other geologists disagreed, the University’s Dr. Johan A. Udden reported that oil could be found lying atop an underground fold of rock that was believed to run from the Marathon area through Pecos County and into Upton and Reagan counties.
Though erroneous, Udden’s theory led to the first major oil discovery in the West Texas Permian Basin. The Santa Rita No. 1, discovery well of the Big Lake Field, blew in on May 28, 1923, in Reagan County. It was drilled on University Lands by Frank Pickerell and Carl G. Cromwell of Texon Oil and Land Company.
Within a year, there were 17 producing wells in the Big Lake Field, and the University of Texas was on its way to becoming a very wealthy school. …………..
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This is something you cannot do every where. The history of US lends itself to an unique opportunity.
Naiverealist, Found little in the Ram Guha article to disagree with (in fact my dad who is an alumnus of Jadavpur and MIT regularly makes similar observations). Sure some of Sen’s comments are over the top (and funny to boot). My point was that protection and some state help (however imperfect or inefficient) preceded liberalization, and the “good” outcomes, which were a result of the latter could not have happened without the former. In fact I would argue that this is pretty much a historical universal(look at the economic histories of the U.S., Britain, Germany, Japan et al). Now it may be true that Congress’s efforts were inefficient and bumbling, but this was at least partly due to the fact that a substantial sector of the Indian private sector went along with it and in certain cases actively opposed domestic liberalization, which would have promoted greater competition (this is revealed in the Chibber book I cited in the earlier post). As for universities, the fact that the IITs provide high tech industry with cheap and high quality ‘human capital’ can hardly be denied. Sure this was not Rabindranath’s ideal, but even MIT started as a trade school and it was only after WWII that state funds began to be systematically funneled to basic research and that had more to do with the cold war and perceived defense needs than Jeffersonian (or Tagorean) ideals. Finally, in the 70s one would have been hard put to find institutions of the caliber of Jadavpur or JNU or D-School in a comparable developing country.
Thanks for the link!
May be true. But still, I don’t know how much of that caliber is attributable to the vision of the administration (as opposed to the individual research efforts of some faculty + the selected student population).
A new track by Raghav, first aired on 21st May 2007 exclusively on British radio. Raghav pays tribute to Quincy Jones himself. Raghav’s much anticipated album is due out before the end of 2007.
Raghav – Quincy Jones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS8b5Zf-Prc
Its got such as spanish theme going to it, luving it !!!