Call of the dreaming spires

A first ever India Day held at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, had a strong Mumbai flavour

Oxford University held an India Day recently, with an array of 80 distinguished academic and corporate guests with the aim of strengthening the University's close links with India.


Dreaming spires of Oxford are calling out to the best and the brightest in India

It wants to encourage, "the best and the brightest" Indian students to come to "the city of dreaming spires" to do research in a wide range across of disciplines.

It was certainly a fun day with speeches in the morning in the packed Sa d Business School; lunch when Indians, including quite a few from Mumbai, recalled their carefree days at their old alma mater; followed by separate sessions in the afternoon devoted to scrutiny of Oxford's involvement with India in four disciplines: Humanities; Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences; Medical Sciences; and Social Sciences.

During the lunch, author Gita Piramal, Mumbai-based chairman of BP Ergo Ltd, was taken away to give an interview to local press.u00a0 Guests included Ravi Bhoothalingam, president of the Oxford and Cambridge India Society of India.

Business houses and institutions present included some big names: HCL Technologies; Infosys; Dabur; Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics; Tata Motors; ONGC; Tata Steel; Tata & Sons; Tata Capital; and the K Raheja Corporation.

The Indian High Commissioner in London, Nalin Surie, had to wear a name badge like everyone else. Later, there was tea and scones with jam and butter in the pavilion as two sides comprising Indian students played cricket in the rain before the day ended with a very elegant reception at the Ashmolean, Oxford's famous museum that has been collecting Indian treasures for hundreds of years.


Lord Chris Patten (r) with Manmohan Singh at Oxford in 2005 when the Indian Prime Minister received an honorary degree

One whole day for India
Oxford, as an ancient seat of learning, has students from all over the world but never before has it set aside an entire day to foster its bonds with just one country. This India Day will not be a one off affair. The next one will be held in 2012 in India, pledged Professor Andrew Hamilton, the University's Vice Chancellor.

Oxford is also planning a flashy party in Mumbai next year to mark the centenary of Oxford University Press (so the chances are India Day will also be held in the city).

Hamilton said that the occasion offered, "a wonderful opportunity to reflect some of the depth, breadth, and excitement of the academic links between Oxford and India, and to talk to our guests about how we can strengthen those in future. I say 'some' because Oxford's links to the country are so extensive that we would have to hold an Oxford India week to do them justice."

These days all British Universities rely on foreign students to balance their books and Oxford is no exception. Like Cambridge, it is to charge its domestic students Pound 9,000 (Rs 648,046.93) in tuition fees from next year.
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An Indian PHD student can expect to pay anything between Pound 60,000 (approx Rs 4,321,893.98) and Pound 10,0000 (approximately Rs 7,198,947) including living expenses, over three years, at Oxford, which means nearly all have to depend on scholarships.


Historian and columnist Ramachandra Guha delivering his keynote at the Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre at Oxford

There are quite a few but not nearly enough. More scholarships would mean more Indian students being able to come to Oxford, which, like Cambridge, does not want India's cleverest young men and women to be lost to America.

Whose baby is it, anyway?
The India Day idea is partly the baby of Frances Cairncross, the Rector (head) of Exeter College, who is a frequent visitor to India.u00a0 Cairncross, a former distinguished journalist, has several Indian students at her own College.u00a0 "I know the country very well, I have a lot of Indian friends, I enjoy being there," said Cairncross.
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"I was very aware when I talked to my Indian friends with children (that) they are all going off to the United States. They were not considering coming to Oxford.

When they did consider it, they sent their daughters to Oxford and their sons to the United States." She realised this was a slight exaggeration, so she remarked, "I am a big admirer of Indian women. I don't want to have fewer Indian women. I want to have more Indian men to have a better balance at Oxford."

Loren Griffith, acting director of International Strategy at Oxford, added that the links with India were, "right across the humanities, social sciences, study of the economy and political system -- all top notch - collaboration in cancer research, natural sciences, (and) physics. We are launching a push to significantly enhance them."

Several Indian students, the women elegant in black dresses, the men smart in dark suits, were roped in to act as ushers and guides on India Day. The Chancellor, Lord (Chris) Patten, pointed out that Oxford has had links with India going back 400 years, with the first students from India arriving in the early 1870s.

"I hope, at least, it is (India Day) a sign of intent," said Patten, who recalled the cricketing 9th Nawab of Pataudi, was his senior by two years at Balliol.

Pataudi, later to marry Sharmila Tagore, followed his father, the 8th Nawab, to Balliol, as did eventually his own daughter, Soha Ali Khan, who acted alongside Patten's daughter, Alice, in Rang De Basanti.

(Saif, the 'Chota Nawab', prefers a slightly different field of research - Kareena Kapoor.)

The 9th Nawab, Mansur Ali Khan (Tiger), now 70, was the first Indian at the age of 20 to captain Oxford and later India, which his father, Ifthikar Ali Khan (1910-1952), also did, apart from holding the record score, 238 not out, for an Oxford vs Cambridge 'Blues' match from 1931 to 2005 (when it was broken by St Stephen's Delhi and Merton boy, Salil Oberoi, with 247).

The pompous punctured
At last count, there were 363 students from India, mostly postgraduates, which Patten said was, "50 per cent up from when I became Chancellor of Oxford eight years ago".
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On the domestic front, "78 British undergraduates who indicated their ethnic origin as Indian got a place in 2010" which probably adds up to 300 across three years.
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That makes an "Indian student" population of around 600 at Oxford, plus 80 or so professors, lecturers and other academic staff. That figure could probably be pushed up to 1,000 perhaps even 1,500.

Patten outlined four specific aims for India Day. He wanted, "to communicate to invited guests and the wider public, the breadth of Oxford-India connections through people, research and historical/artistic treasures".

There was a desire, "to re-engage with and energise alumni interested in India" and "to bring together researchers from across the University working on India".

Patten added he was also keen "to lay the foundation for new and expanded links with India".

The packed Nelson Mandela Theatre at the Sa d Business School heard an amusing keynote lecture from the popular Indian author and historian Ramachandra Guha, who punctured what he considered to be the pompous notion that India was already a global superpower.

"We are not a superpower," he argued. "We are not even an emerging superpower -- we are just the most interesting country in the world."