Not every college president would choose to take on the added responsibility of a faculty assignment. But in India, it's not unusual-in fact, it's required. And Manju Nichani, president of KC College in Bombay, has taken this requirement one step further, spending the spring term as a visiting professor at Union.
Why does she do it? “I love teaching, and I love meeting people.” She is also pleased to offer American students their first real taste of India, “not only the world's largest democracy, but also one of the most ancient cultures,” she says.
Her journey from her native Bombay is part of Union's faculty exchange program involving a confederation of colleges affiliated with the University of Mumbai (Mumbai is Bombay's official name). KC College has a student body of about 4,700 and is one of 23 colleges in the Hyderabad Sind National Collegiate Board.
Nichani taught two courses in the Anthropology Department here: “Gender and Sexuality in South Asia” and “Religion, Caste and Class in India.” Both were filled to capacity. Amanda Haag '04, an anthropology major, comments, “When I heard Professor Nichani was coming, I was excited, because we don't have a lot of courses on southern Asia.” For her part, Nichani was surprised to find American students so disciplined. The only thing that bothered her: “They eat in class-but I've learned to accept it.”
She also noticed how much competition there is here for grades. “Everybody wants an A. In India, we're not so generous with marks.”
Nichani had the chance to meet more students through Shakti, the South Asian student club on campus (“shakti” means “power”). “We recently offered a showing of 'Monsoon Wedding' and discussed themes in the film, such as child abuse and the demand for dowry.”
One day, she cooked an Indian dinner for both of her classes, to give them a sense of home-cooked food. Amanda Haag worked with her in preparing the meal for fifty, and the two cooked all afternoon. The food included 200 puris (Indian bread that's rolled and fried). The students loved the dinner. “There were no doggie bags,” Nichani says. “Everything was eaten. I always say, you can understand the culture of a country only when you've had its food-the kind of food served, the spices used, the way it's served, all reflect the culture.
“Architecture, too, tells you a lot,” she continues. “For example, in India, doorways and balconies all face one another, so people meet, see each other. Taking in the newspaper and the milk in the morning is an opportunity to greet one another. Here, more importance is attached to privacy.”
Nichani's research specialty is women and law in India, specifically, major judgments and how they reflect attitudes towards women. Her work has focused on interpretation of the law and its impact on status of women.
“Attitudinal change will take a long time,” she says. “Male dominance is still very strong. Here in the U.S., the man shares housework with the woman. But in India, when a woman is working, even if she's in a top position, the man never does any work in the house. That attitude has not changed. Women are partly responsible for preserving this tradition, by not letting their sons do the work. When my nephew was five, and I asked him to pick up a glass and wipe the table, you know what he told me? 'Girl's job!' His father laughed and said, 'Never mind. Get your sister to do it.'
“Indian women, even those living in the States, are expected to cook for the men, even in the morning. In fact, the Indian community here hangs onto more traditional cultural observances than do people in India. Maybe Indians who were born here will have a
different perception.
“Woman, as mother, is respected tremendously in India, however,” she says. “Mother comes first in India. You respect your mother more than you do your wife. The right to vote is the only place where Indian women have true equality.”
The Bombay-Union faculty exchange
Bringing faculty from India to Union is a natural outgrowth
of India's growing importance in Asia, says Eshi Motahar,
associate professor of economics at Union who chairs the
Coordinating Committee for the India Exchange Program.
“At the time the program began, six years ago, we didn't have anyone who taught about Indian culture,” he says. “That has changed since last year, when Anu Jain (English) began teaching postcolonial literature of India and South Asia.”
Motahar teaches international economics and was interested in economic developments in India. He also has done a lot
of international work and travel. Since 1998, each year, on
average, two Union faculty travel to Bombay over the winter break to present lectures and workshops, and to participate in other activities. Motahar gave several lectures and seminars there in 1999, and participated in a panel discussion at the Reserve Bank of India (the central bank) on foreign investment and aid and international capital markets. He also served as a visiting professor at both Hyderabad Sind National Collegiate Board Colleges and the University of Mumbai.
Of their Indians hosts, says Motahar, “They are extremely
gracious, putting up our faculty in a residential guesthouse
in downtown Bombay, with a cook who makes absolutely
delicious meals and a driver who takes them to and from the colleges where they are presenting. Faculty can also travel on their own. I fell in love with the country. After my duties in Bombay were over, I traveled all over. It is an extraordinary place-so different from any other country-sort of a churning center of humanity, of culture, of history, of everything.”
One Indian faculty member comes to Union each year, to teach two courses, usually in the social sciences. Manju Nichani and earlier visiting faculty came under the rubric of the Hyderabad Sind National Collegiate Board. “These colleges have an interesting origin,” explains Motahar. “They were established after India's independence from Great Britain and after the partition of India and Pakistan. Most of these folks were Hindus who migrated from 'Pakistan,' which was carved out of the Indian subcontinent in the late '40s. Many had leadership positions in Sind, a province in today's Pakistan. Academics, lawyers, and the business elite felt a sense of obligation to do something for their displaced community, so they started these colleges, which are now open to anyone.”
The Coordinating Committee at Union looks after visiting
faculty who come here from India, and select Union faculty who have expressed an interest in going to India. “We have a waiting list now,” says Motahar.
On outsourcing, India's elections, and politics
A number of U.S. companies have found it profitable to outsource jobs to India for call centers. But this trend is relatively minuscule when you look at the big picture, says Professor of Economics Eshi Motahar.
“It's a few thousand jobs, in a population of over one billion. There may be more outsourcing in the future-of stock analysis, and reading and interpreting x-rays. And software development, particularly specialty software-accounting, medical, legal-has been growing in the past decade. Still, on the Indian scale, these developments are relatively small, although they're beginning to have an impact on what one might call the urban elite.”
Businesspeople in India are doing well, he adds, “but as in any country, people get cocky with success. The previous government called for early elections-taking a gamble that they could increase their number of votes in Parliament. But lo and behold-they lost! In hindsight, it's easier to see that while the cities and the elites have been doing well, the rural majority has not been doing fine. There was a perception in rural India that they had been left out of the economic boom.”
Manju Nichani, president of KC College in Bombay and a visiting professor at Union this spring, adds, “Seventy-four percent of the population is rural-the forgotten people, the people without computers. And they voted en masse. It came as a shock that the ruling party lost, but this only shows that India
is truly democratic. Even more shocking was Sonia Gandhi's stepping aside and offering the job to Manmohan Singh, the first non-Hindu prime minister. He is a wonderful man, an economist and a Sikh, who has been responsible for India's new economic policy-he will do very well for us. There was a lot of resistance to Sonia, as a foreigner (born in Italy and a Christian), not as a woman. After Sonia declined the prime
ministership, she rose higher in people's estimation.”
Of the future, Motahar offers, “My guess is, reforms will continue
-maybe some reallocation toward social safety nets, toward rural areas. But Indian politics is complicated and, arguably,
by some criteria it is much more democratic than American politics. The band of public discourse is wider (in both directions) and therefore more vibrant. Dissent is allowed and even encouraged, within the law, of course. In the U.S., there aren't a significant number of radical critics within the mainstream.
In India, in mainstream newspapers, people present genuine critiques of whatever party is in power. More rough and tumble in political discourse. More bluntness.”