Page 66 - Education World July 2020

Postscript

Raj end mercy only a small portion of their huge fortune. To the extent
that in the 1990s when Srichand Hinduja’s citizenship
application ran into rough weather, prime minister Tony
HE BELATED DECISION OF HINDUSTAN Blair reportedly cleared it directly. Soon their business
Unilever Ltd (HUL), the Indian subsidiary of the operations and clout spread to continental Europe, India
TLondon/Amsterdam-based globe-girdling house- and the Middle East. In 1978, the plutocrats joined the ex-
hold and personal care consumer products behemoth clusive fraternity of foreign nationals allowed to establish
(annual revenue: $5.4 billion/Rs.38,785 crore) to drop a bank in Switzerland (Hinduja Bank).
the descriptive ‘fair’ from its best-selling Fair & Lovely Inevitably in the heyday of neta-babu socialism
(F&L) skin-lightening face cream, has come as a vindica- (1970-90), entrepreneurial capabilities and extraordinary
tion for your editors in E duc ati onWorld. For the past two business management expertise had little value in India,
decades, we have been highly critical of HUL for mar- and the Hindujas had an unsavoury reputation. At that
keting Fair & Lovely which subtly conveys the message time as editor of Busi ness I ndi a and Busi nessworld, your
that being colonially light skinned is the pre-condition of correspondent was the first to extol their business and
being classified as beautiful. finance expertise. However, one also became aware that
Splashed across all media, the damage that aggres- they were totally focused on primitive capital accumula-
sive marketing of F&L by insensitive compradors of HUL tion. Despite the positive write-ups the said business
has inflicted on the collective Indian psyche is immense. magazines gave them, they were tight-fisted about
Braindead Bollywood producers routinely choose pasty reciprocating by way of occasional advertising. Ditto with
white heroines or their heavily made up facsimiles, for then struggling E duc ati onWorld, despite the brothers’
lead roles in their movies. Relentlessly advertised for professed interest in matters educational.
over half a century, this fairness cream has paradoxically Admittedly they are not legally obliged, but the unwrit-
transformed India into a colour prejudiced nation, as ten social contract is that it’s obligatory for prosperous
evidenced by its regressive matrimonial advertising and business enterprises to lend a small helping hand to
offensive treatment of African and black people. struggling enterprises labouring in the broader public
One of the company’s “astonishingly insensitive” F&L interest. Especially if they have spoken up on their behalf.
ad campaigns was targeted by your editors way back in Hence the sc hadenf reude.
2004. The storyline of the ad depicted a perfectly good
looking ethnic lass with cricket commentating aspirations
not getting anywhere until she lightens her skin tone and Welcome privatisation
charms her way into national television. The irony was
that the ad was aired on a programme hosted by former SPATE OF NEWLY PROMOTED globally-bench-
test cricketers Laxman Sivaramakrishna and V.V.S. Lax- A
marked private universities are set to highlight
man, tall, dark and handsome, but implicitly disqualified the severe inadequacies of government colleges
because of their ethnic skin tones. Although the ad cam- and universities. Promoted through specially enacted
paign was dropped soon after, our criticism cost this then legislation of state governments (education is a concur-
struggling publication dearly. HUL cut off all ad support rent subject under the Constitution) which tend to be
and has never advertised with us since. less nitpicking and fault-finding than the mandarins of
Fortunately, the British Raj ended outside the Sobo the Union HRD ministry and its handmaiden regulatory
headquarters of HUL 58 years earlier. If it hadn’t, the agencies (UGC, AICTE, NAAC), this new genre of private
price would have been greater. Your editor perhaps, universities is stealing the thunder from vintage colleges
would have been tending the gardens of the Cellular Jail such as St. Stephen’s and Shri Ram College of Commerce,
in the Andaman Islands. Delhi, St. Xavier’s, Mumbai, MCC, Chennai. In particular,
they are bad news for state government arts, science and
Hinduja schadenfreude commerce colleges that constitute the majority of the
country’s 39,000 undergrad colleges dispensing reckless,
untrustworthy certification.
HE LATEST NEWS THAT THE APPLES OF discord Admittedly these contemporary residential private
have divided the London-based Hinduja broth- universities — Ashoka and Jindal Global in Delhi NCR,
Ters, one of the greatest entrepreneurial families Ahmedabad University, Bennett, Noida (Uttar Pradesh)
of Indian business, has aroused mixed feelings in your and Plaksha University, Mohali (Punjab) among others,
editor who has interacted with them off and on for over levy tuition and residence fees which are sky-high by
four decades. On the one hand, it’s impossible not to India standards, but way lower than demanded by even
admire their sharp business acumen, and capability to third rung American and British universities. Moreover,
quickly spot strategic opportunities and c arp e di em . The being well endowed ab i ni ti o, they tend to be generous
four brothers Hinduja built their initial fortune in Iran with scholarships and freeships.
under the ruthless autocratic rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi And although their arrival on the higher education
(1941-1979) and fled Iran just before Ayatollah Khomeini scene has prompted much head-shaking and disapproval
radicalised the country into an austere clerical autocracy. (“commercialisation of education”) within the tenured
In the UK as well, the enterprising Hindujas rapidly closet communist professariat which continues to domi-
built their second fortune which soon dwarfed their first, nate academia, these privately promoted universities are
and acquired far greater political influence than they here to stay. Ambitious school-leavers are delighted as
ever had in Iran or India where they prudently invested testified by the scramble for admissions.

66 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2020