Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (June 19) inaugurated the Nalanda University campus near the ruins of the old Nalanda University in Rajgir of Nalanda district.
In his address, Modi said: “Nalanda is the proclamation of the truth that knowledge cannot be destroyed even though books would burn in a fire. A country that protects its human values knows how to recreate its history.”
“Nalanda is not just a name, it is an identity, a regard. Nalanda is the root, it is the mantra,” he added.
“It epitomised the Asian and global heritage within the campus. The new Nalanda has also involved many countries and will certainly strive to be a knowledge centre like the ancient seat of learning,” Modi was also quoted as saying.
He continued: “Education is beyond boundaries. It inculcates values and thought while giving it shape.”
The new campus is spread over 455 acres and a total of Rs 1,749 crore has been spent on the university.
According to the Press Information Bureau’s release, the new university campus has two academic blocks with 40 classrooms. It has two auditoriums with 300 seats each, a student hostel that can house around 550 students, an “international centre”, an amphitheatre with a capacity of 2,000 people, a faculty club and a sports complex among other things.
The new university has a School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy & Comparative Religions; a School of Historical Studies; a School of Ecology and Environmental Studies; and a School of Sustainable Development and Management.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, on this occasion, said: “It is a matter of great joy to see how beautiful it [the new campus] has become. Rajgir is a mythological place, it is the first place in the world.”
Rajgir has been a major centre of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
Kumar added: “PM Modi, you must have seen how grand the old university was. Students from India and abroad used to study in it, but it was destroyed in the 12th century.”
The idea of a new Nalanda University campus in Rajgir is the brainchild of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
In 2006, while addressing a joint session of the Bihar Vidhan Mandal, Kalam spoke of his desire to revive the Nalanda University, which some say was the world’s first residential university.
Kumar said: “Nalanda University was to be made of international standards, so he requested the then-UPA government … But the then-[Union] government was delaying [the process], so the Bihar government made a law and acquired 455 acres of land for the new campus.”
But media reports suggest that in 2007, the Manmohan Singh government established the Nalanda Mentor Group with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen as its chair. Economist Meghnad Desai, historian Sugata Bose and economist and former bureuacrat N.K. Singh were appointed members of the mentor group.
In 2010, both houses of parliament passed the Nalanda University Bill. Kumar said in his address that after the Bill cleared parliament, he transferred the acquired land to the Union government.
A major controversy erupted in 2015 when Sen resigned from the post of the university’s chancellor alleging “political inference”.
In 2016, Sen’s successor, former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo, resigned saying he was not consulted before changes were made to the university’s governing board.
Yeo had said: “The circumstances under which the leadership change in Nalanda University has been suddenly and summarily effected is disturbing and possibly harmful to the university’s development.”
Educationists are sceptical about whether the university will achieve its vision.
Pushpendra, former professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said: “This is an international university and its vision was very clear, but in the last decade, no major information has come about the university’s work.”
He told The Wire: “It was supposed to do deep research of international standards, but it is not known what is happening in the university. Transparency is not visible. The way things are going, I don’t believe the university will stand out in the global education landscape.
“Even in today’s speech by Prime Minister Modi, there was only jargon, no clear vision,” he said.
