One of India’s greatest philanthropists and business leaders, J.R.D. Tata famously observed, “Money is like manure. It stinks when you pile it; it grows when you spread it.” The idea of spreading wealth and using it for the larger purpose of pursuing common good is the foundational idea of philanthropy. Historically, India has had its share of higher education institutions which were established as extraordinary acts of philanthropy—the Indian Institute of Science was established in 1909 with active support from Jamsetji Tata. The Tata Group has built many institutions, including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1945), through the efforts of Homi J. Bhabha, the father of India’s atomic energy programme, and JRD Tata. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya established the Banaras Hindu University, one of the finest examples of Indian philanthropy contributing to higher education.
In modern times, Naveen Jindal has emerged as one of the global leaders in promoting philanthropy in higher education. While Naveen Jindal wears many hats—as a parliamentarian, steel tycoon, sports enthusiast, avid shooter and a polo player—his greatest and most significant contribution has been in the field of education philanthropy. Naveen Jindal, through his extraordinary act of philanthropy in higher education established India’s first global university in 2009. He contributed over Rs. 2,500 crores to establish O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) to benchmark Indian universities with the best in the world. Naveen Jindal has also ensured complete academic freedom, institutional autonomy and operational independence for the university—a rare phenomenon in the world of both public and private universities. The typical public university’s ability to function autonomously is restricted by the dependance on funds and resources from the state and the central government in addition to policy and regulatory restrictions. Unfortunately, the typical private university is led by individuals who may see the university as an additional source of revenue and may involve themselves in academic decision-making processes. All this undermines the institutional capacities in ways that does not allow the university to acquire its true institutional identity.
The leadership of Naveen Jindal in the world of education philanthropy has resulted in five important and pathbreaking consequences:
GLOBAL UNIVERSITY IN A LOCAL TOWN
The story of the establishment of JGU at Sonipat surrounded by three villages—Jagdishpur, Rathdhana, and Akbarpur Barota—is a unique initiative of Naveen Jindal. The decision to establish the university amidst the villages of Haryana has led to significant social and economic empowerment of the local community. When he decided to build the university in Sonipat, Naveen Jindal was fully conscious of the fact that there are inherent challenges for the development of a higher education institution in a relatively rural setting. But his passion, commitment and dedication to rural development stands as a testimony to the fact that JGU has created a huge imprint and presence across these villages, especially with regard to fulfilling the employment and livelihood aspirations of the local community. It is remarkable that more than 25,000 individuals (excluding the faculty) in and around the university are direct and indirect beneficiaries of the university. Naveen Jindal recognised the need for the global and the local to engage and interact with each other. His farsighted vision to establish JGU in the heart of Haryana also sent powerful signals for recognising the role of education and institution building for the future development of the state of Haryana. A testament to his farsighted vision, the Ministry of Education, Government of India recognised JGU as an ‘Institution of Eminence’ (IoE) which became the first institution to be recognised in the State of Haryana.
PRIVATE UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTING TO PUBLIC SERVICE
Naveen Jindal challenged another important but indeed a pejorative trend that had become an institutional practice over the years. He deeply believed in the idea of public service that fundamentally differentiated a university from other entities in a society. The historically evolved private universities were seen to be built as for-profit entities and many of them were perceived to be mediocre institutions that were not fulfilling the responsibilities of a university. Corporations are founded on the principles of profitability and return on investment. This vision of a corporation shapes and impacts a large part of its decisions. The pursuit of profit and the creation of wealth for a society, including the generation of employment are legitimate and useful objectives pursued by corporations. However, Naveen Jindal fully recognised and appreciated that universities are founded on the twin principles of creation of knowledge through research, and its dissemination by teaching. Regardless of the public or private character of a university, they are universally expected to pursue the vision of a common good. The vision of Naveen Jindal to establish JGU was to endow it with the responsibility of providing access to education and participate in the democratisation of knowledge. He not only contributed significant resources to establish the university but made higher education affordable and accessible. Over 50% of students studying in JGU are recipients of scholarships which gave them a life changing experience of high-quality education leading to social and economic empowerment. Naveen Jindal recognised that universities ought to provide opportunities for teaching, learning, and research as public service to society, especially to its youth. It is this commitment to public service which led to the establishment of India’s First Constitution Museum and the Rights & Freedoms Academy at the university campus of JGU, in commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India.
AN INDIAN UNIVERSITY TAKING INDIA TO THE WORLD AND BRINGING THE WORLD TO INDIA
Naveen Jindal having studied at the University of Delhi in India and the University of Texas at Dallas, both leading institutions in the world, was conscious of the changes that were taking place in the world of education. He was mindful of the fact that young Indians were aspiring to seek global education opportunities and were prepared to go anywhere in the world in the pursuit of higher education. He also knew that India was going through different forms of demographic transitions, resulting not only in a large population but also the natural country providing significant trade, investment and economic opportunities for the world to come. When JGU was established in 2009, India had already experienced nearly three decades of economic reforms which enabled the development of its corporate and financial sectors. The vision of JGU as defined by Naveen Jindal was to build a global university. This means that JGU started by having global faculty, a globally benchmarked curriculum, and global programmes with strong international collaborations. What began as a modest global university in 2009 with only 100 students and 40 faculty and staff, has now grown into a university with over 15,000 students from over 75 countries, over 4,000 faculty and staff members from over 50 countries and international collaborations with over 500 universities in more than 75 countries. In addition, every year, nearly 1,000 international students come to JGU for various programmes and a similar number of students from JGU go abroad for various short-term, semester exchange, dual and joint degree programmes. What Naveen Jindal has done through JGU is to take India to the world and to bring the world to India. His efforts have gained national and global recognition with JGU being consistently ranked as India’s Number 1 Private University. For the fifth consecutive year, the Jindal Global Law School was ranked as the topmost Law School in India and at the 72nd position was the only Indian law school in the Global Top 100 by QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024.
A UNIVERSITY
PURSUING TEACHING AND RESEARCH AS ITS MISSION
Indian universities historically don’t feature well in international rankings. Part of the problem has been that even the best universities that excel in teaching are not engaged in research. Naveen Jindal’s vision was to benchmark JGU with the best institutions in the world so that Indian universities are able to not only compete but also excel in the world. His mission with JGU was to create an institution that would become the incubator of ideas which could propel India into progress and prosperity. Through his generous philanthropic contribution and visionary leadership, JGU was able to create an environment conducive for the development of socially relevant research and its impactful dissemination through teaching. Without any compromise in quality, he ensured that JGU was equipped with world class, state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting-edge technology for conducting research. Understanding the importance of people in the success of an organisation, Naveen Jindal’s commitment was to recruit outstanding faculty members with education qualifications from leading higher education institutions in India and abroad, who are proficient in teaching as well as committed to pursuing research. Currently, 50% of all faculty members of JGU are alumni of the Top 200 Universities in the world including the leading Indian universities. JGU’s excellence in teaching was recognised in the Times Higher Education (THE) Online Learning Rankings 2024, where it was ranked Number 1 in the world with the highest overall score among all universities and awarded the ‘Gold’ status.
A UNIVERSITY MAKING SUBSTANTIVE IMPACT IN THE COMMUNITY
Through his different roles in life, as a business leader, statesman and philanthropist, Naveen Jindal has championed the development and empowerment of communities—in his enterprise, his constituency and other underserved communities. He knew that a university with a vision to contribute to public service and entrusted with the responsibility to train the next generation of leaders would undoubtedly have the power to transform its surrounding community, nation and the world. Through its 12 schools, 5 research and capacity building institutes, and over 60 research centres, the students and faculty members of JGU interact with local communities, while taking efforts to address their challenges. However, most problems of the world do not have simple answers. With the impetus given to interdisciplinary education and research, JGU’s students, scholars and faculty members are able to dissect a problem from different worldviews and explore new approaches to sustainable futures of these communities. JGU’s sustainability and community engagement efforts were recognised by THE Impact Rankings 2024 where JGU was ranked in the Top 200 globally for the successful delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 12 and 16, and placed in the Top 400 for SDGs 2, 5, and 6.
By investing in education, Naveen Jindal not only invested in teaching and research, but also in the future of Sonipat, Haryana, India and the world.
Prof (Dr) C. Raj Kumar is the Vice-Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University.