Vallabh Vidyanagar - An Educational Township

Vallabh Vidyanagar - An Educational Township

Every human being has a dream. Some dreams are mere wishful thinking, like a child thinking of a fairy tale. We are told story of a princess who was sent to sleep by a curse of a witch. Then one fine day a handsome, strong and a brave Prince riding a white stud, slained the witch and the giant bodyguards. The beautiful princess opened her lovly lotus eyes, and saw the prince and fell in love. Extending hand she was helped to the horseback, both rode back & ruled or quarreled and cried!

But all dreams are not mere wishful thinking. They are a vision of man of spirit. One such man was Sardar Patel of Karamsad. He had a dream of overpowering strong men of British Empire who came from 5000 miles away and inspite of being a small minority ruled this vast subcontinent. There was a young man from Sojitra 20-25 kilometers from here who had a dream of serving the society and helping the process of rural reconstruction. And there was a man called Bhikhabhai, from Karamsad who dedicated his life to education, which builds character.

By a rare feet of nature these men were destined to meet while fulfilling their dream. The story is exciting and romantic. The story is full of spirit and courage, it is full of steadfastness and steady work, it is full of unwavering hope and unstoppable drive!

To cut short the story, let me begin from the beginning. As I told earlier I shall give a brief account of how Bhailalbhai Dhyabhai Patel an eminent Engineer who was also successful and efficient, effective engineer succeeded in fulfilling the dream. He sought voluntary retirement at the age of 52 in pursuit of his ideal of social service. He was guided in this by a message from Sardar Patel to the effect that having served states other than Gujarat, he should come back to Gujarat. As desired by the Sardar, he joined Ahmedabad Municipality as Chief Engineer.

Unparalled leader of the men that Sardar was, he, in his foresight, knew that free India could prosper only if the villages develop. So in April 1942, he told Bhaikaka, “Bhailal, you have well served the cities, now please take up the development activities for villages.” August 1942 saw the launching of the last and what was to be a historic phase of freedom struggle, the Quit India movement. Gandhi, Sardar and other leaders, and thousands of freedom fighters were imprisoned. So Bhaikaka resigned his job as a Municipal Engineer and started thinking on the schemes which would help fulfill Sardar’s dream of the development of the villages.

Pondering over the aim of improving the quality of life in villages and providing minimum employment opportunities to stop the outflow from the country side to the cities, he came to the conclusion that sustenance of and acquisition of skills for enrichment of human resources through education would result in improving the quality of life. This needed the establishment of an educational centre in the rural heartland, and with a rural bias, where the villager would not feel alienated. City dwellers would be drawn to such a centre if the ambience of excellence was built up in that educational centre by the high quality of academicians who would be drawn from all over the country.

By October 1943, Bhaikaka had planned a complete and compact town of learning. The town would have provision of almost all the faculties of education, with learning facilities from KG to PG, and even a University. He planned a town with all infrastructural facilities like electricity, water supply and roads. He envisioned supportive facilities like a market, a post office, temple, a hospital, a community hall, recreational facilities and a vast playground.

To philosophize was easy, but to convert it into reality was nearly impossible. To plan a town on paper was not very tough, but it needed land; it needed buildings for colleges; it needed equipment; it needed the provision of suitable incentives to attract teachers of a high quality and caliber; and from all of these to materialize it needed money with a capital ‘M’.

It is really a formidable task, even for an entrepreneur, to mobilize resources.

You have seen how in extraordinary manner he acquired the land………

Verily has George Bernard Shaw said that “ The reasonable man adopts himself to the world, the unreasonable man attempts to adopt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Really this unreasonable man (Bhaikaka) had a perfect game plan to achieve his goal. In Bhaikaka’s own words, “Money does not mean currency notes alone; intellect also is money. Experience is money, psychological attitude is money and so is work money. If you can combine all these qualities, then money will be no barrier.” And with such ideas, this intrepid man designed strategies for financing education.

He presented his vision to the villagers with a missionary zeal. He proposed that they give him part barren - part cultivated land in donation and he would return to them 1/3^rd of that land in value added form of a development plot of a town. The smart villagers saw the validity of the argument. They sensed the quick appreciation of their land due to town planning. They also saw in it the scope for the development of their children through easily accessible educational facilities at their doorstep. Hence in the first stage he could get about 1000 bighas of land free of cost.

After having acquired the land and designing the plot, he posed a question to the villagers as to how their plot would be useful to build houses, if the town did not have water, electricity, and well paved roads. It would be a costly affair, if they tried to provide for such facilities individually or in small groups. Hence, he made a fresh proposal :

“You give me a rupee per square yard of your plot area, and I will give roads, electricity and water.” The shrewd and thinking villagers agreed to this and he collected Rs 11 lakhs from 2200 plot holders. Thus he raised equity for the people and capital for the enterprise

He used his entrepreneur ability to produce construction related material and raised further resources.

The construction was complete. The seeds of idea sown under the aged Mango tree sprouted and a wonderland was created on this barren and dacoit infested land.

The Science of building construction and the art of building quality Institutions both need good planning, at physical and intellectual level. Fortunately in Vallabh Vidyanagar both coexist enjoying in sync functioning.

So that’s why Vallabh VidyaNagar is like this …..

Bhaikaka did not learn formal management but he planned for succession.

He invited H.M.Patel to be the Chairman of Charutar Vidyamandal.

This administrator par excellence nurtured the old & built many new Institutions. He brought with him sharp intellect & glorious traditions of Oxbridge with him. He brought the scent of Thames to this rustic land between Mahi & Vatrak. This distinguished ICS officer was a vital link in the iron frame of Civil servants who governed India. He was a successful defense and finance secretary and a very young cabinet secretary. During those tumultuous but short lived days of Janta Government created by the dawn of democracy he served with distinction as Finance & Home Ministers of India.
On retirement from Civil services at the invitation of Bhaikaka he took over as Chairman in 1958 and served literally till his last breath in 1993. He was a voracious reader with a rare insight in educational processes to bring scholarship to learning. He recognized the much needed importance of English some 40-45 years back.

It is said that more seminars and symposiums were held through free wheeling discussions under the mango tree to merit the name of a true university in the traditions of Nalanda and Taxshashila combined with those of Oxford and Cambridge.

On H M’s death Vidyanagar waited with bated breath for a successor and in stepped an unknown man. But he proved to be a veritable dynamo of power and has energy of an unexploded atom bomb. On his stepping in as the Chairman from 1994 Dr. C.L.Patel has brought in new spring in the atmosphere and has taken large strides of success.

From an unknown quantity, he has grown to be a path breaker leader with a will, Zeal, courage to sail over uncharted waters of liberalization and globalization. He added the flavour of Harvard and MIT to Vallabh Vidyanagar. Under him, the confines of Vallabh Vidyanagar were small and it had to strike free by establishing a Satellite township, New Vallabh Vidyanagar. He has built and is building Institutions & installing programmes in almost all disciplines & areas of Learning.

I hope that all of you soar high in the sky and fly far off …………………

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