Anilkumar MV from Kanhangad in Kasargod district of Kerala is perhaps the happiest Malayali on earth. As in charge of Protocol of India’s newest university in Nalanda, Bihar, he had the privilege of receiving diplomatic heads of seventeen nations when the 455 ac 1880 cr new campus of the ancient university was inaugurated by Prime Minster Narendra Modi on Thursday.

D day for Nalanda: Anilkumar, left, with colleagues

Born in New Delhi to Defence department official Meethal Veettil Chandra Sekharan and Madathil Valappil Valsala of Kanhangad, the 43-year old Anil started his career at the Civil Services Officers’ Institute New Delhi as a Receptionist. His second assignment was on the personal staff of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first PM to do his poetic sojourn in Kottayam’s Kumarakom on the Vembanad Lake in 2000.  After a short stint with the Army Welfare Housing Organisation under the Ministry of Defence in 2006, he was recruited to the new international centre of learning at Nalanda that initially started functioning in New Delhi. He is proud that he was among the first seven drafted but all others retired to leave him as the lone survivor.  

University-an aerial view

When the University started operations in a makeshift campus in Rajgir in Nalanda district  in 2014, he moved to the new environment as Senior Assistant to the Vice Chancellor In Charge of Protocol. That is how it came to him to organize the inaugural jamboree in association with Vice Chancellor in Charge Dr. Abhay Kumar Singh. When the University started operations in 2014, Dr.  Gopa Sabbarwal, Professor of Sociology at Lady Sree Ram College, New Delhi  was the Vice Chancellor. The VCs take turn every five years. However, Anil likes his job as a permanent employee in administration and the lone Malayali at that.

Kerala’s Nandita with her parents & co-students

The International University under the Ministry of External Affairs has another Malayali in a pivotal role in academics-Dr. Jaishankar Nair of Thiruvananthapuram, Dean of SEES- School of Ecological and Environmental Studies.  He hails from the Digital University of Kerala.

Nandita N. Prabhu from Alappuzha is one of his students, doing MSc in the School of Ecology and Environmental Studies. She is presently in Ahmedabad University doing a two months summer internship. Another from Kerala is Vishnu Das M, doing MBA in Sustainable Development and Management. Both belong to the 2023-2025 batch. Nandita is the daughter of Dr. Nagendra G. Prabhu, Professor of Zoology at SD College, Alappuzha and Lata Prabhu of Kochi.

.Dean Dr. Jaishankar Nair with his SEES students. 

Anilkumar is again proud that he has served all the four Chancellors of the University starting with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen followed by George Yeo, former Foreign Minister of Singapore, Prof Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar, Padma Bhushan and computer wizard and the current Dr. Arvind Panagariya, former Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Economics at Columbia University. Padma Bhushan Panagariya is also the chairman of the Sixteenth Finance Commission

Academic block, Central Library; Chancellor Arvind Panagariya, VC Abhay Singh

Iremember Prof. Panagariya high-praising Kerala IAS officer PH Kurian during his stewardship of the Intellectual Property Rights division at the Union Government in Delhi fighting for the patent rights of Indian drug manufacturers at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and winning hands down. The praise was embedded in Panagariya’s monthly column  in the Times of India.

Ambassadors from 17 nations

Nalanda reigned as a citadel of great learning for 800 years from the fifth and 13th centuries when it attracted learners from China, Indochina, Japan, Korea  and a host of countries in Asia and beyond. Nalanda flourished during the period of the Gupta Empire. Two thousand teachers are said to have imparted knowledge with a focus on Buddhist doctrines. Its library had 9 million books. It was destroyed during an invasion by the Turkish General Bhakthiyar Khilji in 1193. He killed all the teachers and burnt down the University.

The idea of reviving the University was mooted by India in the first East Asia Summit in 2005. It was revived during the second EAS. Apart from India, seventeen countries including China, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Australia and New Zealand joined the bandwagon. Most countries  were interested the revival the teachings of Budha in a word asunder by conflicts and wars. In the 7th century, Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang was a student of Buddhist teachings in Nalanda and left memoirs of it in his writings.  

Along with State Minister of External Affairs Prabitra Margherita 

Nalanda is acclaimed as one of the most modern as well as most expensive campuses in India. It was designed by a Pritzer Prize winning firm Vasthu Shilpa headed by BV Doshi combining ancient and modern concepts of vasthu. There are two academic blocks with 40 class rooms that can accommodate 1900 students. Two auditoriums have a capacity of  300 seats each. In addition, there is an openair theatre and a stadium with synthetic track.  To power for the entire campus, wide fields of solar panels have been installed. Water is aplenty-there are water bodies to the extend of 40 hectares.  As in ancient Nalanda, 200 villages around the University have been attached to it as beneficiaries.

Modi visits ancient Nalanda site

The new campus is spread out on the suburb of the city of Rajgir meaning City of Kings. Surrounded by blue hills, Rajgir has a hoary history of 3000 years. It is connected to the State capital of Patna by NH 31 and NH 20 at 103 km to the north. It has a busy railway station. Another more important station  Bhakthiyarpoor is 55 km away. The nearest airport is Gaya 78 km away.

Bihar, with great history, ancient and modern, was once dubbed as the heartland of the cow-belt along with the contiguous state of Uttar Pradesh. But things have changed. Rising literacy and aspiring young generation have many new options. The state boasts of nearly 40 universities of which Patna University established in 1917 during the British Raj is one of the oldest in India.

Anil’s parents and wife at the UNESCO Heritage site

Bihar abounds in historic places. Patna itself is the old Pataliputra. Midhila, Magadh, Mothihari, Vaishali, Champaran, Madhubani, Sitamarhi and Bodh Gaya  reflect its glorious past. Bodh Gaya, in the district of Gaya, 115 km south of Patna, is a pilgrim centre for the all the Buddhists in the world. It is believed that Prince Siddhartha attained celestial wisdom after hibernating under a Bodhi Tree for three days in 500 BC before becoming Shree Buddha. The Maha Bodhi tree is still being venerated there.

Rajgir, visited by millions of tourists year-round, has an ancient temple believed to have been built by Emperor Ashoka in 250 BC. It has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mix of Indian and foreign students

However, the crowed smelly old town of Rajgir does not even have a college or exclusive school for girls, laments new generation aspirants. “When Nalanda university started functioning in temporary shelters in 2014, the Italian newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’ from Milan headlined a report ‘Ritorno a Nalanda’ (Return of  Nalanda). But it did not realize the dark realities, cried an India Today report.  

However, for Anil from Kanhangad who has been living in the new campus for the last 10 years, everything is hunky-dory. Though bound down by heavy schedules that keep him awake till 2 am on many nights, he rises early to do yoga in the international yoga centre that is at a walking distance. He is a green bachelor in the campus as his wife P. Dhanya is an employee of a coop society is away in Kanhangad.

Anil’s only sister Rajitha is manager of the State Bank of India in Kanhangad. Her husband Vijesh is an IT consultant in Dubai. After being in the national capital for 32 years, Anil’s parents are back in their native village.  

University Food Court

I do remember two distinguished Malayalees who did yeomen service to the development of Bihar in its fledgling younger days. One is Roy Paul IAS who succeeded in ending bonded labour at the behest of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The other is KA Jacob IPS who served as Director General of Police. While on reporting errands I met both, Roy in Patna and Jacob in Bhagalpur. Both retired to settle down in Kottayam. Roy and Jacob recollect their visits to Rajgir and Nalanda while on tours on the neo classical romantic routes.