Shameful histroy of Yale university and it's India links

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[Yale university is involved in HIV/AIDS research in India hence this article

may be of interest to this FORUM] (Moderator)

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Yale, India, and the failure of the `global university'

Ajay Gandhi

Yale, through its historical amnesia about its roots in colonialism

and slavery, its unethical investment policies and demeaning work

culture, abrogates the responsibility it claims to bear as a global

university.

FROM JANUARY 2 to 8, 2005, Yale University president Levin

visited India. This unprecedented visit by the head of an elite

American university signalled, in his words, that India was

finally " emerging as a global economic and political power. " In

between meetings with the Indian Prime Minister and the chiefs of

powerful Indian companies such as Infosys and Reliance Industries,

Dr. Levin lectured on Yale's vision of " university citizenship. " With

missionary zeal, he propounded a notion of the " global university "

standing for " transcendent principles " and embodying a " noble

mission. " In so doing, he was continuing a tradition stretching back

to Yale's inception, whereby lofty rhetoric has disguised powerful

self-interest.

Dr. Levin's university is named after Elihu Yale, a fervid Anglican

who served in the British East India Company between 1670 and 1699

and was governor of Fort St. at Madras from 1687 to 1692.

After his reign, American Puritans in Connecticut seeking patronage

for a college appealed to Yale's history of support for missionary

activities in the East Indies and Americas. The colonial

administrator was responsive, initially sending books on Anglican

subjects. In 1718, Yale finally donated textiles and arms towards the

construction of the university's first building, forever stamping it

with his name.

In India, Dr. Levin noted Yale University's commitment to

educating " distinguished leaders " and its focus on the " transparency

and accountability of public and private institutions. " Curiously, he

failed to mention Elihu Yale's own record of leadership and

accountability while in Madras.

As governor of Fort St. , Yale purchased territory for private

purposes with East India Company funds, including a fort at

Tevnapatam (present-day Cuddalore). He imposed steep taxation towards

the upkeep of the colonial garrison and town. His punitive measures

against Indians who defaulted included threats of property

confiscation and forced exile. This spurred various Indian revolts,

which were ruthlessly quelled by Company soldiers. Yale was also

notorious for arresting and trying Indians on his own private

authority, including the hanging of a stable boy who had absconded

with a Company horse.

More audaciously, Yale amassed a private fortune through secret

contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company's

directives. This imperial plunder, which enabled his patronage of the

American university, occurred through his monopolisation of traders

and castes in the textiles and jewel trade. By 1692, Elihu Yale's

repeated flouting of East India Company regulations, and growing

embarrassment at his illegal profiteering resulted in his being

relieved of the post of governor.

Though Elihu Yale's legacy in India was notably absent from Dr.

Levin's pronouncements in India, he did mention another historical

link between the university and India. In 1892, Sumantro Vishnu

Karmarkar from Ahmednagar graduated from Yale. The university

president proudly upheld as one of its " distinguished alumni " from

India. Although this was intended to be symbolic of Yale's global

diversity, Dr. Levin sidelined the university's historical complicity

with the exploitation and exclusion of minorities. For example,

Yale's first endowed professorship, first library fund, and first

student scholarship came from slave owners and slavery proponents.

Indeed, pro-slavery leaders were among Yale's earliest professors and

administrators in the 18th century. In 1831 such forces suppressed

the construction of a Negro College at Yale for educating African-

Americans. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Yale administration

honoured this dubious history by naming nine of its colleges after

slavery proponents and owners.

Yale University's history, bound up with violence against both

Indians and African-Americans, is forcefully symbolised in a portrait

that hangs in a campus boardroom. This picture from the early 18th

century shows Elihu Yale adorned in colonial splendour, with a black

slave kneeling in the foreground, silver collar and long metal chain

hanging from his neck. In India, Dr. Levin claimed that Yale embodied

the best of a " global university, " with a mandate to educate

the " citizens of the world. " Yet the university's refusal to

acknowledge how its history is bound up with colonial profiteering

and violent slavery makes this lofty rhetoric hollow and

disingenuous.

At other events in India, Dr. Levin discussed the " progressive,

forward-looking " proponents of global patent regimes. He was

referring to the vigorous debate in India over the Government's

conformity to the World Trade Organisation's intellectual property

rights regulations. Opponents of this framework have argued that

Indian farmers and consumers will have to pay increased prices for

seeds and brand-name drugs bought from multinational companies

instead of being indigenously produced. Indeed, farmers in States

such as Andhra Pradesh have already experienced significant hardship

due to the encroachment of western agri-business companies on to the

seed market, displacing Indian companies and burdening farmers with

onerous debt.

Dr. Levin termed these concerns for Indian farmers and

consumers " parochial, " hardly surprising given that India's

conformity with patent regimes is in Yale's interest. Since the

1980s, Yale has been aggressively commercialising research done

within its science and engineering departments. As its president

noted in India, the University has spun off 25 companies in the past

decade based on biotechnology innovations, accumulating millions of

dollars in profits.

The true implications of this corporate research model for the public

interest were revealed in 2000-2001 when Yale came under scrutiny for

its patent on the AIDS drug stavudine. This is marketed by Bristol-

Myers Squibb (BMS) as Zerit, a partnership that had brought the

university more than $129 million. In late-2000, the Indian drug

company Cipla and medical relief organisations requested a non-

exclusive license from Yale and BMS to sell stavudine in South Africa

in the light of an AIDS epidemic. Indian companies have become

specialists in producing generic drugs for public health emergencies

in the developing world, a primary argument for non-compliance with

intellectual property rights regimes.

In 2001, Yale refused to release the licence, and it was only through

sustained pressure from local unions and international relief

organisations that the University was embarrassed into agreeing to

legal non-interference. Clearly, Dr. Levin's argument for India to

adhere to intellectual property rights is intertwined with Yale

potentially gaining lucrative profits from its patents being enforced

in India's consumer market.

Dr. Levin's equivalence of corporate self-interest with

a " progressive, forward-looking " ethos is confirmed in Yale's broader

investment policy. Its $12.7 billion endowment is partly managed

through global hedge funds that are inaccessible to its stakeholders.

This continues despite the fact that Yale's investments have

previously breached the administration's own ethical guidelines, such

as prior investments in apartheid-era South Africa.

Yale's direct investments in South Asia include a Canadian oil and

gas company, Niko Resources Ltd, which operates fields in Gujarat,

the Bay of Bengal, and Bangladesh. In January 2005, a massive fire

broke out in the Bangladeshi gas field of Tengratila — days after

Niko commenced operations. Bangladeshi newspapers reported that the

flames were as high as 500 feet and that between 10,000 and 20,000

people were evacuated. Government inquiries regarding environmental

damage and compensation are going on, with suggestions that safety

protocols were violated to undertake risky drilling.

GESO's role

The primary means by which Yale's unethical global investment has

been uncovered is the campus organisation Graduate Employees and

Students Organisation (GESO). Though Dr. Levin claimed in India that

Yale's mandate was to encourage the " full realisation of human

potential, " the University has consistently denied such possibility

to its workers and teachers. For example, within the Ivy League its

history of labour relations with its workers in the maintenance and

clerical trades has been notable for rancour and tumult, resulting in

numerous strikes over the years. GESO itself has been actively

seeking recognition for over a decade as a representative of post-

graduate teachers and researchers. Dr. Levin's response has been to

systematically deny that they are workers, demeaning their efforts by

maintaining that such work is merely a form of " apprenticeship. "

This once again masks with fancy language the exploitative labour

hierarchies underpinning contemporary university research. In India,

Dr. Levin touted that Yale " invests " in Indian students through

limited scholarships, forgetting to mention that Yale profits

enormously from these students' labour. This is especially true in

the sciences and engineering, where South Asian and other

international students conduct the majority of research for

increasingly profit-driven projects and joint university-industry

initiatives.

Dr. Levin maintained in India that Yale was committed to a " wider

world beyond the university walls, a world in which we bear enormous

responsibility. " Currently, Yale, through its historical amnesia

about its roots in colonialism and slavery, its unethical investment

policies and demeaning work culture, and its refusal to value the

education that its graduate teachers impart, abrogates this

responsibility. GESO's drive for union recognition from the Yale

administration directly addresses these concerns. Its members in the

past have forced Yale to release its patents on the AIDS drug Zerit,

uncovered its investment in Niko's operations in Bangladesh, and

detailed its links with slavery. GESO's eventual recognition will

codify its efforts to reconcile the gap between Dr. Levin's lofty

rhetoric on the " global university " and Yale's embarrassing lack of

accountability and accessibility, particularly to international

students and scholars such as those from India.

(Ajay Gandhi is a Ph.D student in the Department of Anthropology at

Yale University, and is a member of GESO.)

http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/04/stories/2005050400441000.htm