South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections
I attended MIT in the 1980’s and as my parents had emigrated to the US in the 1960’s I was in the early trickle of second generation students at the Institute at the time. On visits back to campus decades later, I marveled at how things had changed for students since my day with better representation on campus, better gender equity, international internships, and cultural programs that help students feel at home away from home. And I also wondered when did the first desi come to MIT? I was STUNNED when I stumbled across the work of historian Ross Bassett, author of “The Technological Indian” and learned that the first student from South Asia came to MIT in 1880, soon after the Institute’s founding and more than a hundred years before I set foot on campus! Ross had been researching how people from a region left behind by the industrial revolution came to be among the world’s leaders in engineering and technology and all roads led to MIT. As documented in the book, MIT in fact played an outsized role in South Asia’s economic development and even in its struggle for independence from colonial rule. MIT in fact was a beacon for freedom fighters in a colonized South Asia who thought it’s technical expertise represented a way forward for their country and were among it’s earliest South Asian students. Later the newly decolonized South Asian countries used MIT trained professionals to build their infrastructure and set up their institutions of higher learning.
I was President of the MIT South Asian Alumni Association at the time and felt that this history should be more widely known and perhaps showcased in an exhibit. I was able to convince MIT History Professor Sana Aiyar and Managing Director of MIT-India, Nureen Das that this was a worthy project to take on. Professor Aiyar greatly expanded the research Ross Bassett had started beyond Engineering to all five schools at MIT and beyond India to all of South Asia. The pandemic further created an opportunity as students who were not able to travel for their internships at companies around the world could engage with our project. Gradually, we were able to raise some funds for this project and since January of 2020 over 40 student researchers have combed through MIT’s archives and have conducted more than 100 oral histories with alumni. Our exhibition, South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections, opened with great fanfare at MIT’s Maihaugen Gallery on 14th October, 2022. The exhibition will be on display till October 2023. Our project, led by current MIT faculty, students and staff, tells the remarkable story of South Asia at MIT and MIT in South Asia to honor the determination and grit of multiple generations of South Asians at MIT. We celebrate their far-reaching accomplishments, technical expertise, and ingenuity that have made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge at MIT and life beyond the institute, in South Asia, the United States and across the world. We also highlight the ways in which MIT’s past and present have been shaped by histories of immigration and race in America, decolonization and nation-building in South Asia, and globalization and technological revolutions across the world. We also produced a couple of short films with filmmaker Avani Batra about this project and this history which you can check out here! South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections gives a historical overview of the long and entangled history of MIT and South Asia and South Asians at MIT is about the making of the project.
This project has struck a chord among many within MIT who generously supported our efforts to put together this exhibition. Recognizing the importance of this project and all that we have planned to do in the near future, MIT’s President Rafael Reif has given us a $100,000 grant to continue our work. This includes launching an online exhibit this Spring, creating a digital archive of more than 100 oral histories that we have collected in collaboration with MIT’s Digital Humanities Lab, hosting seminars on various issues raised in our exhibition including gender, identity, the IIT-MIT network, and experiential learning and policy-oriented programming on South Asia, and taking the exhibition to South Asia. In all this, we continue to work closely with students, MIT India, and the MIT South Asian Alumni Association.
But I also feel that this history is important for those outside of MIT to know. Some of the earliest South Asian Americans were in fact students. And their history and an understanding of how current world came to be, lies within those archives. I would be thrilled if other institutions of higher learning embarked on similar projects to explore their own early South Asian connections. We very much hope that you will have the chance to visit our exhibition and be in touch (ranubo@alum.mit.edu) if you wish to know more or engage with us in spreading knowledge of this important history.
To learn more, check out our webpage https://mitsaaa.alumgroup.mit.edu/s/1314/bp19/interior.aspx?sid=1314&gid=183&pgid=55729 and the following articles related to the History Project.
Uncovering the rich connections between South Asia and MIT – MIT News November 18, 2022
Exploring generations of influence between South Asia and MIT
History class led by Associate Professor Sana Aiyar delves into South Asian experience at MIT via oral histories and the Institute Archives/Distinctive Collections
Ranu Boppana, MD received her Bachelor of Science degree from MIT ’87 (course VII), and her M.D. from the NYU School of Medicine, where she also completed a residency in Psychiatry and a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She practiced in New York City, taught at NYU and has been a passionate advocate of humanistic medical education. While at MIT, Ranu won the Eloranta Research Fellowship for an original project in Medical Anthropology and the Stewart Award for outstanding contributions to extracurricular life and community service. For the past twenty years, Ranu has also served on the Board of the South Asian Council for Social Services in Queens, New York. For five years, Ranu served as an Educational Counselor for MIT in New York City and for fourteen years she has been a volunteer with the Math Prize for Girls @ MIT, which is founded and directed by her husband, Ravi Boppana, PhD ‘86. Ranu lives in the Boston area and was also elected to the Somerville Democratic Ward Committee. In 2019, Ranu envisioned an exhibit documenting the history of South Asians at MIT and began enlisting support and resources for such a project. In 2022, she co-curated the exhibit, South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections, with Professor Sana Aiyar of MIT History and Nureen Das, Managing Director of MIT-India. South Asia and the Institute opened at the Maihaugen Gallery at MIT in October 2022 and will be on display for one year.
