BY NAVIN DOSHI
I have been a contrarian by nature in almost every endeavor I have pursued. That includes investment and charity. Some of our friends were donating large sums of money building temples and sending money for much needed help in India. Equally important to us is educating Americans about India. Exposing Americans...
I have been a contrarian by nature in almost every endeavor I have pursued. That includes investment and charity. Some of our friends were donating large sums of money building temples and sending money for much needed help in India. Equally important to us is educating Americans about India. Exposing Americans...
to education about India would go a long way, basically bridging India with America in every field of endeavor.
One of the fortunate things that happened for us in the year 1998 was that we decided to endow a chair at UCLA. Without knowing what was going to happen in 2000, 2001 and 2002, we used the money I had made in the stock market to make the donation. We were very fortunate because we did not pay capital gain tax when UCLA liquidated some of our stocks. As we know, the stock market had crashed in the year 2000 and the 9/11 event kept the market in bearish territory for another two years. I committed $500,000 giving it to UCLA in three installments for the study of Indian history.
When a person endows a chair, UCLA appoints a professor to occupy the chair, costing the university about $100,000 for the professor’s salary (in 1999). This would be paid by UCLA from the UC budget. The return that they normally give out to the professor to spend on research, conferences, or anything pertinent to India is about five percent of the total donation. So five percent of $500,000 is $25,000. UCLA will spend 125,000 dollars for an endowment of half-a-million dollars, which comes out to be about 25 percent of the donation. I consider that to be the return on my investment, since UCLA is spending every year $125,000 to teach the subject of our interest.
If we were to consider the advantage of the tax deduction, then the money invested goes down to about the half of the total investment, since about 50 percent comes back from Uncle Sam, assuming we are in a 50-percent tax bracket. We had divided the payment in three installments about $167,000 each to get the tax benefit. The return is even higher if one considers the estate taxes after death. An additional advantage in endowing the chair in ’99 was the cost then compared to what it is today. The cost to endow a chair at any of the UC campuses in 2014 has gone up to one-and-a-half million, three times the cost of the endowment I paid. The cost of almost anything keeps rising in time due to depreciating currency. An agreement was made that Professor D. R. Sardesai, an emeritus professor of Southeast Asian history, would occupy the chair as long as he wished to hold it, without any additional remuneration.
The first three years with Professor Sardesai went very well. Conferences on interesting subjects, including the Constitution of India, Ayurveda, German Indology, and the Nuclear Issue for India, were held under his leadership. The Indian-American community appreciated and enjoyed these events. Professor Sardesai, however, was not willing to carry on after three years.
Dean Scott Waugh then appointed a search committee to find a replacement to occupy the chair. They were not able to find one out of many they interviewed, due to disagreement within the search committee. We went through quite a bit of aggravation after establishing the chair, not knowing who the next holder would be. The few members of the search committee, I was informed, wanted to appoint a scholar of the Muslim period of Indian history, which would contradict our wishes. Fortunately there was no unanimity in the search committee required to offer the position. Another candidate of very high caliber was selected and the offer was made. However he did not accept the offer since his current employer matched the UCLA offer. Often universities do not fill a chair for many years after it becomes vacant for one reason or the other.
Big universities occasionally may not conform to a donor’s wishes since they do not want to give up their autonomy. My experience has taught me that a donor should have a very clear vision and objective as to what they want when they endow a chair. I recommend that donors have a lawyer and an experienced academic associated with the university as their counselors. It is even better to have an agreement about a candidate who would occupy the chair for a long time when the agreement is signed. Our agreement with UCLA was somewhat loose. We were advised by a few knowledgeable academics never to fight a university on a legal battlefield. Big institutions like UCLA have deep pockets and a battery of lawyers ready to fight.
Fortunately Professor Dan Neuman, a friend of India, became the executive vice chancellor (provost) in 2004. I had complained to him about the chair being vacant for three years. Dan and his wife Arundhati visited India almost every year. I requested him to meet me in New Delhi. I had cultivated a good friendship with Vishal Gujral, son of the late Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, also a personal friend of Professor Sardesai. I had met him for the first time in 2000, when he was invited by Professor Sardesai as a keynote speaker for the first Sardar Patel Award event. The Sardar Patel Award of $10,000 was established by raising $250,000 from the Indian-American community. Ukabhai Solanki and the Doshis (my wife Pratima and I) were the largest contributors. We were honored to give the first Sardar Patel Award to the winner. Later on, on many occasions I interacted with the prime minister and his friends, including the director of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Mark Lee and his wife Asha.
Vishal volunteered to hold the meeting at the former prime minister’s residence in New Delhi. Mr. Gujral convinced UCLA Provost Dan Neuman how important it was for the Indian-American community in Southern California to fill the vacant chair. We were fortunate in that Provost Dan Neuman found a well-known scholar, Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam from Oxford University. He is the son of the strategic analyst and adviser to many prime ministers of India, K. Subrahmanyam, and the brother of India’s current Foreign Secretary.
With the leadership of Provost Dan Neuman, the initiative of cardiologist Tom Peters, and an entrepreneur Mohan Anand, we were able to raise $150,000 towards a music chair at UCLA, quite short of the money needed to establish a chair. Then out of the blue, I received a call from Dr. Mohinder Sambhi, who had recently lost his wife. He showed interest in establishing the music chair at UCLA in his wife’s name, knowing that we had already established a chair in Indian history. I convinced Tom, Mohan, and Dan to accept Dr. Sambhi’s proposition. Now the community has two chairs at UCLA. In addition to these, Dan funded a center for Indian studies, known as the Center for India South Asia Studies (CISA) before he left the office. There are very few universities in America that have established a center to learn more about the Indian subcontinent.
As with UCLA, we established a close relationship of patronage with the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I met Professor Christopher Chapple of LMU sometime in ’90. Earlier I had met Professor Yajneshwar Shastri, then director of the school of psychology and philosophy at Gujarat University during an event at UCLA. We became good friends and I was quite impressed by his scholarship in Indic traditions. A visiting professor at LMU, Shastriji asked me to meet Chris for the same dedication to Indic traditions. Quoting Shastriji, “Chris is more Indian than most Indians in America. He is a strict vegetarian, expert in yoga practice, and removes his shoes outside his house.” So I met him and agreed with Shastriji’s assessment. Initially we supported Chris to bring scholars from India, specifically Shastriji from Gujarat University and Professor Billimoria for several years, depending on their availability.
In 2006, we endowed a professorship for Indic Traditions at LMU. The university also administers a $10,000 annual Bridge builder Award program, meant to honor eminent personalities who have worked towards world peace and harmony by building a bridge between two opposites of a pair, for example, science and spirituality. Currently the Indic Traditions Chair at LMU is occupied by Professor Christopher Chapple. Recipients of the Bridgebuilder Award include Dr. Deepak Chopra, Conductor Zubin Mehta, Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Greg Mortenson, the author and builder of schools and bridges in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan; world religions scholar Huston Smith; Dr. Vandana Shiva, the ecofeminist crusader; Dr. Karan Singh, crown prince of Kashmir; and the latest awardee in 2014, Rupert Sheldrake, scientist and naturalist.
In 2012, we established a professorship in Consciousness Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, a university focused on graduate studies and research in spiritual psychologies founded by Haridas Chaudhuri, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo Ghose. The current occupant of the chair is Professor Leslie Allan Combs. Professor Debashish Banerji, an eminent scholar of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, and I have established a non-profit organization, Nalanda International, to promote education of Indic traditions.
Navin Doshi has been a pioneer in establishing academic chairs, endowing programs on campuses and supporting studies related to India. His work in SoCal has been pathbreaking with others following in his footsteps.
One of the fortunate things that happened for us in the year 1998 was that we decided to endow a chair at UCLA. Without knowing what was going to happen in 2000, 2001 and 2002, we used the money I had made in the stock market to make the donation. We were very fortunate because we did not pay capital gain tax when UCLA liquidated some of our stocks. As we know, the stock market had crashed in the year 2000 and the 9/11 event kept the market in bearish territory for another two years. I committed $500,000 giving it to UCLA in three installments for the study of Indian history.
When a person endows a chair, UCLA appoints a professor to occupy the chair, costing the university about $100,000 for the professor’s salary (in 1999). This would be paid by UCLA from the UC budget. The return that they normally give out to the professor to spend on research, conferences, or anything pertinent to India is about five percent of the total donation. So five percent of $500,000 is $25,000. UCLA will spend 125,000 dollars for an endowment of half-a-million dollars, which comes out to be about 25 percent of the donation. I consider that to be the return on my investment, since UCLA is spending every year $125,000 to teach the subject of our interest.
If we were to consider the advantage of the tax deduction, then the money invested goes down to about the half of the total investment, since about 50 percent comes back from Uncle Sam, assuming we are in a 50-percent tax bracket. We had divided the payment in three installments about $167,000 each to get the tax benefit. The return is even higher if one considers the estate taxes after death. An additional advantage in endowing the chair in ’99 was the cost then compared to what it is today. The cost to endow a chair at any of the UC campuses in 2014 has gone up to one-and-a-half million, three times the cost of the endowment I paid. The cost of almost anything keeps rising in time due to depreciating currency. An agreement was made that Professor D. R. Sardesai, an emeritus professor of Southeast Asian history, would occupy the chair as long as he wished to hold it, without any additional remuneration.
The first three years with Professor Sardesai went very well. Conferences on interesting subjects, including the Constitution of India, Ayurveda, German Indology, and the Nuclear Issue for India, were held under his leadership. The Indian-American community appreciated and enjoyed these events. Professor Sardesai, however, was not willing to carry on after three years.
Dean Scott Waugh then appointed a search committee to find a replacement to occupy the chair. They were not able to find one out of many they interviewed, due to disagreement within the search committee. We went through quite a bit of aggravation after establishing the chair, not knowing who the next holder would be. The few members of the search committee, I was informed, wanted to appoint a scholar of the Muslim period of Indian history, which would contradict our wishes. Fortunately there was no unanimity in the search committee required to offer the position. Another candidate of very high caliber was selected and the offer was made. However he did not accept the offer since his current employer matched the UCLA offer. Often universities do not fill a chair for many years after it becomes vacant for one reason or the other.
Big universities occasionally may not conform to a donor’s wishes since they do not want to give up their autonomy. My experience has taught me that a donor should have a very clear vision and objective as to what they want when they endow a chair. I recommend that donors have a lawyer and an experienced academic associated with the university as their counselors. It is even better to have an agreement about a candidate who would occupy the chair for a long time when the agreement is signed. Our agreement with UCLA was somewhat loose. We were advised by a few knowledgeable academics never to fight a university on a legal battlefield. Big institutions like UCLA have deep pockets and a battery of lawyers ready to fight.
Fortunately Professor Dan Neuman, a friend of India, became the executive vice chancellor (provost) in 2004. I had complained to him about the chair being vacant for three years. Dan and his wife Arundhati visited India almost every year. I requested him to meet me in New Delhi. I had cultivated a good friendship with Vishal Gujral, son of the late Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, also a personal friend of Professor Sardesai. I had met him for the first time in 2000, when he was invited by Professor Sardesai as a keynote speaker for the first Sardar Patel Award event. The Sardar Patel Award of $10,000 was established by raising $250,000 from the Indian-American community. Ukabhai Solanki and the Doshis (my wife Pratima and I) were the largest contributors. We were honored to give the first Sardar Patel Award to the winner. Later on, on many occasions I interacted with the prime minister and his friends, including the director of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Mark Lee and his wife Asha.
Vishal volunteered to hold the meeting at the former prime minister’s residence in New Delhi. Mr. Gujral convinced UCLA Provost Dan Neuman how important it was for the Indian-American community in Southern California to fill the vacant chair. We were fortunate in that Provost Dan Neuman found a well-known scholar, Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam from Oxford University. He is the son of the strategic analyst and adviser to many prime ministers of India, K. Subrahmanyam, and the brother of India’s current Foreign Secretary.
With the leadership of Provost Dan Neuman, the initiative of cardiologist Tom Peters, and an entrepreneur Mohan Anand, we were able to raise $150,000 towards a music chair at UCLA, quite short of the money needed to establish a chair. Then out of the blue, I received a call from Dr. Mohinder Sambhi, who had recently lost his wife. He showed interest in establishing the music chair at UCLA in his wife’s name, knowing that we had already established a chair in Indian history. I convinced Tom, Mohan, and Dan to accept Dr. Sambhi’s proposition. Now the community has two chairs at UCLA. In addition to these, Dan funded a center for Indian studies, known as the Center for India South Asia Studies (CISA) before he left the office. There are very few universities in America that have established a center to learn more about the Indian subcontinent.
As with UCLA, we established a close relationship of patronage with the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I met Professor Christopher Chapple of LMU sometime in ’90. Earlier I had met Professor Yajneshwar Shastri, then director of the school of psychology and philosophy at Gujarat University during an event at UCLA. We became good friends and I was quite impressed by his scholarship in Indic traditions. A visiting professor at LMU, Shastriji asked me to meet Chris for the same dedication to Indic traditions. Quoting Shastriji, “Chris is more Indian than most Indians in America. He is a strict vegetarian, expert in yoga practice, and removes his shoes outside his house.” So I met him and agreed with Shastriji’s assessment. Initially we supported Chris to bring scholars from India, specifically Shastriji from Gujarat University and Professor Billimoria for several years, depending on their availability.
In 2006, we endowed a professorship for Indic Traditions at LMU. The university also administers a $10,000 annual Bridge builder Award program, meant to honor eminent personalities who have worked towards world peace and harmony by building a bridge between two opposites of a pair, for example, science and spirituality. Currently the Indic Traditions Chair at LMU is occupied by Professor Christopher Chapple. Recipients of the Bridgebuilder Award include Dr. Deepak Chopra, Conductor Zubin Mehta, Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Greg Mortenson, the author and builder of schools and bridges in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan; world religions scholar Huston Smith; Dr. Vandana Shiva, the ecofeminist crusader; Dr. Karan Singh, crown prince of Kashmir; and the latest awardee in 2014, Rupert Sheldrake, scientist and naturalist.
In 2012, we established a professorship in Consciousness Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, a university focused on graduate studies and research in spiritual psychologies founded by Haridas Chaudhuri, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo Ghose. The current occupant of the chair is Professor Leslie Allan Combs. Professor Debashish Banerji, an eminent scholar of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, and I have established a non-profit organization, Nalanda International, to promote education of Indic traditions.
Navin Doshi has been a pioneer in establishing academic chairs, endowing programs on campuses and supporting studies related to India. His work in SoCal has been pathbreaking with others following in his footsteps.
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