| ashu |
Posted
on 11-Aug-00 11:50 PM
(Pratyoush Onta, a member of St. Xavier's Class of '81 and a former Greater Boston resident, is a mathematician turned computer scientist turned economist turned historian.
Onta's undergraduate degree -- summa cum laude, phi beta kappa -- is from Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts) in computer science and economics. He holds addaitional degreeds in economics and a PhD in South Asian history, with an emphasis on Nepal, from the University of Pennsylvania.
Onta had spoken to the Boston Nepali
audience on Nepali history in February 1998 at Harvard.
The article below was orginally published in The Kathmandu Post, where Onta is a columnist.
Enjoy the article for what it's worth.
oohi
ashu
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St Xavier's : A personal assessment
By Pratyoush Onta
My association with St. Xavier's started one morning during the winter of 1971. The date was 11 December. I got into the back of my father's motorbike and off we went to Jawalakhel.
I had to appear for an admission test for class two. Once inside the school compound, I
remember taking off my favourite winter coat and running off to a classroom to take the test. Afterwards, Fr Leo P Cachat, then the
principal of the school, asked me a few questions in English. I remember replying to him with confidence.
More than 300 boys had applied for the available 35 seats. Being dead sure my name would not be there, my father did not bother to check the results. It was left to a relative of ours to inform us that I had
indeed been accepted! Although I failed in English spelling during the first term of second grade, I did well in the rest of the courses that year and the next. In grade four, I became very ill after the first
term exams and missed a whole chunk of classes, including term exams. I was
given a conditional promotion but did well in class five as well.
From sixth grade onwards, a lot of my energy in school was devoted to mastering both English and Nepali.
I took part in most of the extracurricular activities and did well in debate competitions, essay writings, elocution contests and even one-act plays. In 1980 I edited the school magazine, The Godavarian, and spent several afternoons each term in a cold basement in Patan which housed a letter press.
By the time I graduated from StX in 1981, I had solidly learnt the basics of language and analytical skills. Thus in a personal assessment, I must say that the nine years I spent at St. Xavier's gave
me the opportunity to lay the foundation for a life devoted to learning, writing, and communication. When I later had the opportunity to study with some of the best American students of my generation, rarely did I feel that my preparation in school had been inadequate.
Over the years, more than 2800 graduates of St Xavier's have benefited from the opportunities it has provided to its students. As the school celebrates its 50th year, some write-ups that have appeared in
this paper and elsewhere have listed some of the prominent graduates.
While no reliable account is available, there are perhaps 250-300 StX graduates (a mere 10%) who are either leaders or in the first
ranks of their professions in the two generations of Nepalis that have
become professionals in the past 50 years. Thus at an individual level, the
contributions of the school to Nepali society cannot be minimized.
However, this contribution and some exaggerated claims regarding St X graduates must also be analyzed critically. While I can not prove it (because of the lack of thorough comparative cohort analysis type of studies regarding graduates of various schools in Nepal), it is my estimate that you will find 10% graduates of the best 10 schools of Nepal (the ones that have been in operation for at least 40 years) amongst the leaders in the various professions in Nepal today. Hence
the record of St X graduates is perhaps not that exceptional.
In some of the recent write-ups, it has been suggested that because StX taught its boys to become upright "men of character and conscience", very few have made a mark
in politics. I have found no evidence that suggests that the graduates of StX are any more upright than graduates of other less
privileged schools. Among the graduates who had become professionals by the year 1975 or 1980 (watershed years in the life of the Panchayat system) those who challenged that system's anti-democratic dispensation were hardly visible then (or now). In fact, many of those that have been described as stellar graduates quietly worked to prolong the life of the Panchayat regime! For years we have convinced ourselves that our facility in English somehow gave us an analytical edge over our peers from other schools but rarely have we used it to better understand and
make Nepal at large a more democratic society to live in.
In other professions too, St X graduates have done well in the received systems (of knowledge, of technology, of trade, etc.), rarely opting for unorthodox professional
choices or ethical positions.
Where are the St X graduates leading the business sector who have superseded
their trade-interests and led a social movement for consumer rights in Nepal? Or leading tourism entrepreneurs who have called for an end to double accounting that is pandemic in trade and worked to ensure that low and high altitude trekking porters did not work under inhuman conditions? Where are the St X graduates in the leadership of the NGO movement in Nepal? Our own alumni association, GAA has languished for years amidst financial anarchy, vacuous leadership and a nostalgia for times when each of its activities was patronized by members of the Nepali Royalty.
Very few of the graduates have paid back to the school in any form of philanthropy. When asked, many would not hesitate to say
that they will only do so if the school provides them and their act some visibility or ensures that their own sons (and now daughters) will get admission in the future!
During this celebration year, graduates of St Xavier's must learn to ask some tough questions about their own record. If they are so upright as is being claimed, let them
show the evidence that they will "lead for Nepal" (as the second part of the school motto says) beyond their private or trade interests.
Given all the resources and opportunities we had and have, St X graduates must ask why their own record of contributions to our society is not much better.
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