This article is written for the alumni of SP Jain institute of Management, the group I am a part of.
The title mimics the brilliant play by Oscar Wilde and I am amused at the strange and unforgiving recurring patterns of history. In the year 2005 there were a spate of mails that had polarised the alumni group about the decision to globalize SP Jain institute (apart from an appointment of a director who was anyway out within a year) with several members commending and others including myself condemning the same. It was not globalisation that was on contest, however though that was the ostensible reason which made some of us look like Luddites opposing the inexorable march of global capitalism (forget the occupy protesters). It was the curious case of the Jains trying to buy back what they considered as truly Jain i.e the brand name. Let me clarify. That global brand dream has soured. The decision to go global at SP Jain was being questioned not because globalisation was bad but because there seemed too much at stake in diluting the brand, intersecting dissimilar governance systems between a profit and a non profit organisation, a larger than needed proportion of the Jain family members on the governing council and likelihood of uneven standards especially in admission despite the inadequate strength of core faculty being spread like peanut butter or rather salt from Dharangadhra Chemical Works of the Jain business lines.
The title mimics the brilliant play by Oscar Wilde and I am amused at the strange and unforgiving recurring patterns of history. In the year 2005 there were a spate of mails that had polarised the alumni group about the decision to globalize SP Jain institute (apart from an appointment of a director who was anyway out within a year) with several members commending and others including myself condemning the same. It was not globalisation that was on contest, however though that was the ostensible reason which made some of us look like Luddites opposing the inexorable march of global capitalism (forget the occupy protesters). It was the curious case of the Jains trying to buy back what they considered as truly Jain i.e the brand name. Let me clarify. That global brand dream has soured. The decision to go global at SP Jain was being questioned not because globalisation was bad but because there seemed too much at stake in diluting the brand, intersecting dissimilar governance systems between a profit and a non profit organisation, a larger than needed proportion of the Jain family members on the governing council and likelihood of uneven standards especially in admission despite the inadequate strength of core faculty being spread like peanut butter or rather salt from Dharangadhra Chemical Works of the Jain business lines.
