Lessons from David and Goliath:
Building the World’s first Vedanta University
How we acquired the land for the University
The story so far…
Before we begin a quick recap of the story, David and Goliath…
David was a shepherd boy who volunteered to fight the giant Goliath. Armed with a sling and stones, David hit Goliath in the forehead with a stone and killed him. Goliath’s army fled in terror, while David’s supporters cheered him on and won the battle. Here, David represents the classic underdog who defeats a much larger opponent.
The effort and hard work put in by Dr. Janki Santoke and her team to acquire the land for the first Vedanta Wisdom University in the world resonates with the story of David and Goliath. With only Rupees Eleven Thousand, they set out to conquer the invincible. Some people advised them to take a loan, while others said we would give you the money, but you have to do XYZ. These offers did not align with Dr Jankiji’s vision for the university. Many naysayers said that in no way could the Vedanta Wisdom Trust (VWT) set up a University, which required them to own 25 acres of land without adequate financial backing. It was typically what most people would have said when David volunteered to fight Goliath – that he would not stand a chance. But he proved otherwise – ‘the small can definitely defeat the large.’ When the Vedanta Wisdom Team finally acquired the land, it was a victory of the underdog, a triumph of determination and perseverance.
At the outset, the team faced their first big challenge—setting up the Trust (VWT) with the outbreak of COVID-19. Acquiring all the necessary compliances was an arduous task. Finally, the Trust was formed in 2019 but could only be registered in September 2020.
But the question on everyone’s mind was: What would justify the new institution and its value addition?
Triggers to setting up the world’s first Vedanta University
Initially, Dr Janki Santoke was running the Vedanta Institute Mumbai (VIM) under Swami Parthasarathy’s umbrella of institutions some years ago. During this time, she had several ideas for conducting events that were not aligned with VIM’s guidelines. During one of the discussions with Swami Parthasarathy, he suggested that she conduct these events independently rather than under the banner of VIM, which she did. However, in the long run, it became difficult to conduct such events autonomously without the backing of an institution or bank account. Eventually, Swami Parthasarathy suggested closing down the Vedanta Institute Mumbai. He advised Dr. Janki Santoke to start her own institution and continue doing what she was doing at VIM under the new Trust.
The activities at the new Trust included teaching Swami Parthasarathy’s commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and his Treatise on Vedanta, as well as conducting the annual Mumbai Yajna led by Sushilaji, a senior disciple of Swami Parthasarathy. The new institution continued these activities while incorporating new ideas for spreading Vedanta. Since there was no point in replicating what Swami Parthasarathy had done, the only value addition that Dr. Janki Santoke could come up with was to award degrees to those who wanted to study Vedanta full-time.
"Why don’t you start a University?"
So, Dr Janki’s first thought was, how do I give degrees? She spoke to one of her students, Deepa Nath, who connected her to Mr Palam Raju, the former Minister of Education of India, who in turn advised her to meet Dr S.S Mantha, former Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). When Dr Mantha asked what she planned to do, she said that she wanted to buy 5-10 acres of land to set up the Vedanta Wisdom Trust. To which he replied, “Why don’t you start a University?” Dr. Janki laughed and replied, “All I want to do is give degrees for the study and research of Vedanta and not teach different subjects as is usually the policy in universities.” He replied that there was no compulsion to do that and a university could be purely domain-based. He added that since she was anyway planning to buy 10 acres, which is the eligibility criteria for setting up a university – there were two options before her: (a) to operate as an affiliate to an existing university, in which case the university held the copyright, and could change anything at any point of time (b) to start her own university, where nobody could tamper with anything. So that became the turning point.
A twist in the tale
So, what began as acquiring 10 acres suddenly rose to 25 acres, and how? When Dr. Jankiji decided to start her own University independently, the process began on how to build this university. The team was helped by Mr Suresh Subramaniam, Registrar and Principal Director at Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, who put many things in perspective. For instance, every State had different rules regarding setting up universities. He helped the team understand that they should set up a State Private University. In Maharashtra, the rule was that you should have 10 acres in the city of Mumbai if you were building a university within urban limits, which, of course, was not affordable and next to impossible for the ‘Davids’ of the Vedanta Wisdom Team. But the twist in the tale was that if they set up the university in a rural area outside Mumbai city, they would require 25 acres!
Groping in darkness
At this point, Dr. Jankiji and her team were functioning in ignorance. Despite this, they initiated the process of finding 25 acres of land in Maharashtra with grit and determination. All hands were on deck. Surender Nagarajan, one of Dr Jankiji’s students, found brokers and plots of land online. Pranesh Kejriwal, another student, offered to drive Dr Jankiji to most of the plots that had been narrowed down for selection. However, they found that in most cases, the property papers were never in order and lacked legal authenticity. They started by looking at plots offered at the lowest price, but slowly and steadily, they were forced to raise the bar to a higher price due to various issues such as no transparency in ownership, non-accessibility by road, etc. The process took almost one and a half years. On most visits, it was Pranesh who drove for 12-13 hours a day with Dr Jankiji. Finally, they chanced upon the perfect plot of land for the university last year in 2023, which they could afford and looked reasonably legal!
Untangling legal knots and facing Goliath
Now, it was the turn of lawyers and legal experts who found a lot of ambiguities in the ownership, and they found out that there was even an accessibility issue with the plot. This led to Dr Jankiji almost retracting even though she was so close to the goal. It was in an eco-sensitive zone, and the team didn’t even know what that meant! Also, they were told they could not buy agricultural land. All these issues were sorted by Harish Talreja, who brought in top lawyers to help sort out this issue. The team received excellent legal advice.
At this point, the Vedanta Wisdom Team jumped into action once again. Just as Surender handled the crowdfunding earlier in the first phase. Pranesh helped locate the various plots. Harish, who had executed all the requirements for buying the plot, finally convinced Dr. Jankiji and asked her, “Why are you dilly-dallying – Nakki Karo.” (finalize it).
Looking back, even though the first phase of crowdfunding garnered substantial funds, the team was very far from achieving their goal of buying the land. In that year, they received their first significant donation of Rs 25 lakhs from Mr. Aswini, a friend of Arun Sehgal – a long-term student of Dr. Jankiji who also serves as a Trustee of the Vedanta Wisdom Trust.
Then, they started the second phase of crowdfunding. This was when people began indirectly saying, “We gave you the money the last time, but you have not yet bought the land.” They started quizzing them on how buying this piece of land was even possible if they didn’t have the money to buy it, etc.
Due to this, the team became naturally demotivated. But you are halfway there when you believe in the goal and have faith. Just as David was confident in facing the giant Goliath, even when trained soldiers were too afraid, though he knew his chances were slim, he would not give up without a fight. This is where Swami Parthasarathy’s 3 C’s for success come into play— Concentration, Consistency, and Cooperation. The team had knowingly or unknowingly followed this throughout their journey, so could success be far behind?
The second crowdfunding did not draw much interest. So, Dr. Jankiji personally requested several of her old students to pitch in and help garner the remaining funds for VWT to accomplish their dream of building the world’s first Vedanta university since they were so close to buying the land. Soon, they started receiving funds to the tune of Rs 10 lakhs from one donor, Brinda Upadhyaya, and Rs 14 lakhs from Prateecha Tandon, who were among several others who pitched in. When people started donating in this manner, the numbers suddenly jumped, and they reached the target for purchasing the land.
Today, VWT is the proud owner of 23 acres, with another 2 acres on the anvil. It was a long, eventful journey culminating in the Bhoomi Pooja on August 25th, 2024.
Currently, the architects are developing the master plan for the university plot and then commencing the plans for the buildings in the initial phase. The immediate need is Rs 10 crores, and the team is attempting to raise at least some of it through the Mumbai Tata Marathon in January 2025. We will update you in January on how that went.
Meanwhile, come, let us join hands and run for a noble cause—run for the World’s First Vedanta University!
