BBA students to study epics, yoga and spirituality

THE PAPER ON ‘INDIAN MANAGEMENT THOUGHT AND BUSINESS LEADERS’ WILL HAVE FIVE UNITS

Final year students of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in the University of Rajasthan (RU) will have to write a new paper from this academic session. The paper on ‘Indian management thought and business leaders’ will have five units, said Naveen Mathur, professor of business administration at the university.

Last year, the university had incorporated lessons from Indian epics in the MCom (Business Administration), Master of Human Resource Management and Master of International Business syllabus.

The first unit of the new paper includes topics such as spirituality, Indian ethos and values, western values vis-à-vis Indian values and applications of yoga in management. The second unit has dimensions of Vedic management, Bhagwad Gita, Ramayana, and Kautilya’s Arthashastra and the third unit deals with Indian thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, SK Chakraborty and CK Prahlad.

The fourth and fifth units of the paper are devoted to Indian business leaders including JRD Tata, RK Bajaj, GD Birla, Dhirubhai Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Lakshmi Mittal and Sunil Bharti Mittal.

The university has also recommended six books for the BBA final year students. Among the recommendations are publications such as Vedic Management by S Khanna and Bhagavad Gita As Viewed by Swami Vivekananda.

The addition in the BBA syllabus was made in the last academic session, but will find its way into the books from this session. Mathur, who was also the convener of the department’s board of studies that took the decision, said that India has a rich intellectual history and it’s imperative to acquaint the students with that history. “In addition, we need to subvert the Macaulay’s system that is prevalent even today, years after the British rule ended,” said Mathur.

Macaulay, a British academic, was instrumental in introducing English and western concepts to education in India during mid nineteenth century. The knighted Britisher was known to be condescending towards Indian texts.

While the Indian epics and thinkers are only additions in the BBA, some western thinkers were compromised to accommodate the Indian epics and thinkers in the postgraduate courses.