From Sea to Shining Sea

Doon School Wants a Taste of SAARC

India's elite send their children to the Doon School, at the idyllic foothills of Garhwal, so that they are groomed to become the country´s future leaders. Soon, Doon may be churning out leaders for all of South Asia.

The Doon, preeminent among India´s exclusive public schools, plans to start admitting deserving pupils on  SAARC scholarships.

The school, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in October with a gala affair, is talking with the Indian government, which will take up the matter with the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu. The old boy network is said to have come in handy when Doon´s Headmaster Shomie Ranjan Das approached the South Block with the proposal.

At present, there are only eight Bangladeshis and eight Nepalis among the about 450 boarder students. "We feel that many parents from other South Asian countries who send their children overseas would prefer to send them to India, where they face less cultural alienation," says Das.

tries who send their children overseas would prefer to send them to India, where they face less cultural alienation," says Das.

Secular School
Public schools, patterned on boarding schools for boys in 19th century England, are an enduring legacy of colonial British rule. Their graduates have ascended to the topmost rungs of India´s and Pakistan´s political, military, and business leadership.

Nostalgic old boys from Pakistan are now setting up their own version of Doon on the outskirts of Lahore. Named the Chandbagh after the estate on which the original is located, the school will open for admissions next year. The moving force behind the Pakistani school is Doori old boy Lt. General Ghulam Zilani Khan, a former army general and governor of Pakistan´s Punjab province.

"The greatest thing about Doon School was that it was secular, with no feelings of caste or creed," recalls Miangul Aurangzeb, Class of 1945. He is a prominent Pakistani lawmaker and member of the Parliament´s Public Accounts Committee. Aurangzeb, considered to be close to former Premier Nawaz Sharif, even believes that the Doon old boy ties have helped maintain a modicum of understanding between the rulers in New Delhi and Islamabad.

"I have many friends in India. Hatred is created by politicians and priests, big people with small minds," he says. S.N. Taiukdar, Class of 1943 and a former consultant to India´s oil exploration industry, agrees. "They are very nice to me in Lahore. I find it difficult to understand, how they (Pakistanis) can hate us," he muses, puffing at his pipe as he watches a school-alumni cricket match.

Aurangzeb fears that the increasing hold of the clergy in his country could undermine religious neutrality in public schools. He says the government in Islamabad is likely to insist on religious instruction in the Chandbagh school.

The Pakistan ´old boys´ at the celebrations included the School´s first girl pupil, Muin Vahid. Girls are not admitted unless they are daughters of school teachers. Vahid and Aurangzeb were among the 11 Pakistanis who attended the 60th anniversary celebration in Dehradun, which was inaugurated by Indian Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, not an old boy. However, he had in tow his assistant and the country´s second-most influential economic policy-maker, Finance Secretary and old boy Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Elite, Not Elitist
Doon enforces a spartan regimen. Boys wake up to ´choti hazri´, a cup of milk or tea, at six in the morning, followed by physical exercise till seven o´clock. They troop into classrooms from the exercise field at 7:30a.m. Breakfast is at 8:50a.m. There is a compulsory one and a quarter hour of rest after lunch. Compulsory games in the evening are followed by a bath, dinner, and an hour and half of study time. Lights-out is at a quarter of ten.

Boys cannot keep money on their person and allowances are not supposed to exceed IRs 50 a month. Like the school-supplied regulation clothes, this is meant to ensure equality among the boys, a large number of whom come from affluent families. The school charges an annual fee of IRs 48,000. However, 45 students are on scholarships ranging from IRs 20,000 to IRs 30,000 a year. Another 75 pupils are entitled to annual bursaries of between IRs 8000 and IRs 15,000.

However, none of this has succeeded in dispelling Doon´s elitist image. School teachers, requesting anonymity, lament the growing waywardness of their wards. There are tales of rich parents opening accounts for their children in Dehradun´s luxury hotels. Coming to the institution´s defence, one senior master repeats a well-used tine, "We are trying to maintain Doon as an elite school, but definitely not an elitist school."

"They are playing with words," responds another, more cynical, teacher.

Headmaster Das, a grandson of the school´s founder, has heard the criticism often and thinks it is unfair. Recently, his office even prepared an audio-visual presentation to correct the impression of an upscale school. "A successful institution always acquires the im¬age of elitism, without its wishing to do so," he explains. "The School was always supported by the middle class and those who were interested in good education."

In an average year, only two out of every 10 students come from very rich business families, says Das, and the rest are children of government and defence personnel and other professionals.

Old boy Bunker Roy, recipient of the Magsaysay Award for his community empowerment work among the villagers of Rajasthan, is not kind to his alma mater. In the school magazine´s diamond jubilee special, Roy charged Doon with "producing disoriented celebrities—certainly not men of character, of compassion, of humility…"

Oh-oh. Are these, then, the ones who will rule South Asia, if those scholarships are forthcoming?