John Ely Burchard '1923, MS 1925
John Ely Burchard '1923, MS 1925 was a historian who served as MIT’s first Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) from 1948 to 1964. During his tenure as a Professor of Humanities, Burchard forged an enduring connection between MIT and South Asia, supporting South Asian students in their nationalist aspirations before independence and assisting with educational initiatives in India and Pakistan after decolonization. He visited both countries in 1962 and kept an extensive travel diary. His trips saw him engaging with statesmen, government officials, architects, and American diplomats. He forged these international networks into partnerships that shaped nation-building efforts in both America and South Asia, laying the groundwork for MIT’s transformation into a hub for international studies centered around SHASS. This evolution attracted political scientists, historians, and economists to the Institute who focused their research on the social, political, and economic complexities of South Asia.
John Ely Burchard Courtesy of the MIT Museum
Education for the Free world
“If we are to survive as an influential nation we need better education about the rest the world, its geography, its social anthropology, its economics, its philosophical and ethical standards, its views about art, its values, the prioritizes it sets, none of which may be like ours. We need to learn to communicate and not always and only in our own language.” - John Burchard, “Education for the Free World,” Texas Society of Architects annual, 1961.
Burchard attended the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota for nearly three years before his education was interrupted by a stint with the Army Medical Corp, American Expeditionary Forces. After completing this military service, Burchard studied architectural engineering at MIT, receiving his BS in 1923 and MS in 1925, before returning to MIT as a professor in 1938. From 1940-45, he went on leave to aid America’s World War II efforts, heading several scientific military teams as executive officer of a committee of the National Research Council, division chief of the National Defense Research Committee, and deputy chief of the Office of Field Service. While carrying out various missions, Burchard traveled extensively throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His global perspective was paramount as he sought to make international studies a focal point of the Institute through the comprehensive integration of curricula and cross-cultural initiatives.
Burchard’s National Defense Research Committee certification
Bringing South Asia to MIT
Burchard’s interest in South Asia mirrored the broader interests of SHASS during the late 1940s-50s, which focused significantly on the political viability of decolonizing nations at the height of the Cold War. Burchard was particularly interested in India’s political stability as the largest democracy in the world. The country, in contrast to the fast-industrializing capitalist economy of Pakistan, had adopted a socialist economy with significant emphasis on state-led economic development and the expansion of the public sector. Additionally, while US relations with Pakistan were amicable, and the country became America's “most allied ally” in 1954 through the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and Baghdad Pact a year later, India’s path of Non-Alignment and socialist economic policy left many in America, including Burchard, concerned that the latter would inch closer toward the Soviet Union.
It was these international and domestic concerns that became the focus of Burchard’s vision of SHASS as he assumed a pivotal role in establishing MIT’s Center for International Studies (CIS) in 1951. Through the 1950s and 60s research on and studies involving fieldwork in India in collaboration with Indian social scientists became increasingly prevalent drawing MIT closer to South Asia as scholars such as Myron Weiner, Jagdish Bhagwati, and Pranab Bardhan to MIT. Outside of SHASS, prominent scholars and leaders at MIT such as Norbert Wiener, Norman Dahl, and Jerome Weisner were also involved in various collaborative efforts in India and Pakistan in the 1950s and 60s.
Under John Burchard’s leadership, SHASS became a dynamic powerhouse producing knowledge on the humanities and social sciences from a global perspective. The lasting impact of John Burchard on MIT is evident through the establishment of the Burchard Scholars Program, a seminar series that brings together promising MIT students and SHASS faculty to engage in inquiry and research in SHASS, and the John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities, an endowed chair that honors his legacy. This position was later held by Anita Desai, the first South Asian woman to become faculty at SHASS.
Building 14, Charles Hayden Memorial Library, dedication, John Ely Burchard, 1950 Courtesy of the MIT Museum
Bringing MIT to South Asia
Burchard played a key role in connecting with influential scholars, journalists, and politicians from India and Pakistan, who looked to MIT as a symbol of technology and progress after independence in 1947. He was intimately involved in meaningful discussions regarding educational reform and state advancement
Burchard strongly believed that the most effective approach for advancing developing nations like Pakistan and India lay in prioritizing universal primary education, followed by a holistic higher education blending science and humanities. He argued that society needs scientists in political advisory positions who possess the skills to distill complex information into digestible snippets to aid decision-making, as exemplified by Professor Jerome Weisner, who served as scientific advisor to President John F. Kennedy.
Burchard’s interdisciplinary educational vision later culminated in the 21E (Humanities and Engineering) major at MIT, designed to integrate technical education with a broader understanding of societal and cultural contexts.
Burchard was especially intrigued by and supportive of Pakistan, as it was the first state in centuries to be founded on the basis of common religious identity and the largest Muslim nation. On the fifth anniversary of Pakistan’s independence in 1952, Burchard wrote a heartfelt letter of congratulations to Pakistani officials on behalf of MIT, describing Pakistan as promising, peaceful, and self-governing. He invoked the American War of Independence in his discussion of Pakistani independence, referring to both as a historical moment that came as part of a world wave. For America, that wave was one in which common people were breaking away from monarchy. Pakistan’s moment of independence represented, “the realization of a long-deferred hope of the eastern peoples of the world that they shall no longer have their destinies determined entirely by the thinking of the western populations."
John Burchard in Pakistan, 1962
Collaboration in Pakistan
John Ely Burchard saw great opportunities for MIT to collaborate with Pakistan, especially as the country had distanced itself from socialism and communism and was therefore aligned with America’s Cold War ideology. He took a personal interest in advancing technical education in Pakistan. In 1953, Burchard met with Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, Pakistan’s Minister of Education, at MIT to explore the prospect of bringing holistic engineering education, the kind that Burchard specialized in, to Pakistan through a formal institutional partnership. Plans were made for MIT to send a senior academic to Pakistan for a few months to survey the landscape of Pakistani education, followed by younger professors who would be willing to stay for a few years to build an engineering institution there. Simultaneously, MIT would train a few promising Pakistani engineers to serve as faculty members for the school. As Burchard wrote in a memo to MIT President James Killian: “The idea is to obtain an autonomous technological institute as soon as possible, staffed by Pakistanis.”
Working closely with Qureshi and Admiral Edward Cochrane, Dean of MIT School of Engineering 1952-54, Burchard compiled a list of the principal technological needs of Pakistan, involving increases in agronomic efficiency, electric power, and extractive industries. Karachi was identified as the location to build the engineering school, which would be part of an existing federal university.
Although this vision did not come to fruition, Pakistan had discovered in Burchard, in Qureshi’s words, “a true friend."
Burchard’s list of the principle technological needs of Pakistan, included in a memo to President Killian, 1952
Letter to Burchard from Qureshi, 1952
Burchard in South Asia
In 1962, Burchard visited India and Pakistan and kept an extensive travel diary. He delivered lectures and met with several Pakistani and Indian officials, including the Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru as both nations were establishing themselves on the global stage.
John Burchard’s route through Pakistan and India, beginning in Karachi, Pakistan and ended in Srinagar, India.
Burchard arrived in Karachi, Pakistan at a pivotal moment in Pakistan’s history, days before the Constitution of 1962 went into effect and ended nearly four years of martial law. Burchard recognized the importance of his visit as an opportunity to witness firsthand the transformative shift in Pakistan’s governance and to contribute to its emerging educational landscape, writing in his travel diary on June 8th, 1962 that “this was a new day for the Pakistani constitution."
Burchard delivered seminars on city planning, engineering educational trends in the US, and business management at universities throughout Pakistan, traveling to Karachi, Gilgit-Baltistan, Peshawar, Taxila, Rawalpindi, Swat, Murree, and Lahore, where he delivered a lecture at the Technological University of West Pakistan. He also met several Pakistani engineers, educators, and other important figures including Abdus Salam, then Scientific Advisor to the President of Pakistan, President of the Pakistan Association for the Advancement of Science that was working closely with Preside J.F. Kennedy’s Scientific Mission to Pakistan headed by Jerome Weisner. Salam later became the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in Science.
Burchard found Pakistanis to be “friendly,” “generous,” “humorous,” and generally seemed to enjoy his stay in Pakistan. Aside from official business, he also took great interest in Pakistani architecture, frequently commenting on the “awe-inspiring” beauty of Mughal mosques and gardens.
John Burchard with Abdus Salam, Pakistan 1962
John Burchard in Pakistan, 1962
From Pakistan, Burchard went to India where he delivered similar lectures at seminars in Delhi and Srinagar. There, he met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrum. Under Nehru’s leadership, India pursued a socialist development strategy that relied on public sector-led infrastructural and business initiatives and state-led economic planning. Burchard was highly critical of Nehru’s approach to India’s development. He urged India to abandon their current form socialism in favor of capitalism, likely in an effort to steer India away from a Soviet alliance.
“Then there is I am afraid the deadly bureaucratic and egalitarian hand of Nehru’s kind of socialism. You can’t really have a masterful example somewhere as that would be unfair to elsewhere; you must have all states develop equally or almost so, all the time.” – John Burchard in his India travel diary, 1962
Dean Burchard ended his trip to India asking the question: will India make it into the 20th century? His guess, as conveyed in his travel diary, was a resounding no, foreseeing that India would “fall painfully short of the targets of (its) current plan” due to its emphasis on the public sector. Burchard’s pessimism concerning India was in stark contrast to the optimism with which he considered Pakistan’s future. Yet, he fully supported Nehru’s ambitious plans to build institutions of higher education, science, and technology in India and provided assistance where he could, including the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology.
Predictions about India from Burchard’s India Travel Diary
John Burchard meeting an official in Srinagar, Kashmir.
A Tourist in India and Pakistan
Excerpt about India from Burchard’s India Travel Diary (pg. 71)
During his time in Pakistan and India, Burchard visited many architectural wonders and tourist locations, including Shalimar and the Red Fort, the gardens of Hanza and Srinagar, and more. He recorded his observations and stories in his travel diary that he meticulously and candidly wrote in on a daily basis.
“It was 104 degrees outdoors at 4am one night in Rawalpindi but never in either Burchard body. So far as I know (and Inshallah these are not famous last words).”
“The (Pakistani men’s) clothing is handsome and I think practical, especially the chola and turban…Funny how soon you get used to it so that it no longer seems exotic.”
“Our second jeep driver tells mysterious tales. One night at 11 p.m. he was driving the Hunza road and saw a chukkah sitting in the road. He blew his horn and the chukkah did not move. He got out. The chukkah did not move. He shied a stone. Same thing. Then he fetched his gun. The chukka vanished. It was no bird, you see, but a djinn. Sometimes a djinn shifts his jeep into neutral while it is moving, and so on.”
“Went over to the Clermont houseboats where (we were) greeted amicably by Mr. Butt, read the impressive visitors’ book, shikara ride and driven to the house of the Srinagar manager of Fiat for a good party of Kashmiri food, excellement but I have had a tummache ever since.”
“Should one immediately on leaving India try to sort out impressions or wait for time to season and perhaps to soften? Probably both. It was awfully different than I thought, both worse and better. The better features are the Indian people themselves, more likeable, more intelligent, more vivacious, more humorous, less insistent than one found at home.” - John Burchard’s India travel diary (pg. 70), in India
“The Pakistanis have plenty of faults and the Indians many virtues, but the Kashmir mountains belong to mountain men and I hope they get them back. Islam seems more at home in the hills than Siva and Vishnu and Krishna. But Mr. Nehru comes from these parts and likes Srinagar. Who wouldn’t?” - John Burchard in a statement written to The Examiner, one of his extracurriculars, entitled “The Two Kashmirs.”
“Dean Burchard was more than a spectator of South Asia’s decolonization; he was a bridge-builder. At a pivotal moment in history, marked by Cold War volatility and uncertainty for these developing nations, Burchard established an enduring connection between South Asia and the Institute. While personally a staunch supporter of capitalism, his vision to imbue MIT’s expertise in comprehensive education into the foundation of India and Pakistan extended beyond borders and politics, driven by a steadfast belief in the power of education to shape nations.” - Sarah Syed 2024, Student Researcher