Student Protests
Satyagraha at MIT's Lobby 7
In 1946, MIT Libraries mounted an exhibit on the People of India that included a claim that European and Indian soldiers received the same salaries in the British Army. The sponsor of the exhibit, the British Information Service, was not mentioned. Indian students alongside American allies lodged a public protest in The Tech against this colonial propaganda. M.N. Dastur led these protests. They considered the exhibit a deliberate insult to Indians that lied about the racial inequalities and reality of colonial rule. Professor John Burchard, then Director of Libraries and later the first Dean of SHASS, considered both the exhibit and the protest as expressions of freedom of speech. However, he eventually conceded that the British sponsorship of this exhibition should have been visible, and issued an apology to the Indian students for the oversight.
Letter to the editor of the Tech, Jan. 25, 1946, by M. N. Dastur, President, Hindustan Association, MIT
Letter to the editor of the Tech, Feb. 1, 1946, by John E. Burchard, Director of Libraries
In 1945, students put together an exhibition on India in Lobby 10 which included paintings of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, leaders of the independence movement. These paintings were made by Durga S. Bajpai ‘46, a student in Architecture who went on to design the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai in 1952.
Durga Shankar Bajpai '46
Indian Students Arrange Exhibit in Building 10 Lobby
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