Trikamlal Mansukhlal Shah 1929
Trikamal Mansukhlal Shah '29 was born in Limbdi on December 27, 1897 and was a lifelong anticolonial Gandhian nationalist. After graduating from Limbdi High School, Shah studied Mathematics at Fergusson College in Pune. This college had been established by anticolonial nationalists, including Bal Gangadhak Tilak, in 1885. After gradauting, Shah taught at Gujarat Vidyapith a college that Mahatma Gandhi himself founded in 1920. Five years after serving as registrar at Gujarat Vidyapth, Shah he decided to go to MIT for further studies. Gandhi asked him to stay in India and join the fight for independence. Shah responded that he needed to go to America for his own personal growth, and promised to return and spend the rest of his life in the service of his country.
Shah enrolled at MIT as a Sophomore and graduated with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Shah, also called “Trikoo” by peers, was a member of MIT’s branch of the Hindustan Club, a country-wide association of politically-active South Asian students who opposed British colonial rule.
T.M. Shah Electrical Engineering Class 1929
T.M. Shah, Senior Portfolio, 1929
T.M. Shah wrote on a regular basis to his father-in-law documenting his daily life as an international student at MIT. In these, Shah writes of his acclimation to student life, his homesickness, and growing fondness for American culture and traditions. In one instance, Shah described attending student events including a field day, “an occasion [that] can best rival our Holi minus its lewdness”. In another letter, wanting to befriend the Vice President of a large manufacturing company, Shah wrote, “it is all so different from India or even England, where the rich will not condescend to look upon the poor.” Shah's struggles getting situated in his new environment and path to finding a sense of belonging at MIT are challenges that resonate among international students to this day.
T.M. Shah Letter Jan 2, 1927 Courtesy of Anant Shah and Raj Mashruwala
As he had promised Gandhi, T.M. Shah returned to India, where he worked at Tata Iron and Steel Company which housed the largest Steel plant in all of the British Empire at the time. Shah, along with Nandlal Manilal Shah '30, supported a workers' strike in 1932 staged as a part of the Civil Disobedience movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi. They were arrested by the British colonial state for being in "sympathy with Ghandi [sic]". Their incarceration made headlines in the Tech.
Report of TN Shah and NM Shah arrest, The Tech, 1932
Nandlal Shah, Senior Porfolio, 1930
Trikamalal Manusukhlal Shah ’29, SM ’31, kept his promise to Gandhi and returned to India, spending the rest of his life in service to his country as a Gandhian. Courtesy of Deval Canning
Trikamal and Chumpa Shah Courtesy of the Shah family
TM Shah in military uniform. Courtesy of the Shah family