South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections
South Asia and the Institute showcases the longstanding connections between MIT and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal) that go back more than 140 years. The very first student from what was then British-ruled India attended MIT in 1880, just two decades after the founding of the Institute. For Indians aspiring to freedom, technical education and skills were the need-of-the-hour to alleviate the poverty and underdevelopment facing their country after more than a century of colonization. Then, as now, South Asians looked to MIT as a model institute where they could acquire this knowledge.
After independence in 1947, the Institute served as a guide and partner in the challenging work of decolonization and nation-building that South Asians embarked upon. At the same time, with the reform of discriminatory anti-Asian US immigration policies in the mid-20th century, a growing diaspora of South Asian Americans found a home in MIT. Since then, thousands of MIT’s South Asian alumni, dozens of South Asian faculty, and a large number of academics with a research interest in South Asia have been an active and large presence in all five of MIT’s schools.
MIT is an institution that is continually looking to the future but in uncovering its history, we learn much about ourselves. South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections showcases this history.
South Asia and the Institute: Transformative Connections received the 2023 Great Dome Award from the MIT Alumni Association.
A History of MIT South Asians 1880-1965: Since 1880, MIT’s South Asians have negotiated a changing world of race and immigration in America, and decolonization and nation-building in South Asia. South Asia and the Institute makes these transformative connections visible.
Exploring the institutional connections between MIT and the IIT's, this documentary is part of the MIT South Asia History Project.
The Making of the Exhibit: Researched by current MIT faculty, students, alumni, and staff, the South Asia & the Institute: Transformative Connections exhibit tells the remarkable story of South Asia at MIT and MIT in South Asia to honor the determination and grit of multiple generations of South Asians at the Institute.
