Why the 'Gita' is a must - read at this American university

Since last year, all students of business management at Seton Hall University (SHU), New Jersey, have had to compulsorily study the Bhagavad Gita. Not to glean some tactical insights for use in corporate warfare, but to ground themselves in multiple religious cultures. A laudable objective that would resonate with US president Barack Obama’s vision of a pluralist America where Christians and Muslims, Hindus and Jews, and non-believers, live together.

It all began as a pilot project last year, to teach the Gita to business students as a ‘signature course’ on a full-time basis. From this year, the Gita has become part of the core curriculum at the SHU, which happens to be a Roman Catholic-run institution.

Ironically enough, the initiative was triggered by a concern that the proportion of ‘active’ Catholics filling the faculty and administrative positions was falling. This was making it difficult for the college to maintain its religious identity. The university then constituted a group, and entrusted it with the task of designing an inter-disciplinary course that would help students obtain answers to “perennial questions”. Naturally, this being part of an effort to emphasise the university’s Roman Catholic identity, the answers were to be sought in the Bible, which would be made compulsory reading.

That’s when AD Amar, professor of strategy, policy and knowledge in the university’s School of Business stepped in. As a member of the core curriculum group, he suggested that looking for perennial questions in the Bible would not yield insights from different civilisations and that “it would give students only one perspective.”

The faculty then asked that the answers to the perennial questions “be expanded”. Eventually they decided to consider the ‘answers’ as given by various religions, including Islam and Buddhism. “Many Americans do not understand Hinduism. They find it too complex. In fact, Americans find Buddhism simple and feel it can be imbibed from one known leader, such as the Dalai Lama,” says Amar.

So at one of the core curriculum meetings, Amar proposed that Hinduism should be included. As the world’s oldest religion, he argued, it had put in most thought into the ‘perennial questions.’ His suggestion was accepted, and the SHU committee included the Gita, along with the Koran, the Bible, besides texts from the Buddhist sutras and the Greek philosophers. The course was called The Journey Of Transformation.

“American students will find the Gita rather difficult to navigate due to cultural barriers and a lack of context. But they are all fascinated by India, and being keen to learn, they will be interested,” says Amar.

The Journey Of Transformation will be taught alongside another course, Christianity And Culture In Dialogue. The University will train faculty to take these additional courses, and whoever agrees to take it on will get a stipend of $1,000 for training, and a ‘bounty’ of another $1,000 the first time they teach the course. While six new professors were hired last year for this course, another six are set to be hired this year. If other universities, too, take a leaf out of SHU’s book, then America could well churn out a new generation of business graduates well-versed in the perennial questions. If the recession is still on by the time they pass out, a spiritual grounding in the Gita could prove more than useful.