By Matters India Reporter
Mumbai: St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has created history by appointing a Hindu as principle in its 150-year-old history.
Rajendra Shinde, who currently heads the Jesuit-managed the college’s botany department, will assume charge as the institution’s 24th principal on September 1.
The 55-year-old academician is the first non-Christian to head a Jesuit college in India.
“The management has sent a strong message of inclusion by appointing me as principal in its 150th year. My appointment has paved the path for my colleagues and juniors in the future,” Shinde said reacting to his appointment.
Since its inception, the iconic south Mumbai college has had 22 Jesuit priests as principals. In 2015, it appointed Agnelo Menezes, a Catholic layman, as its first non-Jesuit principal.
Shinde has been associated with the college for 35 years. He is a resident of Nerul, an upmarket residential and commercial node in Navi Mumbai.
He was an herbarium curator at the college for almost 10 years since 1983/ He was the vice-principal during 2011-2017.
Shinde’s appointment as the principal comes as the college aims to attain university status.
He comes from a modest railways employees’ family from Nashik.
Shinde completed his primary education in Odha village near Nashik. The village had only one school at that time. He moved to Mumbai in 1978 for junior college studies from St Stanislaus. After completing BSc in botany in 1983, he joined St Xavier’s as herbarium curator. During this period, he completed his MSc.
Shinde has worked on various academic and non-academic bodies at the college since 1991.
St. Xavier’s College was founded on January 2, 1869, by German Jesuits with just two students.
The two students came from a group of six, who appeared for the University matriculation examination in 1868 from St. Mary’s Institution. The first principal was German Jesuit Joseph Michael Willi (de), who held the post from 1869 to 1873. Three other Jesuits began teaching at the college on January 7, 1869.
The college was granted formal recognition by Bombay University on January 30, the same year. One student joined later in 1870. The college began to develop rapidly from 1884 to 1910, under the patronage of Principal Frederick Dreckmann.
The Blatter Herbarium was established in 1906 by the Swiss Jesuit priest Father Ethelbert Blatter and his associates. The college first admitted women in 1912.
Being a German institute in British India, the college suffered wide repercussions during the First World War (1914–1918).
The older German Jesuit priests were interned at the college villa in Khandala in 1914 while the younger German Jesuits were repatriated in 1916.
A few Swiss, Luxemburger, and English Jesuits then managed the college. They increased the number of lay professors.
The Spanish Jesuits arrived in 1922. Spanish Jesuit Henry Heras founded the “Indian Historical Research Institute” in 1925.
Its alumni include Azim Premji, chairperson of Wipro Limited, Mukesh Ambani, chairperson and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited, Ratanji Tata, philanthropist, Jurists Soli Sorabjee, Fali Nariman and Nanabhoy Palkhivala, and Neerja Bhanot, Pan Am chief flight attendant, killed saving passengers on board hijacked flight.
Others include Mario Miranda, cartoonist, Sunil Gavaskar, cricketer, Rohinton Mistry, novelist, Amish Tripathi, author, Rajdeep Sardesai, journalist, and Harish Iyer, activist
Several Bollywood actors such as Alyque Padamsee, Anil Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Farooq Sheikh, Freida Pinto, Vidya Balan, Tabu and Smita Patil, have also studied there.