A writer and professor by profession, Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain shares his principles of life with the youth

Interview by Sakshi Aggarwal

Professor Trilok Kumar Jain, born 14 April 1968, is a writer and professor in management and social entrepreneurship in Western and Central Rajasthan in India. He did B.Com. from University of Rajasthan Jaipur in 1986, MBA from Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University Ajmer in 1989 and Ph.D. from Bhavnagar University Bhavnagar in 1999.

Professor Trilok Kumar Jain is currently the Dean of International School of Business Management, Suresh Gyan vihar University Jaipur. He has earlier worked as Principal of Sri Jain P G College Bikaner, as principal of Seth Gyaniram Bansidhar Podar College, Nawalgarh, and as Director of A.V. Jain Girls College Sriganganagar (Rajasthan). He has contributed substantially to social entrepreneurship and social development in Western and Central Rajasthan state in India by writing articles in both Hindi and English language and by supporting social entrepreneurs of this region. In his article, he asserts that relative economics is the solution for sustainable development. He is writer in the I U E magazine started by Sujit Lalwani.

He is also a member of the Board of Management of Ajit Foundation for Social Development started by Prof. Vijay Shankar Vyas. He did his FDP in management from IIM Ahmedabad. He worked as academic associate in IIM Ahmedabad in 1994. He also worked as Faculty Member in the Department of Business Management in Bhavnagar University and started the Shantilal Shah Department of Business Management. He also worked as Financial Analyst with Bank of Rajasthan from 1995 to 1996. He served as member of Board of Studies in Maharaja Ganga Singh University in its earlier years. He guided many research projects of Doctoral Research Scholars of management subject under Maharaja Ganga Singh University Bikaner.

Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain’s experience in the education industry

This is the only sector where I can transform ordinary (raw) youth into enlightened, conscious and humanely skilled people, whereby I can change (their) lives forever. I have (with others) transformed countless youth into visionary leaders and ambassadors of happiness and well-being. I have enabled countless students to appreciate Indian village life and created the mission of transforming their own village into the model village in their mind. A large number of my students have done pioneering work towards humanity – which no one else could even dream to do (including myself). For example, one ordinary student has converted into a pioneering entrepreneur in the field of Organic Farming and Organic Roof Top Gardens and Green Walls (in a short span of just 5 years). To see this transformation in one’s lifetime is itself a highly satisfying experience. The job of giving the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and the job of enabling the youth to see and appreciate the most important values and foundations for life so that these students become the makers of tomorrow and strive towards sustainable development and inclusive growth. We consider human development as the most important goal of life and transmit this goal to our students and enable them to contribute towards a brighter future for our existence.

“I follow the overall mission, vision, and philosophy of the founders of the University – which is to enable a culture of enlightenment, creativity, innovation, learning, knowledge sharing, exploration, collaboration for positive action, proaction, egalitarianism and overall social development.”

Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain’s philosophy of leadership and his leadership style

I follow the overall mission, vision, and philosophy of the founders of the University which is to enable a culture of enlightenment, creativity, innovation, learning, knowledge sharing, exploration, collaboration for positive action, proaction, egalitarianism and overall social development. I act as a facilitator and help all those who wish to innovate and venture out to enable youth to participate in the learning process. Rather than a leader. I see myself as a servant towards the cause of spreading education and skill enhancement. I recharge myself every day with positive thoughts and evaluate myself from the perspective of the youth, who approach me for seeking guidance and support. The priorities before the founders of the University was to spread education and they did it free of cost even prior to independence. This priority is still the most important priority. Education here has broad meaning - the journey of enlightenment – the learning that can help us in getting free from the bondage of life and death. We truly believe in this broad concept of education and strive to spark the spirit of true learning among our students. Mastery of one’s self-takes priority on mastery on any other object. Understanding and regulating one’s own thoughts and actions take priority over regulating others. We practice this and are prepared to answer the questions of our students about this, who observe and admire us and ultimately absorb these values in their life. Enlightenment cannot be pushed – but it is absorbed through the culture – where knowledge, learning, and human values are given highest priorities. As a routine process, we regularly invite those who are truly dutiful (Karmveer) and Sthitpragya (sthitpragya means those who practice their duty with utmost diligence but without attachment) to interact with our employees and our students so that we can re-establish our commitments. Fortunately, India has many such great leaders, who are truly selfless leaders. For example, we invite Dr. S.N. Subba Rao every year to interact with our entire family and inspire us.

Significant challenges faced by Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain as the Dean of ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University

The modern education leads to a new group of value-less, haughty and arrogant society. The material progress is the most important goals of today’s educated youth. The youth of today want to fly to the West as soon as they can. This is not the goal that our Freedom Fighters visualized. This is really very disappointing. The glamour of the West is depriving us of our own talent. The rural youth aspire to quit the villages and this aspiration is further accentuated by our modern educational system. Most of us have lost faith in our own capabilities. The youth are maddened towards the elitist models, which are depriving them of any sense of being from a great culture and rich human civilization. The most challenging task is to re-build self-confidence, self-belief and strong vision and mission for life in the minds of the youth.  Although the youth are generally glamorized by the West, it is my earnest endeavor to connect them to the roots – i.e. age-old Indian culture and values. I try to create an appreciative mindset and strive to bring them closer to the strong foundations for our growth including training in social entrepreneurship, social innovations, mastery on one’s self and leadership lessons from Indian heritage. These are the challenges beyond our curriculum. It is disappointing that democracy is yet to establish itself in our life and actions. It is disheartening that our leaders and common people give higher weightage to material progress and physical prosperity and ignore our age-old priorities of giving higher weightage to spirituality, self-regulation, and self-discipline.

We build those habits in our students, which will make them the thought leaders and enable them to introduce new practices as per needs. The priorities of industry are ‘Profit Creation and ‘Wealth Creation’ but we focus on bigger priorities – the priorities of ‘Social Wellbeing’ and the priorities of ‘Happiness for all’.”

Curriculum in ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University

We update our curriculum almost every year and invite industry veterans to guide us about the expectations of the industry. We periodically invite them to inspire our students and take our students to them to enable them to craft their future. Industry specific skills are best taught by industry experts. But we focus on core values, eternal learning spirit and strive to develop and sharpen those qualities that will help the youth in every industry and most importantly in the journey of life. There are many practices that the industry is following today – but would be useless in near future. So, we are not asking students to follow every industry practice, but we instill the techniques of reasoning, the ability to differentiate and analyze between right and wrong practices in the habits of the students. We build those habits in our students, which will make them the thought leaders and enable them to introduce new practices as per needs. The priorities of industry are “Profit Creation” and “Wealth Creation” but we focus on bigger priorities – the priorities of “Social Wellbeing” and the priorities of “Happiness for all”. These priorities may look similar but in the long term, our efforts help us in building resilient societies. Most of the industries today ignore nature, but we are different here – because we put the nature as the most important resource and enable our students to think to keep our environment in the center. This will help them in the long term when they will get an opportunity to give a better vision to the industry. Our university is fortunate that a large number of our students have taken up entrepreneurship in such sectors, which contribute towards nature (for example, one alumnus has introduced cycling as a passion among youth all over India through his own ventures).

The growth of students through placement opportunities available at ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University

Our Training and Placement Office acts as a bridge between aspiring students and corporate world. However, their success depends on skills with our students. We try to hone the skills through multiple platforms including student community clubs, training programs, a rich campus life and innumerable opportunities for industry projects.

We wish to focus more on entrepreneurship and we have witnessed amazing results because entrepreneurial skills enable youth to transform lives of many people. I have also taken the role of director of our Entrepreneurship Cell (Ecosystem for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) and I have given it a top priority.

Our University connects the students to the thought leaders – particularly those persons, who have led Gandhian philosophy in their life. We enable our students to revisit Gandhian thinking of Gram Swarajya and that enables them to pursue their career in their own villages in the overall upliftment of villages. These initiatives have helped us in the transformation of villages and also in transforming the vision of our students, who strive to achieve what Gandhiji dreamt. Such initiatives would stop the migration of youth from rural to urban India and would also take the students towards enlightened life – not just material progress – but spiritual and holistic progress. We have adopted village and train village youth as a part of the overall mission of spreading education for Gandhian Movement of Gram Swarajya (which has been neglected by both Governments and Industry). 

Know more about the placement opportunities available at ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University here.

Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain’s relationship with the students

I am always available to them and try to enable them to organize most of the events – so that they can experience the problems and challenges in event management and thereby learn the importance of human relations, planning and coordination, which would help them throughout. I treat students as an extended family and embrace them with love and affection giving them the due importance and recognizing them and accepting their world reality. I listen to them and trust them, which enables me to win their heart and in turn, they always exceed my expectations. Because I am their trusted well-wisher, so they become my most trusted supporters and enact what I ask them to do. Their success stories are the results that I see every day in return.

Ideal school environment according to Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain

The ideal educational environment is possible through a participative and engaging culture – where students come forward with a zeal to learn and experiment and faculty members are enablers to support them and mentor them. Students are continuously engaged in challenging assignments and get guidance from the best people in that field about designing solutions for the betterment of humanity. Students should get regular guidance, mentoring, and coaching in areas that can help our planet including social innovations, social entrepreneurship, Indian culture and philosophy (including Yoga and Meditation), diversity, leadership, and nation-building. Students should be encouraged to form their voluntary groups and should be given resources, guidance, and support to enable them to invite the best people relating to their field of interest.

Read about the faculty at ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University here.

Top qualities, according to Prof. Trilok Kumar Jain, that an aspiring engineer must possess

An aspiring engineer must have an inquisitive mind, always willing to experiment and innovate and must appreciate the issues relating to sustainable development. They must also learn and practice soft skills and human values in their lives. They must learn and practice Yoga and meditation. Most of the Engineers today consider the Western models as the ideal models and therefore they imitate Western Technologies – which is wrong. We need to understand and appreciate Western technologies – but our requirements are different and our engineers must prepare technologies as per the needs of common Indians. This requires a little bit change in our education system. We take our students to villages and introduce them to great leaders who have used Indian technologies in their initiatives. This is how we integrate western education with Indian technologies into the mindset of our students. Most of the modern engineers do not appreciate Indian technologies or rural technologies and they don’t prepare technologies for rural India. They prepare their technologies for large companies or urban India. This needs change – which are trying to introduce. The top educational institutions of the country have neglected rural India – which has amazing potential and highly rich technologies in practice. We enable our students to appreciate age-old Indian technologies (which were designed keeping the needs of rural India). As an example – we recently took our students to Mr. Rajendra Singh (Waterman), where students absorbed themselves in understanding the traditional technologies relating to water. Our initiatives will become stronger if apex educational bodies also start appreciating Gandhian Values (in practice) and appreciate the rich heritage and wealth of Indian rural areas.

Goals in mind for ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University for the next few years

Our university has the practice of twenty-year goals. Our university has identified twenty important areas, where measurable goals have been set. These goals are time bound and holistic in nature. These goals would enable our University to achieve the desired goals and ambitions. These goals have enabled us to achieve progress and will continue to guide us in future. We are today NAAC Accredited A Grade University and wish to excel further and achieve A+ in the next NAAC Accreditation. As per our goals, we have adopted a village for implementing the Gandhian concept of Gram Swarajya and we have started comprehensive training for the youth of the villages so that they form self-reliant and entrepreneurial villages. We are developing truly Indian curricular for this purpose and imparting the best education in regional languages to the youth for this purpose. Our plans will enable us to transform the villages and this will create a model for other educational institutions. Rather than following Western models of education, our mentors (who are passionate to spread Gandhian philosophy) and planners have chosen to prepare a truly Indian model of education.

Suggestions for the current youth and the aspiring students

The western education creates scientific temper and an egalitarian culture so it should be acquired, but it fails to create the roadmap for the needs of Indian masses – particularly for Indian villages. The youth must take up the challenges of education for our needs. We need a different model of education, which only we have to develop. Experience has proved that economic prosperity without spiritual progress is useless and must be avoided. Yoga, Meditation, and retreat to nature are meant to absorb spirituality, which should remain a continuous process in our life. Rather than focusing on external learning, we must strive to understand and focus on our inner self, which will enable us to discover our infinite knowledge and our potential. Modern education has neglected our age-old expertise in self-discovery, which should be embraced by the youth of today and they should re-establish age-old Indian heritage of the science of self-realization. We regularly invite great social entrepreneurs and those who understand Indian philosophy to interact with students and share their learning from life with the students. We have found amazing results so we recommend the youth to go back to living legends and interact with them and we also recommend students to re-visit Gram Swarajya and try to meet someone who has implemented it in life. This will indeed be a life-changing experience.