Ian Desai

Swati Mylavarapu

Two Indian Americans — Ian Desai and Swati Mylavarapu, — and a Bangladeshi American — Kazi Sabeel Rahman –– were among the 32 Rhodes Scholars for 2005 named by the Rhodes Trust on Nov. 20. The 32 Americans are among some 95 scholars, including some from India, chosen for the prestigious scholarship.

“It’s overwhelming,” Desai told News India-Times on learning that he had been named a Rhodes Scholar.

Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes. Desai matches many of these qualities. He is a scholar with an athlete’s physique, having physically retraced the routes of mythological heroes of Greece. He was elected a Student Marshal, the highest academic honor that the University of Chicago gives to undergraduates, and he received the university’s Brooker Prize in Book Collecting for his collection of poetry as an undergraduate student at the university.

“I will spend a year studying Modern Greek, and the next year in South Asian studies,” Desai, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in Ancient Studies, told News India-Times. “I did a comparative study on Ancient Greece and Indian Civilizations,” Desai, a native of Brooklyn, New York, said. He received honors for an undergraduate thesis that compared the ancient Greek classic, the Illiad, with the South Asian classic, the Mahabharata. Desai was also part of South Asia Watch, a student organization and initiated its Kashmir project. “We created a yearlong dialogue on the region from cultural and historical perspective,” he noted. The 22-year-old is currently engaged in a nonprofit venture –– LITE (Linking Individuals Through Education) –– that he founded in July to connect high school students across the world on cross-cultural projects. “We have started among Chicago students and I’m going to India in January to start the project there,” Desai said.

The other Indian-American Rhodes Scholar for 2005, Mylavarapu, is a senior at Harvard University from Gainesville, FL. “I was totally stunned when they called my name. I guess you feel a sincere gratitude. It’s fantastic! But the award is like icing on the cake,” Mylavarapu said. She studied communal conflict in India, particularly in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, between the Hindu and Muslim communities and its correlation and impact on social, political and economic fronts, as part of her thesis. “I went over to India and worked with several NGOs (nongovernmental organizations). The trend is changing and now its not only government, but individuals have started working at grassroots level for communal harmony,” she added. Mylavarapu plans to complete M.Phil in economics and social history at Oxford and then go to law school. “In the long term, I want to work in development and policymaking at the United Nations or similar organizations.”

Rahman of Scarsdale, New York, is a senior at Harvard concentrating on social studies. Formerly a senior editor of the Harvard International Review, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. He is currently a tutor in the Harvard Writing Center, plays the clarinet, and is active on the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. He plans to do M.Phil. in Development Studies at Oxford.

The thirty-two Rhodes Scholars chosen from the U.S. will join an international group of Scholars chosen from eighteen other countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Canada, the nations of the Commonwealth Caribbean, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, Southern Africa (South Africa, plus Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Swaziland), Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Approximately 95 Scholars are selected worldwide each year. The scholars will enter the University of Oxford in England in October 2005. They were chosen from 904 applicants –– who were endorsed by 341 colleges and universities. Rhodes Scholarships provide two or three years of study at Oxford. It is the oldest of the international study awards available to American students, created in 1902 by the Will of Cecil Rhodes, British philanthropist and colonial pioneer. Approximately 3,046 Americans have so far won Rhodes Scholarships, among them former president Bill Clinton and Bobby Jindal, who recently became the second Indian American to be elected to Congress.

(Gloria Suhasini also contributed to this report)