Roddy Cavaliero
Secretary, 1981-1993
Sushma K Bahl reminisces on the steps that led to the creation of the Charles Wallace India Trust (CWIT) and about her mentor and colleague who was the first CWIT Secretary.
I have a clear recollection of the prolonged negotiations between the Indian and British authorities and the subsequent signing of papers by the then Prime Ministers, James Callaghan and Morarji Desai which finally led to the setting up of the Charles Wallace India Trust. As the Head of Culture at the British Council in New Delhi, I became involved in this project when the funds which had lain buried for long were brought to the attention of those who could do something about it. Finally, after several years of talking and negotiations about the appropriate use and distribution of the funds between India (with the largest share), and the other South Asian countries, in May 1981, the Charles Wallace India Trust was set up as a registered charity in the UK with an independent board of trustees, in accordance with the benefactor’s will. There were separate trusts created to disburse funding in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma also.
The policy and a broad framework for CWIT evolved through discussions between British Council in Delhi and in London. As its first and longest serving secretary (1981- 1993) the late Roderick Cavaliero, or Roddy (as we knew him) played a central role in ensuring that the Trust was managed on sound principles and its funds were used for the two-way exchange between young Indian and British citizens; this was in line with the wishes of the legacy of CWIT’s benefactor. Roddy helped to formulate a fair programme for the selection of the fellowships, as well as funds for training and awards made to Indian scholars and artists who wished to study and do research in the UK. An agreed proportion was also earmarked for INTACH (The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage). Through creating INTACH UK (now closed), the founders had ensured that grants were also available for British people to visit India for study and exchange in the field of culture and heritage.
“Roddy played a central role in ensuring that the Trust was managed on sound principles and helped to formulate a fair programme for the selection of the fellowships.”
“The foundations laid down by Roddy continue to make CWIT a much sought-after programme among bright young Indian scholars as well as host institutions in the UK. ”
Roddy was an energetic person; a fine administrator and historian, Roddy had a keen interest in literature, culture and other academic subjects. He had authored at least four seminal books, alongside his career as a teacher and as a senior British Council representative in various countries around the globe. Roddy had spent a decade in India before he went back to London to become the Deputy Director General of the British Council in London. It was Roddy who put CWIT on a firm footing. Roddy’s other associations include Chair of the British School at Rome – and he often spoke to me about this. It not only helped in shaping CWIT policy but also in the selection and programming of visiting scholars. Roddy took a personal interest in the progress of the visiting scholars and tried to meet them during their stay in the UK.
My long association with CWIT over 25 years brought me into close contact first with Roddy Cavaliero and then Dr Frank Taylor CBE another worthy scholar and genial person who took up the steering of the Trust for the next decade when Roddy left it to become more involved in the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association. I have memories of my visit to Roddy’s home in Kent together with Frank Taylor. Sitting in his beautifully maintained garden, we exchanged ideas and relished the delicacies cooked by his wife Mary. It was such a pleasurable and worthwhile experience. Roddy’s kindness was noted by many of the CWIT grantees who were able to partake his hospitality in Kent, and they have thanked him and the Trust in their reports, publications and books.
The foundations laid down by Roddy and the links developed by him and Frank with the different universities and institutions continue to make CWIT a much sought-after programme among bright young Indian scholars as well as host institutions in the UK. Successive generation of trustees and secretaries are continuing to take CWIT forward to greater heights.
Sushma K Bahl
Independent Arts adviser, writer & curator of cultural projects
Formerly Head Arts & Culture, British Council, India
Richard Alford CMG OBE, Secretary CWIT 2004 - 2018 tells us about his friendship with Roddy Cavaliero.
Roddy made the Charles Wallace India Trust what it is today- unbureaucratic, light touch, quick to respond and ready to trust those to whom it makes grants. As such it reflects Roddy’s own qualities and like the British Council and British School at Rome, is yet another institution in which he invested great energy, humanity and imagination.
The trust was established in 1981, urged on by the then British Council Chair Sir Charles Troughton who had joined forces with Britain’s dynamic High Commissioner to India Sir John Thomson (who died in June 2018 aged 91) to put Charles Wallace’s money, lying unused in the Treasury, to good use. Roddy was Deputy Director General and nominated as the British Council’s trustee. As such he played a key role in setting the direction and the tone of the Trust, both of which have been maintained since.
In determining that his residuary estate should be divided “in equal moieties between the British Treasury and the Treasury of British India” because “ all possessions great and small being acquired from or through the people as mine were should return to the people” Charles William Wallace (b Calcutta 1861 d London 1916) could not have known how vital Roddy Cavaliero (b Wrotham 1928 d Tunbridge Wells 2018) would be in bringing the benefit to India and to Indians that he intended.
Charles Wallace ‘s will didn’t specify how exactly his bequest should bring benefit to Indians. It was Roddy who filled this gap in his typically independent and imaginative way. Taking into account the context of the early 1980s, when UK aid and technical assistance to India was substantial, he focused the Trust’s grant giving on the arts and humanities- relatively neglected fields.
To quote the man himself, writing after a visit to India accompanied to his great pleasure by his wife Mary -with whom he had been posted to Delhi much earlier in his career- he said of the trust’s approach to grant giving:
“A rule of thumb definition has been the contrast between “useless” and “useful”. The more economically useful or desirable the subject the more likely it is to attract funding from usefulness-oriented agencies. The more pure the pursuit of knowledge , the more useless or marginal the subject to the immediate betterment of the human condition , the more likely it is to attract Charles Wallace India Trust funding. High on the current list of “useless” subjects are Sanskrit epistemology at Oxford and a philosophy teacher learning Greek at UCL in order to teach Plato.”
He added:
“The Trust has developed a preferential option for the young (and you can be young until about 40).”
Retiring from the British Council in 1987 Roddy continued to run the Trust until 1992. He took enormous pleasure in doing so, relishing the trustees’ readiness to let him make all the grant giving decisions. His words again, this time in a letter to me shortly before I succeeded Frank Taylor in 2004:
“So briefly, the Trust started as I wanted it to and by and large seems to have been faithful to the basic plan……I used to invite recipients to meet me…..which I found hugely rewarding as I met some thoroughly nice young Indians, some of whom write to tell me how they are getting on, more in fact than I ever seemed to meet or get to know when I actually served in India.”
That personal touch was Roddy’s great gift to the Charles Wallace India Trust. Together with his ability to spot a real need and his skill in shaping the trust from its earliest days it has brought the benefit to over three thousand Indians and more than matched the spirit of Charles Wallace’s will.
Richard Alford
Secretary CWIT 2004 - 2018