However apart from being a politician there has been a distinctive phase in his career when he was a educationist during which he was mostly associated with Calcutta University. His 28 years of public service life can be clearly demarcated into two phases; the first phase from 1924 till 1938 as an educationist and the later phase 1938 till his death as a politician. Unfortunately this great son of India passed away when he was 52 only thus depriving the country of his able guidance.
In this article we will briefly discuss his contributions during his years of association with Calcutta University.
Born on 6th of July 1901 Shyama Prasad was the second son of Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee. He completed his BA in English from Calcutta University securing First Class First position in the same. He thereafter enrolled himself for MA in Bengali at the behest of his father. The MA in Bengali was started in the University by his father to further his dreams of higher education imparted through Bengali and also in Bengali.
ShyamaPrasad was elected to the Senate of Calcutta University (governing body) at the age of 24 and was anointed the Vice Chancellor of the University on 8th August, 1934 at the age of just 33; CU was then the largest university in the country and Shyama Prasad is still the youngest VC in it's history. In the intervening period between the death of Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee in 1924 and ShyamaPrasad taking over the position of VC, Hasan Suhrawardy served as the VC; he was the first Muslim VC of the University.
Since taking over the position of VC of CU many notable acts were performed by Shyama Prasad. At the height of Jewish persecution at the hands of Nazi Hitler, Shyama Prasad invited Einstein to join CU. Initially Einstein expressed his desire but later on having received invitation from Princeton University of US he decided to move to US. Einstein sent a different professor by the name of Clinston Lady as his replacement to CU.
Shyama Prasad invited Rabindranath Tagore to deliver lectures in Bengali at the University. Though that required some amount of coaxing but at the end he was successful. During the period Tagore was also involved in the PhD thesis examination of a candidate by the name of Upendranath Bal. The thesis was title ‘Rammohon Roy’ and the examiners were:
- Dr. Rabindranath Tagore
- Dr. PS Sivswami Iyer - an eminent lawyer and administrator who was also the Advocate General of Madras
- Dr. S Radhakrishnan - the first Vice President and second President of Independent India
Sir Iyer was later replaced by Sir Jadunath Sarkar. What a tough time Mr. Upendranath had while defending his thesis !
Shyama Prasad also requested Tagore to deliver the keynote lecture in the convocation ceremony of the University. This was the first time that someone outside the University was requested for the same. Tagore obliged only on the condition that he would be delivering the address in Bengali; that was also a first. The event took place on 17th February 1937. It was in the same year that Rabindranath composed a song which was adopted as the University song.
Shyama Prasad also started the tradition of celebrating 24th January as the foundation day of the University. This was done in 1935.
Shayam Prasad was also instrumental in initiating the replacement of the more British oriented emblem of CU (Logo 1 in the image below) to one which had more swadeshi touch (Logo 2 in the image below). This was mostly because he wanted to instill a pride for the country among the young graduates of the university who were taking the scrolls marked with the CU emblem.
However since the emblem was protested by Muslim students and political parties because of the presence of Hindu motifs it was changed. The emblem has since then undergone few modifications to arrive at the current one (Current Logo in the image above).
Shyama Prasad was both an educator and a politician but he did well to keep the two separate by not allowing one to influence the other. In West Bengal where there is a ever increasing urge from political parties to control campus elections and politics it's an important trait.
Today most of the universities in West Bengal are undergoing a decay in educational standards. Student politics is quite predominant and often involves bloody turf war between student wings of different political parties. Education obviously has taken a back seat.
Even some of the state funded premier educational institutes like Jadavpur University, Calcutta Medical College are also rocked by strife and protests. And the unsolicited government intervention, at many times to further political agenda, seems to be reason behind those. In such trying times the state is in need of such stalwarts like Shyama Parsad who can keep their duties as an administrator and and educationist separate; and not let one impact the other.
References for this article:
1> Saptahik Bartaman dated 23rd July, 2016
2> http://www.caluniv.ac.in/convocation/convo_address.html
3> http://oldkolkata.blogspot.in/2013/05/oldest-known-university-in-calcutta.html
4> Wikipedia
