Bidhu Bhusan Das

Bidhu Bhusan Das (also spelled Bidhubhusan Das,^[1] 11 April 1922 – 2 June 1999) was a legendary and immensely venerated public intellectual, scholar, professor, administrator and senior government official from the state of Orissa, India. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he earned his B. Litt in 1948,^[2] and the universities of Columbia, Harvard, Patna and Utkal, Professor Das taught, mentored and inspired two generations of his students, at Ravenshaw University, who subsequently rose to become Speakers of the Parliament of India, Chief Justices of India's Supreme Court, Chief Ministers, cabinet and state ministers, (both at the centre and in Orissa), administrators, diplomats, physicians, artists, scholars, scientists, teachers, poets and intellectuals.

Career

Professor Bidhu Bhusan Das was Vice-Chancellor of Utkal University in 1977.^[3][4] He was the director of the State Institute of Education in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, for two years.^[5] He was Director of Public Instruction in Orissa from 1968–80, as well as professor of English at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, Tribhuvan University in Nepal and NEHU, Shillong. He turned down an offer to become Vice Chancellor of Sambalpur University.^[6] He was advisor to King Mahendra of Nepal under the Colombo Plan and a member of the Indian Aid Mission to Nepal. In that capacity, he wrote the entire set of statutes to set up Tribhuvan University in Nepal. The Institute of Physics in Bhubaneswar, which is nationally and internationally respected, was the brainchild of Professor Bidhu Bhusan Das, and he set it up during his tenure as Director of Public Instruction, Orissa. Das served as a senior advisor to Chief Minister Maharaja Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo while in government service in Orissa. As well, Das was advisor to the government of Nagaland in the early 1980s, working closely with Chief Minister S.C. Jamir, and wrote the entire set of statutes to set up Nagaland University. He became a Fellow of the World Bank Institute in Washington, DC in 1971.

Family

Bidhubhusan Das belonged to a distinguished and famous political family from Orissa, and was the eldest - and favourite - child of Rai Bahadur Durga Charan Das of the Indian Administrative Service, IAS, and Nirmala Devi, award-winning poet, who belonged to a wealthy, aristocratic Zamindar family (erstwhile rulers) of the province. He was married to Prabhat Nalini Das. His maternal aunt, Sarala Devi, was a firebrand feminist, and social activist, who was the first woman Member of the Legislative Assembly, MLA, of Orissa and the first female Speaker of the Orissa Legislative Assembly. Sarala Devi was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Acharya Kripalani and Sarojini Naidu, among others. She played a leading role in the Quit India movement against British rule, and donated her entire and rather vast collection of jewellery, and tracts of valuable real estate, to support the fight for India's independence. Bidhubhushan Das's maternal uncle, Nityanand Kanungo, was one of Orissa's earliest and most prominent national level leaders - he was union cabinet minister in the first and successive post- independence cabinets of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru appointed Kanungo governor of Gujarat, and then, of the united Bihar.

Professor Bidhu Bhusan Das Memorial Lecture

A memorial lecture has been instituted in his honour, and, in 2013, it was delivered at the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology by Dr. Shashi Tharoor, eminent diplomat, author, former Union Minister and Member of Parliament.^[7] The second memorial lecture was delivered in 2016 by R Gopalakrishnan, industrialist and author, and Executive Director of Tata Sons, with Justice Ananga Kumar Patnaik, of the Supreme Court of India, in the chair.

Publications

• "Some Criteria of Acceptability in Translation". Journal of Literary Studies. 13 (2). 1989.

References

Further reading

• Misra, Santrupt. Human Resource Management In Public Service. Mittal Publications. p. 64. ISBN 978-8-170-99408-4.