Prof. Ram Parkash Bambah: Mathematician, Institution Builder, and Champion of Liberal Education Remembered on the Eve of His Centennial
Prof Ram Parkash Bambah, an internationally renowned mathematician who was one of the founders of the reputed department of mathematics at Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh, later a Vice Chancellor of the university, and a widely respected public figure in Punjab바카라™s educational and socio-cultural life, died at his house in Chandigarh on May 26. He would have been 100 in September this year.
I had many personal, professional and, strangely, political ties with him. I met him last at his house before COVID. We spent several hours sharing experiences and views on education, politics and general intellectual life in India and the UK, specifically in Chandigarh and Oxford. He remembered his days at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his PhD. He especially recalled pleasant walks there, while talking in Punjabi, with Abdus Salam, the physics Nobel Laureate, who was also at St John's.
We both agreed that the unique college system at Oxford and Cambridge had the great merit that, along with pursuing one바카라™s specialisation, the scholars had the opportunity in their daily lives to interact with other specialists, and this interaction strengthens the liberal educational culture of being open to different perspectives. His Cambridge experience had left a deep imprint not only on his research in mathematics but also on his approach to administration in education, especially about respecting the freedom of thought as the best route to academic excellence.
Though I could not visit him again, I stayed connected with him through correspondence directly and increasingly through contact with his daughter, physicist Bindu Bambah. More recently, my wife, Prof Meena Dhanda, a philosopher, and a friend of Bindu, met him and brought news about his welfare,
When we had left PU for Oxford several years back, he was pleased for us, but even more so for our 4-year-old daughter. His deep sensitivity and caring were revealed through this thought about the child바카라™s future educational prospects.
Before we moved to Oxford, my entire time at PU as a student and later as a teacher had numerous associations with him. When I was studying for my undergraduate degree in Economics at PU in 1971, he was the Dean of University Instructions (DUI), the position next in PU바카라™s hierarchical structure to the Vice Chancellor.
One day, after an incident of violence at the university campus, which was related to the Naxalite movement, I was detained by the police due to my known ideological affiliation with the movement at that time. My teacher the late Prof G. S. Bhalla, and the teacher activists at the university, the late Prof Dharam Vir of the Department of Chemical Engineering and the late Gurbaksh Singh Soch of the Department of English who knew about my political leanings and that I was not involved in any violent activity were worried at my detention. It was a turbulent time in leftwing student politics all over India, and so in Punjab. The police culture of 'encounter' eliminations in response to the emerging militancy in leftwing politics had already started in Punjab then. Prof Bhalla and others requested Prof Bambah to intervene in his capacity as DUI to ensure my safety. Prof Bambah took it very seriously.
I learnt later that he went in his car from one police station to the other in Chandigarh to find out where I was detained. Of course, the police would not let him know, but the message got conveyed to the Chandigarh administration and police authorities that the university at the highest level was concerned about my safety, and I was let off in the evening. This was the beginning of a strong emotional bond that was built with him. Some months later, I was formally arrested and eventually freed after having to go through a terrible ordeal.
Many years later, I wrote a book, 'Economy, Culture and Human Rights: Turbulence in Punjab, India and Beyond' (2010), in which I explored the political economy of human rights and reflected on my personal experiences. I acknowledged my deep debt to Prof Bambah and other academicians who stood up against the establishment in defence of my rights as a student at the university and explained that my attitude as a teacher to my students had been deeply shaped by how my teachers had cared for me, even at risk to themselves.
I sent him a copy of the book, and he wrote back with warm appreciation of my remembrance of him. This deepened the bond between us,
When he was the VC, I had already joined the university as a faculty member in the economics department. In the year 1985-86, I was elected President of the Panjab University Teachers Association (PUTA), and in that capacity, I had to interact with him continuously regarding teachers' demands. Since he respected teachers' rights to form unions and engage with the university for better governance of the university, he always took deep interest in the issues raised by PUTA. He had already initiated the measure to make the PUTA president a nominated member of the university Senate, the highest decision-making body of the university. My predecessor Dr D N Jauhar was the first PUTA president to be made member of the Senate. I followed him. This was Prof Bambah's way of contributing to democratising the university functioning. His inspirational role can be judged by Dr Jauhar, who became the VC of Agra University, writing to me that Prof Bambah was his role model.
Prof Bambah was much more than a mathematician. He was a wholesome educationist. I consider that, along with a few distinguished engineers, physicians, civil servants, architects, designers, artists, and agricultural scientists, he was one of the builders of what is good in modern Punjab. He was an illustrious son of Punjab. A good society honours its thinkers and visionaries. When the philosopher Sartre died, the whole of France mourned his death. When Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm in the UK died, his death was the main news on TV channels and newspapers.
While we mourn the loss of this great mathematician, inspiring educationist, eminent Punjabi, and a wonderful human being, we also remember and celebrate the multi-dimensional societal contributions he made even beyond these categories.
Pritam Singh is a professor emeritus at Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford.