| University of Calcutta
oldest of the modern universities in India. It was founded in 1857
during the administration of Lord canning
(1856-1862), the Governor General of India. The preamble to the university
act, 1857 (Act No II) by which it was constituted, stipulated
that the basic objectives of this university would be to encourage Her
Majesty's subjects of all classes and denominations, 'in the pursuit of
a regular and liberal course of education', and at the same time ascertain
by means of examination the proficiency of all persons in different branches
of Literature, Science and Art. Such persons would be rewarded by Academic
Degrees as evidence of their attainments.
The university thus started off as an affiliating and examining
body with a Vice Chancellor, who held the office on an honorary
basis and was to act, with the consent and advice of a Senate
and a Syndicate. The earlier Vice Chancellors, beginning with
Sir James William Colville (24 January 1857-24 January 1859),
were all Europeans. The first Indian to be appointed to this post
was Sir Gooroodas Banerjee, who was nominated on 1 January 1890
and remained in office till 31 December 1892.
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Asutosh Building, University
of Calcutta |
At the completion of its twenty-fifth year in 1882 the
Calcutta University had already extended far beyond the limits of Calcutta
and the Lower Provinces and included such centres as Patna, Benares, Allahabad,
Lucknow, Cawnpore, Bareilly, Jaipur, Indore, Ajmere, Agra, Delhi, Patiala,
Lahore, Simla, and Amritsar in the West, Dhaka, Gauhati and Rangoon in
the East; Cuttack, Saugor and Nagpur in the South and beyond to Kandy
and Colombo in Ceylon. While the Universities of Bombay and Madras took
care of large parts of the Deccan and the Far South, Burma and Ceylon
chose to cast their lot with the rising fortunes of the University of
Calcutta.
A new epoch was opened in the history of the university
with the passing of the Indian universities
act, 1904. This Act, the result of the deliberations of Lord
Curzon's Educational Conference at Simla in 1901 and the recommendations
of the Universities Commission appointed by lord
curzon in 1902, empowered the university to act as an agency
for the teaching of students and the promotion of study and research.
Lord Curzon had been keen on tightening government control over the universities
and restricting their territorial jurisdictions, especially of the Calcutta
University which at that time encompassed such distant parts as Burma
and Ceylon. This Act limited the number of Senators, the majority of whom
were to be nominated by the government, and laid down stringent conditions
for the affiliation of new colleges. A systematic inspection of the affiliated
colleges by the universities was also required under this Act, which authorised
the universities to make provisions for teaching by the appointment of
lecturers and professors and the equipping of laboratories and museums.
During the Vice Chancellorship of asutosh mookerjee who served the university for four terms, steps were taken to improve the colleges, to reform the schools, and to reorganise the whole system of teaching and more importantly to transform the university into a centre of intellectual activity. The postgraduate teaching departments winch started functioning under the auspices of the university saw remarkable expansion during this time, as was borne out by the report of the Calcutta University Commission presided over by Michael Sadler in 1919. Asutosh's efforts were crowned not only by the expansion of postgraduate teaching in different branches of humanities but also in the practical and applied sciences as well, a deeply felt necessity of the preceding years. The princely donations of Sir Taraknath Palit, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, and Sir rashbehari ghosh enabled Asutosh Mookerjee to make provisions for the construction of large buildings for the university library and science colleges and to provide them with necessary equipments and laboratories. The process set in motion by Asutosh Mookerjee received uninterrupted advancement under the stewardship of as many as thirty-five able Vice-Chancellors during 1919 to 1947, to wit, Dr
nilratan sarkar, Sir William Ewart Greaves, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Dr Hassan
Suhrawardy, Dr shyama
prasad mukherji, mohammad azizul huque,
Dr bidhan chandra roy, Dr Radhabinod Pal and Dr Pramathanath Banerjee. As a notable centre of higher education and advancement of knowledge, the Calcutta University received financial assistance from a number of its benefactors. Men like Prosunno Coomar Tagore, Premchand Roychand, Maharaja Rameswar Singh of Darbhanga, Taraknath Palit, Rashbehati Ghose, Joykissen Mookerjee, Gyanendra Chandra Ghosh, Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandy and Nilratan
Sirkar were all distinguished personalities who had responded to the call of the university. The university was able to teach an ever-increasing variety of subjects in under-graduate and postgraduate courses to suit different tastes and aptitudes so as to meet the increasing demands of a growing society. The expansion of the faculties and the curricula can be measured with reference to the growing number of different examinations. In 1933, the number of examinations was thirty; in 1943 it had risen to thirty-seven, and in 1953 it soared to sixty-four. Along with the diversification of curricula there was also a perceptible ramification from academic to professional studies, and students were drawn in increasing numbers to medical and engineering colleges. By 1936, examinations and certificates were introduced in Military Studies, in 1945 a diploma course was opened in Librarianship. In the same year a diploma course in Soap Technology was started under the department of Applied Chemistry. The expansion of postgraduate studies both in academic and professional subjects also took place. In 1933 Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Urdu became the principal subjects for the MA. In 1939 the Indian Vernaculars were thoroughly reconstituted into Modern Indian Languages for the MA. In the next year Islamic History and Culture was introduced, giving the university the distinguished position of holding a separate department for higher Islamic studies. Statistics and Geography also became subjects for the MA and MSc in the same year. In 1946 Commerce found its place as a separate and autonomous subject while Political Science acquired a distinctive status in 1947. The need for postgraduate studies in science and technology had already received attention in 1936 and was addressed with the introduction of new courses for the degree of Master of Engineering in 1953 and Master of Public Health in 1947. Meanwhile, the Agricultural Institute at Barrackpore, which had opened in 1939, was revived in 1948 when the Khaira Professorship of Agriculture was instituted. Similarly, the foundation of the Institute of Jute Technology in 1946 added a new dimension to the university's curricula. In 1934, an Art gallery and Museum was opened to facilitate postgraduate studies in Ancient Indian History and Culture. It took shape in 1937 when the
asutosh museum of indian art was inaugurated, exhibiting objects of Art and Archeology including hundreds of items like paintings, sculptures, bronzes, terracotta, coins, illustrated manuscripts, banners, scrolls etc from Nepal, Tibet and Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) and West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa and other parts of India. The setting up of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Department of Radio Physics and Electronics, in l945 and 1950 respectively, two significant milestones in the field of scientific learning. On the eve of the Partition of India in 1947, the calendar of the University of Calcutta published a list of 216 colleges affiliated to the university. Among these colleges twenty-seven were situated in East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh). These were, Anandamohan College, Mymensingh (affiliated in 1914), Azizul Huque College, Bogra (1941), Brojomohan College, Barisal (1898), Brojolal Hindu Academy, Daulatpur, Khulna (1914), Carmichael College, Rangpur (1917), Chaumohani College, Noakhali (1945), Chittagong College (1910), Debendra College, Manikganj (1942), Edward College, Pabna (1940), Fazlul Huque College, Chakhar (1941), Haraganga College, Munshiganj (1942), Jamalpur College, Jamalpur (1946), Michael Madhusudan College, Jessore (1942), Gurudayal College, Kishoreganj (1945), Kumudini College, Tangail (1944), Monmohini Institute of Science and Technology, Hemayetpur, Pabna (1946), Prafulla Chandra College, Bagerhat (1923), Rajendra College, Faridpur (1920), Rajendra Kumar Girls' College, Khulna (1944), Rajshahi College, Rajshahi (1878), Sa'dat College, Karatia, Tangail(1939), Satkhira College, Satkhira (1946), Sirajganj College, Sirajganj (1940), Seth Tolaram Girls' College, Narayanganj (1945), Sir Asutosh College, Chittagong (1941), Sri Krishna College, Faridpur (1942), and Victoria College, Narail (1890). Since the inauguration of the postgraduate departments at the inspiration and impetus given by Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, the University of Calcutta had developed into an active centre of research in Arts and Science and had earned recognition all over the world. Among its alumnie were Nobel Laureates like CV Raman and rabindranath tagore, eminent Scientists like
jagadish chandra bose,
prafulla chandra ray, satyendra nath bose, meghnad saha, Jnanendranath Mukherjee, Gyanchandra Ghose and BC Guha. Illustrious philosophers like Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Surendranath Dasgupta, Brajendranath Seal and Krishnachandra Bhattacharya once strode its ramparts. Historians of the repute of DR Bhandarkar, hemchandra
raychaudhuri, Surendranath Sen, Indubhusan Banerjee, Narendrakrishna
Sinha, ramesh
chandra majumdar and Muhammad Zubair Siddiqui did its traditions proud. In the domain of Fine Arts, abanindranath tagore, Shahid Suhrawardy, Ordhendra Coomar Ganguly and nihar ranjan ray added to its glory. In the arena of linguistics suniti kumar
chatterji earned laurels for his extraordinary scholarship.
Until 1947, several experiments in educational models,
for example, the Wardha Scheme, National Council of Education, Visva Bharati,
university
of dhaka and the University of Calcutta were tried out. Notwithstanding
other options, the University of Calcutta continued to play an important
role in undivided Bengal.
[Rachana Chakraborty]
Bibliography
Pramatha Nath Banerjee, (et al), Hundred Years of the University of
Calcutta, Calcutta, 1957; P K Bose, Calcutta University: Some Problems
and Their Remedies, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, 1973; Rachana
Chakraborty, Higher Education in Bengal, (1919-1947): A Study of its
Administration and Management, Calcutta, 1996.
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