The Vision of Chagla who established the JNU

The Vision of Chagla who established the JNU 

·         Refusing consent to give his name, PM Nehru suggested “Raisina”

·         Dahyabhai Patel accused MC of spreading the “personality cult”

Dr. Hari Desai writes the weekly column in “Asian Voice”, the newsweekly of ABPL Group, London 4 August 2018  To read full text of the column, you may visit   https://bit.ly/2Aw8sTa   and comment. 

• ·         Sometimes branded as a “Leftist den” and “Ground to groom anti-national activities” by ignorant people, the JNU is a prestigious academic and research institution India and Indians can be proud of. Justice Mahommedali Currim Chagla who was the Minister of Education in the Nehru Cabinet, after his stints as the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and Indian Ambassador to USA, was responsible for establishing the JNU as an another University in Delhi. 
• ·         With some hesitation, he mentioned a more delicate point: “Panditji, I would like to name this university after you. You have been the Prime Minister of this country since independence, and you have ruled over our destinies from this city.” Nehru flared up: “You know my views about raising memorials to living persons. This is entirely wrong. No statues should be raised to living persons and no institutions should be named after them.”
• ·         This university should be a modern university, that the students should not be tied down only to the subjects in which they were specializing, and that there should be inter-disciplinary facilities. Students should study subjects which had a bearing on one another, and the various disciplines should not function in water-tight compartments. The university should be international in its outlook, and carry on intensive research in, and teach those subjects which were closest to Nehru’s heart, and to which be devoted and dedicated himself throughout his life,- subjects like democracy, secularism, international understanding.