DECCAN COLLEGE

Author(s): SUMITRA M. KATRE

Source: Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute , 1990, Vol.
50, GOLDEN JUBILEE (1990), pp. 96-100
Published by: Vice Chancellor, Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute
(Deemed University), Pune

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42931366

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96 Golden Jubilee Volume

lookedthe
was guessing he would be like "Charming
next Prince" in his red
Director.
4 Faze Cap'
The choice was between Dr. Apte and Dr.
Katre. All members of the staff were very
The institute was shifted from the premises
happy when Dr. Katre was appointed as the
to the 'Jeejeebhoy Castle' near the General
next Director. Dr. Apte, though a great
Post in camp, immediately after the Second
scholar, was conscious about his scholarly
World War was started. Nearly, a year was
achievement and status. He was reseroed
wasted in shifting and rearranging the books
and needed a peon even for carrying one
at the new premises. I developed interest in
book from the library to his chamber. Dr.
the technique of librarianship during his
Katre was equally an outstanding scholar. He
period and decided to undergo
has, however, a pleasing personality and
Post-graduate training in librarianship at the
capacity to work in co-operation with
Madras University. Dr. Katre extended all
everybody. I never saw him, offending
facilities to me for the purpose. Mr. J.M.
anyone, in words or action. Dr. Sankalia used
Kanitkar, who guided me in the organisation
to go out on archaeological expeditions very
of the Institute's library left Pune for better
frequently. Though small in appearance his
prospects and I became the Librarian of the
scholarly contributions were universally
Institute in May 1943. I had the unique
acclaimed. Dr. Sankaran was a simple soul.
opportunity of organizing Institute's library
He was very unassuming and never hesitated
under the guidance of Dr. S.M. Katre. He
to carry a heap of books under his arms from
extended full freedom to me in administrative
the library to his department. He felt that his
matters. AH the research scholars, research
department was the most important and often
claimed that maximum funds should be
students and my colleagues like B.N.
Patwardhan, M.L. Gadgil, B.V. Belsare,
allotted for the purchase of books and Baban and other menial staff extended
periodicals relating to his subject. Dialogue
unreserved co-operation in my work. I could
between Dr. Karve and Prof. Shejwalkar
not have succeeded in my new responsibility
were always interesting stimulating as well as
as the Librarian of the University of Poona, if
provocative. It used to be a great feat as well
I had not the opportunity of working in the
as a fun to listen to their conversation, over a
company of treat scholars, good traditions at
variety of subjects at the tea table. Dr. Mrs.
Karve used to address Dr. D.D. Karve as
the Deccan College Post-Graduate Research
Institute.
'Dinoo'. It was a new experience for a newly
married person like me. Apart from her
eminence in the field of Sociology, Dr. Mrs. DECCAN COLLEGE
Karve wrote very lucid Marathi. Prof. PROF. SUMITRA M. KATRE,
Shejwalkar talked on all subjects, expressing
his agitated mind relating to degeneration in
(Former Director, Deccan College
the fields of educations! politics and Pune)
community affairs. He was, however, ever
prepared to prove his point. He was a regular My first visit to Deccan College occurred in
visitor to the library and spent most of his time 1932 towards end of April when I went there
in the library instead of sitting in his own to call upon my old fellow student from the
chamber. He used to be very critical about School of Oriental Studies in the University of
young people's fashions. Once he London. Dr. T.N. Dave in the Bombay
questioned me how I could afford to wear Government Education service had been on
trousers and fashionable dress. Prof. Shaikh study leave during the time I was in London
was very handsome and his informal between 1928-31 and on return to India after
behaviour made him very popular. He completing his doctorate, had been

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 Reminiscences 97

transferred to Poona to
while taking the time the
to advertise Deccan
for the posts
However, I and constituting
missed the proper selection
meeting him
summer vacation committees.
had It is to the credit ofstarted
just the Council a
left for his home in Gujarat. It was a that the appointments they had made were
coincidence that when Government closed finally approved by the properly constituted
the College in 1934, I was teaching at the selection committees. Among the Professors
Wadia College in Poona. It was more of aappointed were Drs. V.M. Apte (Sanskrit),
coincidence that when Government H.D. Sankalia (Proto-Indian History) and
announced the reorganization of the myself College (Indo-European Philology). As none
in 1937 I was then teaching at the of S.P.
the Professors was initially approved to
College and attended the open sessionfunction in theas Director, the Council appointed a
Council Hall where this announcement was Committee of Direction from among its
made. More specifically I became more members with Professors Gadgil, Potdar and
closely associated with the preparations for Karmarkar. The new Institute started on 17th
reviving the College as a Postgraduate August 1939 with seven faculty members, a
Research Institute in the light of the Registrar and a Librarian.
recommendations made by the
In 1940 regular appointments were made
Reorganization Committee chaired by
by appointing proper selection committees
Professor D.R. Gadgil. Professor R.P.
and Professor I.J.S. Taraporewala was
Patwardhan who had been appointed as
appointed as the first Director and Professor
Special Officer in charge of preparing the
of Iranian Philology while the original three
College for its new status requested me to
temporary Professors were selected to hold
assist him in acquiring the necessary books
their positions and the Institute began
and journals as well the equipment necessary
functioning with its full complement of staff.
to build up a Phonetics Laboratory. While he
However, the smooth working of the Institute
was making arrangements to get back the
was interrupted by the demand of the Military
furniture and the library of the Deccan
for occupying the campus of Deccan College
College from the Ismail College, Bombay
due to the exigencies of the War and the
and the Karnatak College, Dharwar I was to
College had to shift to Jeejeebhoy Castle in
acquire from abroad the necessary scientific
the Camp, involving a temporary halt to all
journals and books for the newly opening
academic activity. Once, however, the
Department of Linguistics, as this was a new
College settled down in its new environment
field of enquiry for which no provision had
work went on as planned.
been made in the earlier days. Thus, I was a
non-official adviser in building up the library
Despite the severe restrictions imposed by
and laboratory facility for the postgraduate
the state of emergency due to war conditions,
and research requirements. By a fortunate
the Department of Archaeology and History
circumstances the orders for the library books
from Germany arrived in India before the began to function vigorously with small
commencement of the Second World War expeditions which ultimately led to larger
scale excavations in course of time. At the
and complete sets of linguistic journals and
books were received in safe and excellent end of two years, Dr. Taraporewala retired
condition. from the Directorship of the Institute and a
new appointment was to be made. Finally, I
When the Council of Management began was selected by the appropriate Selection
assembling the staff necessary to run the Committee and took office in November
Institute, they made temporary appointments 1942. I inherited an Institute with 8 faculty
in 1939 for a period of less than a year members and a small administrative and
according to rules framed by Government, library staff with a budget of Rs.75,000 per

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98 Golden Jubilee Volume

annum. The first great step towards D.R. Gadgil who were intimately associated
expansion came from the work of the with the development of Deccan College as a
Archaeology Department, involving Postgraduate Research Institute. The first test
additional staff and more precise exploration came when during the War period the Army
in the field of Pre and Proto-history. Grants wanted to take away the 1-inch scale maps
from the Tata Foundation and N.M. Wadia which Professor Patwardhan had acquired
Trust enabled intensive field work. Dr. for the use of Deccan College. I had the full
Sankalia set up a unique standard in this areasupport of Mr. Moos, Director of Education,
for the first time and excavation work in requesting Government to exempt the
continued to be made on precise scientificCollege from surrendering these maps. In a
methods. The Department had the advantagesimilar way, I was fortunate to have the full
of participation in its work by distinguished support of the State Government when in
foreign scholars like Professor Zeuner of the 1962 the Army wanted to occupy the Deccan
University of London. In a similar way theCollege campus during the brief China
work in the Department of Sociology and conflict. It was by a hair's breadth that we
Anthropology chaired by Mrs. Irawati Karvewon reprieve from this demand when Mr.
made a significant impact on her colleaguesChavan became the Defence Minister in the
in Europe and America. As a result, she wasGovernment of India. These are but two
invited as a Visiting Professor by the significant events which illustrate the happy
University of California at Berkeley. The relationship that we had with all those who
advent of Sir Mortimer Wheeler as Directorwere involved in the welfare of the College.
General of Archaeology, Government of
One significant development, arising out of
India, introduced a new epoch of exploratory
the work done by Mrs. Karve, may be
work and Sankalia introduced some of his
recalled here. Originally her post was
students to the fieldwork training sponsored
attached to the Department of Proto- and
by Sir Mortimer. One of his students, who
Ancient-Indian History, since the College
had undergone this training, ultimately
originally operated with to major
became a successor to Sir Mortimer as
departments, the other being Linguistics. In
Director General. Dr. Sankalia's work in this
recognition of Mrs. Karve's work she was
field became so well-known that he was
appointed as Professor of Sociology and her
invited by the Government of India to lead a
original post of Reader and two other posts
proto-historic excavation in the Department
were sanctioned by the University Grants
of Archaeology of the Central Government. Commission to constitute a new composite
The first major expansion occurred when the
Department in the Deccan College.
University Grants Commission, in
appreciation of the work done by Deccan
It was in 1952 that Mr. Gilpatrick of the
College, sanctioned additional posts through
Rockefeller Foundation called on me to
the University of Poona.
discuss the question of how Deccan College
As I was the youngest member of the could assist in solving the problem of
Council of Management since I assumed communication when India adopted Hindi às
charge as Director when I was just 36 years the national and official language, replacing
old, I had to rely a great deal on the support English as the official language. As a result of
of my elder colleagues in the Council. I was this preliminary discussion, the Rockefeller
happy to have uniformally good relations Foundation was prepared to assist Deccan
with them, from the ex-officio members, the College to call a conference of interested
Vice Chancellor of Bombay (later Poona) scholars to formulate a plan. So a Conference
University and the Director of Education, and of Linguistic scholars was sponsored by
in particular Professors R.P. Patwardhan and Deccan College the following year with funds

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 Reminiscences 99

provided by the Foundation, and this Conference of Vice Chancellors and

coincided with a Conference sponsored by Educationists for introducing Linguistics as a
the Poona University to consider the major subject in universities chaired by the
problems involved in using the state language Chairman of the University Grants
as a medium of instruction in the universities. Commission with the University of Poona in
The Deccan College Conference had the 1958. The Report of the recommendations
advantage of Sir Ralph Turner as its made therein, submitted to the UGC resulted
President. As a result of the in the creation of two departments at Poona
recommendations of this Conference the and Annamalai Universities, the Poona
Rockefeller Foundation provided the department being located at Deccan College
necessary funds for a period of five years to as a supplement to its own department. Thus
run the so-called Language Project at Deccan through UGC, all the three departments at
College. In the normal course the policy of Deccan College were augmented and
the Foundation was to grant 100% assistance resulted in the expansion of staff and facilities,
in the first year, and reduce it by 20% each including two major buildings for the
year following. But in view of the particular departments of Archaeology and Linguistics.
situation of the College the Foundation made In addition, the UGC provided funds for
an exception to this rule. I was invited to visit erecting a Ladies' Hostel and a Dining Facility
Europe and America to secure the assistance for the men's hostel, and finally for
of scholars from there to work as faculty expanding the Library Facilities.
members at the summer and autumn schools
of linguistics for training Indian scholars in the
modern techniques of linguistics. Provision One of the major departmental work
was made for training young American undertaken by the Department of Linguistics
scholars in the field of modern Indian was a Dictionary of Inscriptional Sanskrit as a
regional languages and for assisting selectedbasis for a larger work. It was in 1946 that Mr.
Indian scholars to further their training inD.M. Sen of the Ministry of Education, New
foreign and particularly American Delhi, visited Deccan College and after
Universities. Thus, the Project continued inspecting the ongoing programme of work
from 1955 to 1960 when -more than 2000 suggested to me to apply to the Central
Indian scholars were trained in modern Government for grants. Two projects were
Linguistics and about 20 scholars had thepresented as requested : One for a Dictionary
advantage of further training in American of Sanskrit on Historical Principles and the
Universities. Those young American scholarsother for a continuation of the Linguistic
who came here to specialize in selected Survey of India to cover areas omitted in the
Indian Languages returned to their homeoriginal survey, but using modern
universities. It is a matter of deep satisfaction techniques. As a result the Union
to me that some of them reached the highest Government sanctioned a small sum for the
ranks in their chosen fields. Many of the first project, matched by the State
Indian scholars trained at Deccan CollegeGovernment and so the project for a
and then at American Universities who later comprehensive Sanskrit Dictionary came into
settled down in the United States have also being and created a small nucleus for a new
done well. To mention a few; Braj and Department. Through a process in time the
Yamuna Kacchru have become Professors in Union Government finally undertook the
the University of Urbana and Braj was also major responsibility and constituted an
Chairman of the Department of Linguistics integrated autonomous department within
and of a Summer Institute of Linguistics. One Deccan College. It also sanctioned a
of the most significant events in the history of sufficient financial aid for carrying on the
the College was the joint sponsorship of a Linguistic Survey work.

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 100 Golden Jubilee Volume

It was very fortunate for of Indian

Deccan Languages (Ministry of Education,
College
that Dr. C.D. Deshmukh, then Finance Government of India) was located at Deccan
Minister of the Government of India, chose a College, as an extention of the Linguistics
spot in front of Deccan College to build his Department.
home in Poona with the significant name
Yojana. During his visits from Delhi, he used I recall with pleasure the cooperation I
some times to visit Deccan College and received on all sides during my long tenure as
became acquainted with the nature of the Director from 1942 to 1971. 1 also recall with
ongoing work. It was fortunate that when the gratitude and justifiable pride the eminence
full project for the Dictionary was presented to which our student body has achieved in
to our Prime Minister by Professor R.L. their chosen fields. Some of them have
Renou on behalf of Deccan College he had reached the highest positions available to
Dr. Deshmukh with him and the project was them in their field, such as the Director
warmly welcomed. From small beginnings it General of Archaeology (M.N. Deshpande)
has developed into an autonomous or Epigraphist to the Government of India
department with the Department of (G.S. Gai). Others have become Professors.
Linguistics. Two of them have become Vice Chancellors
(V.l. Subramoniam, Bh. Krishnamurti) and
The concept of holding Summer and one has been Director of the Central Institute
Autumn Schools begun by Deccan College of Indian Languages (D.P. Pattanayak).
was supported by the UGC when the Funds
from Rockefeller Foundation ceased at the This year Deccan College, in its
end of five years in 1960 and for the next few reorganized form as a Postgraduate Research
years was supported by grants from the UGC. Institute is celebrating its Golden Jubilee and
Following this pattern UGC has instituted entering upon a new phase as a Deemed
special seminars. University. I am sure that the spirit which
inspired those great scholars who were
With the creation of Centres of Advanced
associated with the old Deccan College like
Study in Linguistics and other subjects UGC Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, the sage of
has begun supporting highly specialized Sangamashram, will enable the newly
research and the Deccan College received developing Deccan College to function at the
this centre in Linguistics in 1963.
highest level of excellence as a Deemed
The international status achieved by University and enhance the glory of India and
Deccan College in the fields specialized its scholarship.
therein attracted the attention of similar
institutes abroad, and three such institutes
desired to be in close proximity and DECCAN COLLEGE :
association with Deccan College. Thus,
American Institute of Indian Studies, the
THE HOME OF INDOLOGY
Ecole Française D-Extreme Orient and the
A.R. KULKARNI
Gotehy Institute sought the support of the
physical facilities at Deccan College to locate
(Formerly Professor & Head,
their centres there. Later the Summer
Department of History,
Institute of Linguistics, an American
University of Poona, Pune)
enterprise, also sought location there. With
the presence of foreign scholars working There are some institutions which leave a
within the campus of Deccan College has permanent mark on your life. Deccan
been beneficial to both. It is also worth College is such an institution with which I am
mentioning that a wing of the Central Instituteassociated for the last quarter of a century.

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