Miss USHA MEHTA

Bombay University

MAMIDIPUDI VENKATARANGAIYA was born on 8th January 1889 in an orthodox Brahmin family in Purini village in Andhra Pradesh. His ancestors were well-known for their learning in the Vedas and the Shastras.

In keeping with the family-tradition, Venkatarangaiya was initiated into the study of the Vedas at the age of seven. He passed the Matriculation examination of the Madras University in 1903 and the B. A. examination in 1907 in First Class securing a University Prize and gold medals.

Those were the days of national ferment, when leaders undertook lecture-tours and appealed to the youth of the country to shed off the shackles of slavery. Under the magic spell of Bepin Chandra Pal’s spirited lectures Venkatarangaiya declined several offers to go to England for qualifying himself for the Indian Civil Service and decided to make teaching the mission of his life.

After passing the M. A. examination, he took up a lecturership in Pithapur Raja’s College, Kakinada. In 1914, he joined the Maharaja’s College, Vizianagaram. He held the post for 13 years. During this period, he also worked as a tutor to the Yuvaraja of Vizianagaram. In 1931, he joined the Andhra University as Head of the Department of History, Economics and Politics and served in this capacity till he retired in 1944. His reputation as a profound scholar, a popular teacher and an all-round political scientist reached far and wide. The Bombay University honoured him by inviting him to become the first holder of the Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Chair in Civics and Politics in 1949. Venkatarangaiya shaped with vision and untiring zeal the department entrusted to his care. He was ably assisted in this difficult task by his colleague the late Ramamurti Pratapagiri. He was responsible both for instituting a specialized course in politics as also for laying solid foundations for field-research and survey-work which was hardly undertaken by other universities then.

Venkatarangaiya is a painstaking and erudite scholar and a prolific writer. Though he is mainly interested in Local Government and Federalism, he has made valuable contributions in the fields of Public Administration, Indian Constitutional Development and International Affairs.

Believing that knowledge of politics and public affairs should percolate to the people, if democracy is to function successfully, Venkatarangaiya devoted himself to the education of the public through pamphlets, popular booklets, public lectures and study-groups. Undoubtedly it is with this end in view that he has been regularly contributing articles to Telugu journals like the Bharati and English magazines like the Triveni. His weekly feature Spotlight on the World in Swatantra and his articles on “Is India a Welfare State?” “Party less Democracy” and “What is Wrong with our Education” in the Illustrated Weekly of India have attracted wide attention.

Ever since independence a heated controversy has been going on in the country regarding the medium of instruction in the universities. Though many a politician has excited popular passions over this issue, few political scientists, in fact, have made a consistent and constructive effort for producing literature in the regional languages. Venkatarangaiya is one of those savants who have enriched Telugu language and literature in the social sciences by their pioneering attempts. He has been associated with the preparation of the Telugu Encyclopaedia.

In Venkatarangaiya we find a rare combination of scholar and researcher; research brought new insights to his teaching and teaching set the perspective for his research. In Maharaja’s College, he conducted several economic surveys of villages. His research in Local Government began at the University of Madras way back in 1925. As the Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Professor of Politics at the Bombay University, he undertook a survey of the personnel of the Bombay Legislature and organized a systematic and scientific study of the first General Elections in Greater Bombay. This was a pioneering study that called for an imaginative adaptation of Western techniques within the context of Indian conditions. This, Venkatarangaiya sought to do by personally contacting party leaders and common voters, the candidates and their agents. He visited slum areas and aristrocratic localities, attended big public meetings and small mohalla (block) meetings, scanned several newspapers and periodicals and checked up every detail personally. The good work done by Venkatarangaiya is being continued in the Bombay University under the guidance of Dr. Aloo Dastur, the present occupant of the Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Chair in Civics and Politics.

Venkatarangaiya has achieved rare distinctions in the academic world. He was one of the founder-members of the Indian Political Science Association and presided over its eighth session held at Annamalainagar in 1945. He served as a member of the three-man committee appointed by the Association to study the First General Elections in the country. He was the local Secretary of the Bombay branch of the Indian Council of World Affairs and a member of the Research Programmes Committee of the Planning Commission for some time. His work as an advisor on educational broadcasting for the All India Radio, Madras and as the editor of Educational India for more than forty years has been highly appreciated.

Venkatarangaiya’s interests are wide and his activities varied. In his long career he held several administrative positions including that of the Dewan of the State of Vizianagaram with grace and dignity. His interest and active association with the cooperative movement, the Rural Reconstruction Association, Nellore, and the Theosophical Society, are well known. Several teachers’ guilds and students’ associations have benefited by his constant guidance and cooperation in their manifold activities.

Presiding over the conference of the teachers in the Andhra University, Venkatarangaiya observed: “Teaching is really the noblest of professions and the higher the standards we place before ourselves the more ennobling it becomes.” An ideal teacher, according to him, should possess clearness and lucidity of expression, prodigious industry, comprehensive learning, perennial freshness of teaching and personality or unique individuality. In Venkatarangaiya, we find all these qualities personified. By his life and work, by his teaching and research, by his continuous and living interest in political science and his former pupils and colleagues, by his simple living and high thinking, by his tireless energy and love for discipline, by his philosophic wisdom and wide vision, he has instructed and inspired a whole generation of teachers and students, strengthened the foundations of democracy in the country and put before us an ideal worth emulating. Like the rishis of old, teachers and scholars like Venkatarangaiya adorn the earth on which they live.

–Reproduced from Essays on Indian Federalism

Edited by S. V. Aiyar and Usha Mehta

Back