PU Ambedkar chair cheer

Patna: Patna University will revive the chair named after the architect of the Indian Constitution, BR Ambedkar.

The university, along with the ministry of social justice and empowerment, has issued a notice inviting candidates for filling up four posts in the chair. A chair in the university named after eminent persons carries out research on the work and contribution of the person on whom the chair is named.

N.K. Jha, the dean of students’ welfare Patna University, said: “The university in 2016 received the chair from the ministry of social justice and empowerment but in the past one year no work is being carried out under the chair because of the vacant posts. The university has decided to restructure the chair and for this the university has invited applications for the post of director, research officer who is in the rank of assistant professor, computer officer and another staff.”

Rama Shankar Arya, who was the first director of the chair, said the main job of the chair is to carry out research on the work and contribution of Ambedkar. The scholars in the chair will carry out research activities on the works of Ambedkar and will spread his teachings and contributions among masses.

Arya said: “The work and contribution of Ambedkar is immense and still the society is unaware of his teachings. The scholar will carry out research and will spread his teachings.”

A senior teacher of Patna University, however, said: “The government’s opening of such a chair is political motivated to woo Dalits. Ambedkar is the biggest Dalit icon in the country and every political party is trying to woo the Dalits in the name of Ambedkar.”

Sources said apart from the revival of the Ambedkar chair, the university is also planning to launch a chair in the name of RSS thinker and ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.

Deendayal teamed up with Syamaprosad Mookerjea in 1950 after the latter resigned from the Jawaharlal Nehru cabinet. Mookerjea launched the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951. After Mookerjea’s death in 1953, Deendayal Upadhyay was instrumental in shaping the ideology of Jan Sangh.

Sources said the university has prepared a proposal to launch a chair in the name of Upadhyay and they will send the proposal to the Union government and the state government for final approval.

Courtesy: The Telegraph