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Mainstream, VOL LI, No 40, September 21, 2013

Dr Sanjay Kumar Biswas (1945-2013)

Sunday 22 September 2013, by Ambrose Pinto

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TRIBUTE

Sanjay was a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science and I was a teacher at St. Joseph’s College. He was a mechanical engineer and I taught political science. While he was a Communist, I was a Jesuit, a member of the Catholic Church. He was a Bengali and I am a Mangalorean, born and bred in the State (Karnataka). We met more than two decades ago. We were different and yet not once did we feel that we were not comrades in a common mission. We grew into intimate friends and collaborators in a common mission of making a difference. At least once a week we spoke to each other or met to converse, to plan or to organise. He was a frequent visitor to the campus and the house and we sat over a cup of coffee or tea conversing and discussing several times on the interventions we could make to make the young aware and agents of change.

As soon as I heard that Sanjay was critical in the hospital I requested a former student of mine who had come to meet me to drive me to the Fortis Hospital that evening. Hardly 20 minutes of my coming out of the hospital, Sanjay had passed away.

I was disturbed no doubt. Sanjay, I thought, had at least another ten years of fruitful work to do. The immediate response was: why was Sanjay so careless about his health that he had to go so early? I had spoken to him just three days ago while he was in England and he did say he was stressed. Could he have gone to the hospital earlier and given us the privilege of working with him for a different world for a decade more?

The warm memories and the concerns on which we had worked together kept haunting me that night and I was there at his house the next day to bid him adieu. After spending an hour around his body and joining the procession for the crematorium, it was emotionally impossible to see his body being moved into the electric furnace at the Hebbal crematorium. I wished that Sanjay lived. I decided to move out of the place since I did not desire to see that extinction of a life I had deeply come to revere and appreciate. I returned home with a sense of loss as well as gratitude.

Sanjay was a Perfect Gentleman

In the two decades and more of my association, I thought of Sanjay as a perfect gentleman. In spite of his high academic standing, he was respectful of others with tremendous sensitivity and feeling for others. He was considerate to those around him and extremely polite in his actions. Students were highly appreciative of him. He lectured to students, held animated sessions for civil society groups, addressed priests as well as teachers of the college. In everything that he did he was calm and yet able to present whatever he had to present to the audience in a very pleasant and convincing manner. People felt at ease with him.

He was never dogmatic and willing to discuss and debate concerns and issues with an open mind. Students admired him and teachers appreciated him. Civil society groups felt he was a part of them. Whatever may have been his preoccupations, when he was at a session he was there fully alive. He treated every question and every person with respect and humility.

In the two decades and more of our association, not once have I seen Sanjay annoyed, angry or irritated. For students who hailed from economically weaker sections, he had a soft corner. He met people and students outside the formal group work and cleared their doubts. Those with a mission in life could contact him and he was easily available to them.

Sanjay was a Scholar

As an academician of repute, Sanjay had developed sharp focus and a complex, deep and sophisticated understanding of many of the issues in mechanical and bio-engineering fields. His academic world, however, was not restrictive. He was inquisitive about the world around him and was quick to articulate his views and opinions on concerns affecting society. He had shown a persistent determination to get to the bottom of issues. He was passionate in his explorations and seen as passionate in whatever he did. He was well connected with fellow scholars and was recognised as one. With a large number of publications, he was productive and acknowledged as a leading academician in his field.

There are various kinds of scholars. Most of them do not make sense to the people. They have an ivory tower existence. Sanjay was different. His context of research was people and he always posed the question to himself more than anybody else: how would his work benefit the large masses of the country? What was impressive about Sanjay was that he was equally competent to speak on major concerns that confront society and help people analyse society from the perspective of the poor. In other words, he was a social scientist as well, not through training but by his own making. Much of his scholarship arose from his deep association with people.

Sanjay was an Activist

In spite of being employed in the Indian Institute of Science, Sanjay was not in favour of the state at all times. When he felt the state was repressive, he stood up and expressed his dissent. He was there in the numerous protests against the Gujarat carnage of 2002, the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya and attacks on churches in Karnataka in 2008. When India decided to exhibit its strength by the Pokhran blast, along with his fellow scientists Sanjay protested and joined the larger protests of civil society against the nuclear policy of India.

He was for a nuclear-free world. He was our annual guest, resource person and participant for the August 6 anti-nuclear day programmes of civil society for many years and had convinced students why they must carry on their struggle for a nuclear-free world.

Not only was he an activist, he spent time working within colleges and schools to educate others, maintaining cultural practices and music as an act of resistance, developing national and international networks and forming alliances across movements.

He saw the need for change and was driven by passion to share facts to galvanise the people and students for change. He had a vision for society and always held the view that a different world is possible. Activism was natural for him.

He held the belief that he can make a difference and he has the power to do something on issues of communalism, nuclearisation, electoral reforms, trade union rights, the neo-liberal economic policies that have adversely affected the people and the rights of the poor. Sanjay worked with us in protests, sat with us in dharnas and educated us on several issues of concern for the country.

His last work with us was a students’ manifesto for the elections in Karnataka 2013, a document that was brought out by the students of more than 60 colleges. He was there as a resource person to begin the process and he came for some of the meetings encouraging students and affirming them without trying to put his thoughts and yet raising important questions.

More than anything else, I will miss the person of Dr Sanjay and his great humanity. He was a dreamer and a visionary. Not once did he speak about his self and his needs. He was never selfish. He was a man for others and always thought of improving the quality of life of the masses of India.

Science made no sense to him apart from being at the service of the people. In the area of health he was determined to provide for the country cheaper instruments to reduce the health care costs. As a progressive, he dreamt of an all-India progressive front that could change the future of India by making the state more concerned, more compassionate and more sensitive to the needs of the peasants, workers, the unorganised sector and the poor.

While I pay my tribute to Dr Sanjay and express my gratitude for the inspiration he had been to me personally and to the students of city colleges where we worked together in several campaigns and activities, I am sure we will be able to carry forward his dreams and visions for a new India different from the one at present.

Thanks Sanjay, for everything. You were a great human being. You looked at the world and the people as human beings and you saw a hope in everyone you met. At no point of time even in the most depressing situations you had given up hope and you were an optimist and you transmitted that hope to us. It is that hope—that a new world is possible—that would help us to carry forward our struggle in the days ahead. Though you are not in our midst, your inspiration will remain ever alive in all of us. 

Dr Ambrose Pinto S.J. is with the St Joseph’s College, Bangalore. A personal friend of Sanjay, he worked closely with him for the last two decades.

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