Bidhu Bhusan Das was a revered and legendary public intellectual, educator, professor, and senior government official from India. Das received an A.M. from Columbia University and an M.Litt. from Christ Church, Oxford University. He also studied at Harvard University. Earlier, he earned an M.A. in English from Patna University. He was made a Fellow of the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank,, in 1971.
Education and Influence of American, British and European Academics, Writers and Thinkers
Bidhu Bhusan Das's contribution to the making of the modern, newly independent Odisha and India is both noteworthy and unique. His sensibilities were honed at Columbia University by his teachers, Lionel Trilling, Edmund Wilson, Jacques Barzun, Joseph Campbell, Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Mark Van Doren and Joseph Campbell, and, at Harvard University, by I. A. Richards and William Empson. At Christ Church, Oxford University, Das was taught by J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, A. J. Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, C. S. Lewis, Helen Gardner, Maurice Bowra, Hugh Trevor-Roper and Lord David Cecil. His thesis supervisor at Oxford University was J. I. M. Stewart. Das's students in India thus directly benefited from his teaching and thought, and were influenced by the wide, eclectic and deep canvas of outstanding American, British and European professors, scholars, thinkers, writers and philosophers.
Career
Das started teaching in Ravenshaw University in 1944. He became Sonepur Professor of English at Ravenshaw in 1950. In 1959, he was appointed Advisor to King Mahendra of Nepal as part of the Indian Aid Mission under the Colombo Plan, and wrote the entire set of statutes that established Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University. He was Principal of Ranchi College from 1963–68, and Principal of Ravenshaw University in 1968. After this, from 1968 until 1980, he was instrumental in shaping Odisha's educational policy as Director of Public Instruction and Vice Chancellor of Utkal University. Das taught English and American literature, comparative literature, linguistics and philosophy at Ravenshaw, Tribhuvan, Ranchi, Utkal and NEHU University. He turned down an offer to become Vice Chancellor of Sambalpur University. He was appointed Advisor to Chief Minister Jamir of Nagaland in 1984, where he wrote the entire set of statutes to set up Nagaland University, established by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1989. His roster of students became Chief Justices and justices of the Supreme Court of India, Chief Ministers and ministers of provinces, cabinet ministers at New Delhi, Speakers of Parliament of India, senior government officials, diplomats, attorneys, industrialists, army generals, scientists, artists, writers and scholars. The Institute of Physics in Bhubaneswar, was founded by Das. It is now a part of India's Department of Atomic Energy.
Family
Bidhubhusan Das was born in Puri, Orissa, in 1922, and was the eldest child of Rai Bahadur Durga Charan Das, a senior government official in both British India and independent India, from the Indian Administrative Service, and his mother was the poet Nirmala Devi, who was descended from the aristocracy, the former rulers of the province. He married Prabhat Nalini Das, who went on to become a respected professor in her own right. His maternal aunt, the leader, feminist, writer and social activist Sarala Devi, was the first woman legislator from Odisha, the Odisha Legislative Assembly's first female Speaker, and a friend and colleague of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Das's maternal uncle, Nityanand Kanungo, was a prominent Union Minister in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's first post-independence cabinet, and successive cabinets, and was subsequently appointed Governor of Gujarat and the united Bihar by Nehru and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. His children are Prajna Paramita, the first Odia girl to qualify for India's elite Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Administrative Service, opting for the former as she placed amongst the top candidates; Oopali Operajita, Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, a Senior Advisor to leaders in the Parliament of India, Planetary Woman Hero and virtuoso Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancer; and Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, journalist and technology consultant who wrote the bestseller, "Rising Elephant."
