Thursday, November 20, 2008

Jammu University farewells the inimitable Prof. Mattoo



A University stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for the truth."  - Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Speaking at the Allahabad University in 1947
 
If it was one illustrious son of this state who spoke some six decades ago of the ideals that a university must stand for and live up to, today one can say with conviction that it is another son of the same soil who has successfully materialized Nehru's vision to its fullest; making the University of Jammu (JU) scale new heights of academic, professional and intellectual life. Today, the University of Jammu is increasingly seen as a burgeoning destination for quality research, imitable professional standards, and where intellectual tolerance coexists with relentless efforts towards engaging with the wider society beyond the university. JU's shepherd for the last six years is now primed to return to his parent institution, New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), after having successfully taken, among other things, the valuable lessons learned with university classrooms outside and beyond them, to the people of this conflict-ridden state. 
 
Six Years Ago…
As was to be expected of a member of the New Delhi-based "Indian Foreign Policy Community", Amitabh Mattoo was reluctant to leave JNU and New Delhi and come to the then not-so-high-profile JU. Many of his friends and students- this author included- believed this act would be the beginning of the end for one of Indian television's most famous faces on foreign policy related issues. We were scared that Mattoo would be pushed to the peripheries of the Indian strategic community and would lose his intellectual imagination, not to mention expertise, in the narrow confines and petty politics of a regional university. Looking back now at the last six years of Mattoo as VC and the influence his tenure has had on himself and the University, we are convinced that the out-of-the-box-thinking-Mattoo has proven us wrong, yet again. What Amitbah Mattoo has done for JU and the education sector of this state for the last six years is too well-known to need to be recounted here. From setting up new and ambitious academic centers, to establishing the many much-needed off-site campuses, to garnering international recognition and collaboration for JU, to providing high-quality infrastructure, to getting professional recognition from the ISO, Mattoo has been a tireless crusader for quality, excellence and innovative forward-thinking. 
 
Leader, Teacher, Friend
Mattoo has been more than a Vice Chancellor for all of us: He has been an extremely talented leader who finds it important to engage with everybody, even those few disgruntled personalities within the university community. His talks on various topics at the University were great lessons in learning for the University community; Mattoo behaved like a friend, and not an all-powerful boss, with his colleagues.  People joked that he knew all the peons and drivers of the university by name and would take special care of their needs. In his own words, a university is perhaps one of the last remaining colonial institutions of our country, where the VC has such overarching powers as to enable him to do almost whatever he pleases to. And yet it was enlightening for us to watch him make responsible decisions in a much-needed and irrefutably democratic way. 
 
A Visionary  
Amitabh Mattoo likes to think out of the box – the importance of inventive and original thinking has been one of the many important pieces of wisdom that he has imparted to generations of his students at JNU – and not many people, even to this day, know of his unorthodox stances on almost everything, from the Kashmir issue, to Pakistan, to India as an emerging power. When it comes to intellectual curiosity and creativity, he doesn't care for the "correctness" (read: orthodoxy) of arguments. Even the most obstinate of New Delhi bureaucrats, who are not in the habit of listening to academics, take time out to listen to him, as they believe that Mattoo has something important to say about leading this country to its rightful destiny. This is precisely what made Prime Ministers belonging to political parties as fiercely opposed to each other as the Congress and the BJP call upon Mattoo for advice.
  
A Personal Journey with Him
For me, my personal journey with Mattoo has so far been one of intellectual exploration, academic pursuits and, to a great extent, intellectual transformation. Seven years ago when I arrived as a young and starry-eyed M. Phil student at JNU, my motivation was driven by nothing more than mere provincial intellectualism, with all its attendant limitations. Be it as his student at JNU, fellow-peacemaker in the Pugwash Conferences, faculty colleague at JU, co-author of books and articles, or even critiquing each others arguments, it's been an ongoing learning experience. Journeying with Mattoo through the intellectual minefields of J&K, the absurdities of India-Pakistan relations, and seeing and helping people build peace, I realized the importance of visionary teachers in one's life. That is why I am convinced that the students and faculty of the University of Jammu will miss him in the days to come. 
 
Looking ahead 
Mattoo has been a unifying force and was always happy to take everybody on board with him on all issues and initiatives.  Yet there were elements that did not quite like his style of operations and tried to malign his many initiatives with their multiple baseless allegations. Again as Nehru rightly said, "[ b]ut if the temple of learning itself becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or a people grow in stature?" 
 
I sincerely hope that the University of Jammu will realize the importance of all that Amitabh Mattoo has contributed to it and in doing so, that it will grow to understand the worth of the man in the days, and years, to come.

(Source: Greater KashmirOVEMBER 20, 2008. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=17_11_2008&ItemID=48&cat=11 )

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