India‘s Best Students: Be inspired!

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

The fourteenth and youngest child in his family, Bhimrao Sakpal became aware of his untouchable status early on. At school in Satara, he was made to sit on a mat on the classroom floor, while the others sat at their desks. He had to cup his hand together for a drink of water, while his classmates drank from cups. But one ‘high caste’ teacher grew fond of him. He rechristened him with the surname ‘Ambedkar’ and encouraged him to study as he was very good at studies.

When his mother passed away, his family moved to a one-room chawl in Parel, Bombay, and he attended Elphinstone High School. His father woke him up every morning at 2 a.m., to study while his siblings were asleep. At school he was not allowed to take up Sanskrit as it was the language of the Holy Scriptures; he was given Persian. At the age of 17, he passed matriculation, a first for his community, and as was the tradition at the time, he married Rambai, a nine-year old.

But education remained his goal and after completing his BA in 1912, he won a scholarship from the Maharajah of Baroda for the world-renowned Columbia University in New York. Here, he spent most of his time in the library and studied for 18 hours a day.

In 1915, he earned an MA and a DSc at the London School of Economics before being awarded his PhD in 1927. In 1952, Columbia presented him with an honorary doctorate for his service as “a great social reformer and a valiant upholder of human rights” (source Columbia University).

After his return to  India,  though his academic laurels earned him high paying jobs, the social ostracism he faced made Ambedkar acutely aware of the condition of Dalits in the country and led him to wage  a lifelong struggle to ensure a dignified existence to his brethren.

Though  his commitment to Dalit cause brought him into direct confrontation  with Congress many a times, like a true nationalist, he joined  independent India’s first cabinet as a law minister and was the prime architect of the Indian Constitution On November 26, 1949, Ambedkar’s Draft of the Constitution of India was adopted but soon after, in 1950, he resigned as law minister when Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet refused to pass the Women's Rights Bill.

Between  1950-56 he was very active in organisation and emancipation of Dalits and converted himself to Buddhism to escape the clutches of untouchability. Dr. BR Ambedkar passed away in 1956, leaving behind a legacy of ideas, books and his passion for equality.

Did you know…

• Dr. Ambedkar was a good cook and would cook pulav as a young boy. 
• A scholar at heart, his home library housed more than 50,000 books.
• Even at the age of 60, he took violin lessons.

Papers presented
MA Thesis: Ancient Indian Commerce
PhD thesis at the University of London: The Problem of the Rupee
PhD thesis at Columbia University: The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India
+150 papers on diverse aspects of political economy and social conditions.

 

Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975)

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Sarvepalli was born in a middle class Telugu Brahmin family in Tirutani, close to Madras. His father wanted him to be a priest and did not want his son to learn English but recognising his merit, he sent him to a mission school at Tirupati in 1896. After a short stint at Voorhees College in Vellore, he joined the Christian College, Madras at the age of 17. It was here that Radhakrishnan was trained in European philosophy and diverse theological views, thanks to his mentor, Professor AG Hogg.

During this time, the family obligations precluded Radhakrishnan from applying for a scholarship to study in Britain. Having published in national journals, he finally managed to draw the attention of a larger audience, people in the West in particular, when he published an article, “The Ethics of the Bhagavadgita and Kant” in The International Journal of Ethics in 1911.

In 1921, Radhakrishnan took up the prestigious George V Chair in Philosophy at Calcutta University. Academic recognition came in 1936, when he was offered the Chair of Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford which he retained for 16 years. And after India’s independence, he became active in political affairs and was elected to become the second President of India.

In the photograph: Dr Radhakrishnan (extreme right) with Rabindranath Tagore (middle) at a convocation ceremony

Hirendranath Mukerjee, a veteran CPI leader, reminisced about his meeting with Dr. Radhakrishnan in England in the journal Mainstream in 1975, “Shedding his turban but not his long coat, he would board a bus with me to come to my digs for a meal and a chat, and of course, his room in Walton Street were always open to us.”

Did you know?
When he became President in 1962 British philosopher Bertrand Russel said, “It is an honour to philosophy that Dr. Radhakrishnan should be President of India.

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (1919–1971)

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai

Sarabhai was born on August 12, 1919 to wealth. He started his education in a family school and went on to complete his matriculation and intermediate in science from Gujarat College, Ahmedabad. Soon he left for England to finish Tripos in Natural Sciences from the St. John’s College, University of Cambridge in 1940.

Sarabhai returned to Cambridge in 1945 and was awarded a PhD in 1947 for his thesis titled ‘Cosmic Ray investigation in Tropical Latitudes’. As he came back to India again, he was instrumental in establishing the Indian Space Research Organization.

He also founded the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, an institution devoted to the study of cosmic rays and other space. Sarabhai strengthened both: the Atomic Energy and Space Research programmes in India from 1966 till his early death.

Did you know...
As a person interested in music, photography, archaeology and so on, he was an institution builder. Sarabhai established IIM Ahmedabad, ATIRA, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology and also the Blind Men Association.

Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1909-1966)

Homi Jehangir Bhabha

Born in Bombay, Dr Bhabha belonged to an illustrious family with strong nationalistic spirit. His parents took a keen interest in shaping his love for science and he had his own private library. He also picked up his creative instinct and aesthetic sense from his family, who valued fine arts,  and western classical music.

At the age of 15, he passed the Senior Cambridge Examination and carried on with his interest in science for two years in Bombay before he joined Caius College in Cambridge in 1927 to study engineering. His love for physics was unusual. He wrote to his father from Cambridge in 1928, “I am burning with desire to do Physics. I will and must do it some time. It is no use saying to Beethoven you must be a scientist for it is a great thing, when he did not care two hoots for science. It is not in the nature of things. I therefore earnestly implore you to let me do physics”.

His exposure to Western science, in the labs at Cambridge during 1927-1939, motivated him to be associated with scientific developments, particularly in Physics. It was during this period that Bhabha carried out original research relating to cosmic radiation. His first publication at 24, fetched him the Isaac Newton Studentship to pursue his PhD. Between 1938-1942 he published 20 papers. In 1940, he got Fellowship of the Royal Society of Science, UK.

Back in India in 1939, Bhabha worked at IISc Bangalore, with Dr. CV Raman, His proximity to Nehru and his own charisma led to the establishment of two major scientific institutions: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Atomic Energy Commission.

As a physicist, he is known for his work on relativistic electron-positron scattering or ‘Bhabha scattering’ and theory of electromagnetic cosmic ray showers. Bhabha’s leadership of atomic energy programme spanned 22 years till 1966. Received  the Padma Bhushan in 1954. 

Did you know...

• A painter, musician and an institution builder, he remained a bachelor, and when quizzed about marriage said, “I am married to creativity."
   

Verghese Kurien

Verghese Kurien (1921-present)

In a letter to his grandson, featured in his book I Too Had a Dream, Kurien wrote, “I could have pursued a career in metallurgy and perhaps become the chief executive of a large company. Yet, I chose none of these because somewhere, deep down, I knew I could make a more meaningful contribution by working here in Anand, Gujarat.” This expression came after much struggle and much after he made an impregnable contribution to ‘Operation Flood’, which replicated the White Revolution pattern of the 1970s, and trebled India’s milk production within a span of two -and-a-half decades, to make India the world’s largest milk producer.

Kurien  was born on November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala into an illustrious family; his father was a civil surgeon in Cochin. He graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and got a BE (Mechanical) from the University of Madras. After graduating, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946.

After completing his Master’s in Science in Metallurgical Engineering from Michigan State University, Kurien had to serve in a rural region in India because his US study was sponsored by Indian Government. In May 1949, he was posted as a dairy engineer at the Government Research Creamery in Anand District in Gujarat. In his book, he wrote that at the start of his career, he hated Anand.

But around the same time, the infant cooperative dairy, Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union (KDCMPUL) - now famous as Amul - was fighting a battle with a privately owned dairy. Young Kurien was intrigued by a band of tenacious dairy farmers and volunteered to help to set up a processing plant. This marked the birth of AMUL.

More than his competence in bringing technical and administrative skills to the co-operative, his contribution was his commitment to the cause. Dr. Kurien empowered the Indian farmer combining development, technology, and marketing.

His association with building the co-operative society from ‘scratch’ gradually made him fall in love with Anand and today, he even wants his body to be cremated in Anand.

Awards & Honours

• Senior Fellowship in 1952 under Colombo Plan for advanced training in dairy plan design and engineering in New Zealand/Australia.
• Represented India in the International Dairy Congresses in Rome, 1956 and Copenhagen, 1962.
• Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1963.

Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar (Scientist)

Born in Bhera, West Punjab, Shanti lost his father when he was only eight months old.  At school, Shanti developed an absorbing interest in science, primarily due to scientific experiments. He passed matriculation in 1911 and moved to Dyal Singh College on a university scholarship. Here he loved his guru Professor N N Godbole’s liking for indigenous industrial products.

Soon after completing his MSc in 1919, he left for University College London in 1921, thanks to a scholarship by the Dyal Singh Trust. His work was on surface tension of oils, under the supervision of Prof. Frederick Donnan, FRS.

After returning to India, the  Second World War provided SSB, the opportunity to build scientific infrastructure for the country. Later, he became the first Director-General of the CSIR and was instrumental in establishing a series of national laboratories. Other coveted positions include the first Chairman of the University Grants Commission; Secretary, Ministry of Education; Secretary of Atomic Energy Commission and Educational Adviser to the Government of India.

Did you know...

• An acclaimed chemist, Bhatnagar also wrote Urdu poetry.

C.N.R. Rao  (1934-present) Chemist & Research Professor

C N R Rao

 Born in Bangalore, Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao never attended primary school. Though his father was an inspector of schools, his self-educated mother mentored him till the age of six, with a special emphasis on maths and mythology. His interest in science was strongly influenced by Dr CV Raman’s visit to his middle school in 1946, Not wanting to do medicine or join the civil services, he moved to Banaras Hindu University so that he could take up additional courses besides his thesis. Spending some time as a research chemist at the chemistry department in University of California Berkley, CNRR came back to IISc Bangalore and joined as a reader in 1959, where he used to do spectroscopy without a spectrometer. He accepted an offer from IIT Kanpur in 1963 which according to him, had the best academicians in the chemistry department.

Known for his research in superconductivity and the chemical properties of superconductive materials, he received numerous awards for his contributions to chemistry, including the Royal Society of Chemistry (London) Medal in 1981, Einstein Gold Medal of UNESCO and the Padma Vibhushan Award in 1985.  CNRR, 75, is now a Linus Pauling Research Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research with special interest in nanomaterials consisting of carbon nanotubes.
 

Jhumpa Lahiri (1967 - present)

Jhumpa Lahiri

Being brought up in two different worlds, both of which were vastly different from her parents’ native world, Nilanjana Sudeshna took a while to “live with herself”. She was born to Bengali Indian immigrants in London in 1967 and moved to the US when she was three.

In the US, she went from Nilanjana to Jhumpa as her kindergarten teacher found it easier to pronounce her pet name. “I always felt so embarrassed by my name. You feel like you're causing someone pain just by being who you are,” she recalls. Lahiri investigated the immigrant identity dilemma in The Namesake (2003), adapted into a popular film by director Mira Nair.

She went on a fellowship to Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center to write her first work of fiction, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), which won her the Pulitzer (2000) and The New Yorker's (2000).
She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her journalist husband and two children, Octavio and Noor.

Awards
O. Henry Award, 1999
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2000

Pulitzer Prize winner
BA English literature, Barnard College, 1989
MA in English, Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, MA in Comparative Literature, Boston University
PhD, Renaissance Studies, 1997

Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal Film Director, Producer (1934- present)

His cinema is closer to real life, and movies like Ankur, Nishant, Manthan and Mandi, carry distinct social messages. A director and screen writer extraordinaire, he was inspired by his upbringing in Trimulgherry, Secunderabad, where feudalism prevailed. He once said in an interview, “It made me very conscious of the social and political nature of things.”

Benegal, 76, studied at the Nizam College affiliated to the Osmania University, Hyderabad and has an MA in Economics. He began working at Lintas Advertising as a copywriter in 1959. He taught at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. After being awarded the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in 1970 he took up a Children Television Workshop in New York, USA

At a young age, he had taken up boxing and wrestling, but later turned to swimming, entering that year for district championship. However, filmmaking is what he loves the most.

Did you know...

• He made his first film at the age of 12 with a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B Benegal.

Zubin Mehta (1936-present)

Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta was exposed to Western classical music even before he could speak. At the age of two, his cherished possessions were a pair of drum sticks (kept under pillows). From the age of nine, he listened to his records everyday, and learned all the symphonies, and honed his musical skills on his own. 

He gave up medicine at the age of 18, and despite financial constraints, the Mehtas sent him to Vienna’s prestigious Academy of Music to pursue his real passion – music.

He quickly went on to conduct the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, and at 26, he became the youngest permanent conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mehta graduated in 1957 and had to wear a full dress suit to conducting a concert, as part of the final examination. Still financially broke, he bought a passable substitute for $25 from a place where waiters purchased their uniforms. He often wore mismatched shoes, as the others had holes in them. His ability as a conductor has now enabled him to perform in  almost all the leading music halls of the world .

Did you know...

• Mehta has been the longest serving music director of the New York Philharmonic.
• He opens his day with three newspapers: Herald Tribune, Jerusalem Post and the English version of Ha'aretz. And in the afternoon he reads the London Times.

Hafeez Contractor

Hafeez Contractor (1950-present) Architect who redefined Mumbai's and Pune's skyline

He is as controversial for his bold views on developing Mumbai city, whether it is the greening of an increasingly concretised Mumbai, or reclaiming more land from the sea. In Class 4 or 5, a teacher predicted that he could be nothing but be an architect.

After school, he was refused admission to an architecture course due to his poor academic record. He decided to join the army, but after his aunt dismissed the idea he took admission in the Arts stream at Jai Hind College in Mumbai. But fate had other plans.

Homi Dallas, the then president of the Indian Institute of Architecture,  got him admitted to the Rachna Sansad Academy of Architecture in Prabhadevi, Mumbai.

He set up his own office in 1982 with a staff of four, which has 350 employees, today. He is credited with building some of the most famous buildings in India including the Hiranandani Gardens in  Mumbai.

Did you know?

• When applying for admission at Rachna Sansad, he carried a heap of athletics certificates
• He graduated with 194/196 out of 200 in design during graduation, a record to date.

Education

• Graduate Diploma in Architecture, Rachna Sansad Academy of Architecture, Mumbai (1975)
• Graduation from Columbia University in New York City (Tata Scholarship)

Sam Pitroda (1942-present)

Sam Pitroda

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda grew up in Titlagarh, a tribal village in Orissa, which had no piped water, electricity, schools or radios. His father, a migrant from Gujarat, who was educated only up to Class 4, nurtured the desire to make his children literate. So he sent him and his brother to school in Baroda. Sam completed his schooling from Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat and finished his Master’s in Physics and Electronics from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.

As a young, energetic youth, Sam was deeply influenced by the US President JF Kennedy and America beckoned. But he was cash-strapped. So he procured a loan from the Orissa government, and took a boat from Mumbai to Genoa (Italy), a train from Genoa to London, a plane from London to New York and a bus from New York to Chicago.

He got a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
On his father’s initiation, he began a business called Wescom Switching with two friends in Chicago area in the early 1970s. Rockwell International bought it in 1979, and the sale earned Sam, a guy who never had money, a lot of money which he didn’t know how to spend. So, he made a trip to India - just to visit.

When he placed a call to his wife from a five star hotel to Chicago, the connectivity was very poor. He decided to fix it and India’s telecom destiny changed forever. He aspired to meet with the then Indian Prime minister, the late Mrs Indira Gandhi but turned down a 10-minute appointment given to him. Instead he sought an hour, saying that he can’t do much in 10 minutes.  89 months later he got the appointment. He flew in from Chicago and gave her a presentation, and eventually this led to the formation of the Center for Development of Telematics in 1984. India’s telecom destiny changed forever.

Responsible for India’s communications revolution Chairman- WorldTel
MSc (Physics & Electronics)
MTech ( lllinois)
 

Did you know...

• As advisor to Rajiv Gandhi, he headed six technology missions on telecom, water, literacy, immunisation, dairy and oil seeds.
• He was founder and the first chairman of Telecom Commission.
• He holds around 100 key technology patents.

Medha Patkar (1954- present) Social activist and reformer MA in Social Work, Tata Institute  of Social Sciences (TISS)

Medha Patkar

After earning an MA in Social Work from TISS, Medha Patkar began her career working with  voluntary organisations  for some years  before  joining  TISS as faculty and began working on her PhD.

But in 1985, she along with a few of her colleagues from the institute took a trip to the Narmada Valley region and found that the Sardar Sarovar programmes, was temporarily suspended at the request of the Ministry of Environment. Listening to the people, Patkar learned that the only information they were given was that the dams would be built and people in the area would be rehabilitated or displaced. She became so deeply immersed in the issue that she shunned her PhD, and became a full-time activist for Narmada Andolan Bhachao organisation.

She almost died during a 22-day hunger strike in 1991. Undaunted, she undertook two more protest fasts in 1993 and 1994. She and her organisation later filed an unsuccessful case in the Indian Supreme Court to stop the construction of the dam.

As an outgrowth of her work to stop dam construction, Patkar helped establish a network of activists across the country called the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM).  

Kiran Bedi (1949-present)

Kiran Bedi

Born into a well-to-do family in Amritsar, Kiran Bedi’s parents emphasised on education for their four daughters. She attended the Sacred Heart Convent School, Amritsar and won awards and honours in athletics, debates and dramatics. She topped Punjab University and in her formative years, joined the National Cadet Corps.

She began her career as lecturer of Political Science in 1970, and quit to join the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972, the first and only woman amongst 70 IPS officers at the National Police Academy at Mount Abu. Serving the IPS, she held various administrative positions in traffic management, crime prevention, police and prison reforms, women development issues and narcotics control.

PhD thesis
She particularly showed interest in the field of narcotics control and drug abuse, which apparently led to the choice of her PhD topic 'Drug Abuse and Domestic Violence', where she established a positive correlation between the two. 

Did you know?
Kiran Bedi inherited her father’s passion for tennis at a young age, won several championships, and even met her husband on the court!