Even as Vice President Mr. Jagdeep Dhankhar graces the launch of centenary celebrations of the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), a rich panoply of memories from Central India’s intellectual history springs to fore. Several generations of students -- countless among them undoubtedly illustrious -- have passed through the portals of the RTMNU, giving Central India its impressive intellectual persona, and proving in the process to be the mother of most universities in the region. Such an institution deserves salutes as well as recognition for its salutary contribution! Of course, when an institution lives through a century of its existence, it leaves behind mixed memories. With times gone by, most memories lose their sting of the given moment and finally remain intact in public recall as something that can be viewed with disinterested interest -- almost impersonal, almost to be enjoyed no matter their texture or flavour or fragrance of the moment gone by. The Nagpur University can now boast of all those emotionally criss-cross experiences after a hundred years of purposeful academic existence. Those were the times when India was increasingly getting introduced to modern education, and the birth of Nagpur University was an important landmark in that expanding scenario.

 

‘The Hitavada’ was there when the Nagpur University was born -- welcoming the development, and looking forward to its growth with pleasant anxiousness. ‘The Hitavada’ has been there with the university ever since -- through its good days and not so good days. It has stood by the university in trying times, but also has not missed its duty to expose the undesirable elements and influences that dominated the institution in some of the dark patches of its history. No matter those unavoidable, essential chores of journalistic duty, ‘The Hitavada’ also did not miss expressing its innate sense of pride in the Nagpur University. For, most of ‘The Hitavada’ staffers have been the proud products of the very institution -- making a mark in journalism and on larger social canvas. But with pride also came some moments of serious questioning. Looking back, ‘The Hitavada’ realises that even those moments have had their own sweetness stemming from a deep sense of closeness and kinship. ‘The Hitavada’ remembers that moment as well when the university was named after Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj. It also remembers the moments when the Nagpur University was split into universities at Amravati and later at Gadchiroli. At each such moment, ‘The Hitavada’ joined the region to celebrate what it thought to be the reasonable and essential expansion of the academic footprint as per the call of changing times.

 

The RTMNU has been fortunate to have had some very wonderful personages as Vice-Chancellors who put their signatures on Central India’s academic and intellectual mural. The universaity also produced for the country great legal luminaries, great soldiers, great sportspersons, great scientists, great litterateurs, great historians, great scholars in different subjects. It also boasts of one of the best academic libraries in the country. Through its hundred-year journey, the Nagpur University hosted some annual national sessions of the Indian Science Congress. It also was the host for several nationally important academic events in the country from time to time. Eventually, the RTMNU became an indelible intellectual landmark of the region of Central India. It may have been housed in Nagpur, but its familial influence spread all over Central India. But, even as all this was happening, the university appeared to be losing its steam on occasions, in the process also losing its distinctiveness. Those were surely sad times, we must admit. But there have also been some very bright moments when the university shone out. As the RTMNU officially reaches the hundred-year mark, it carries on its shoulders a big weight of people’s expectations. In changing times, when the nation is engaged in the process of implementing the new educational policy, the university -- any university -- is going to be a nerve centre of an altogether different and modern academic activity. In such moments of new challenges, the people expect the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University to be a nucleus of academic and intellectual excellence, an indisputable centenarian signature of both -- a hundred-old past and an infinite future.