SHILLONG, Sep 25: The contributions of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, especially towards female education, were the talk of the day during the 12th Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Endowment lecture, which was organised by Women’s College Shillong on Saturday.
According to a statement, the programme was virtually attended by Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University, Sugata Bose, who delivered a lecture on ‘A few Pearls from an Ocean of Learning’.
During the course of the programme, Prof. Bose also virtually inaugurated a bronze bust of Vidyasagar, sculpted by Amiya Nimai Dhara. “Incidentally the large bust of the great educationist and social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is the first-of-its-kind in North East India,” the statement said.
In his lecture, Prof. Bose informed that even noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore had considered Vidyasagar as an emblem of education whose tireless efforts heralded a new age in education for India in general and Bengal in particular.
Prof. Bose, during the programme, also highlighted the role of Vidyasagar as an educationist and a champion of female education.
“Vidyasagar believed in the blending of eastern and western concepts of education and he, in that manner, was rightfully a reformist who broke the rigid code of Bengali society by inculcating the essential elements of western learning. Vidyasagar eventually opened his own college for women, and its doors not only for classical Indian learning but also for the progressive western learning,” the statement said.
The programme was also attended by academicians, researchers, dignitaries and others.
