Vidyarthy Chatterjee: The Untold Story Of M.D.Madan
The Tatas have all along been opposed to the idea of having a university in Jamshedpur. In fact, Tisco did not want even a college in the city. Which brings us to the saga of Medioma Dhanjishah Madan (1913 – 1962). Dissidents give a character to a place, as much as devotees do. But since, as a rule, dissidents are always in a minority, very often hopelessly so, their objections run the risk of being drowned in the babble of praise produced by the poor of spirit. To talk of Jamshedpur without talking of M. D. Madan is akin to talking of the heavens without the sun or the stars. Madan’s expressed convictions had the fierceness of the sun at high noon, and his patience to convince others to share in his dreams of a social renaissance could rightly be compared to the calm of the stars on a clear night.
Scion of a wealthy and
distinguished Parsee family, Madan fell under the spell of Gandhi’s teachings
early in life. He participated in the ‘Quit India’ movement, courting
imprisonment more than once; gave an exemplary account of himself as a
self-taught labour leader owing no allegiance to any easily identifiable trade
union body during the closing years of British rule; and threw up a
high-ranking job with Tisco so as to be free to raise a college in Jamshedpur.
Democracy and workers' movements - stories from Jamshedpur
It was his Herculean
effort to set up what is now the big and bustling Jamshedpur Cooperative
College that brought Madan both sorrow and satisfaction. Sorrow because he was
badly misunderstood by some of his dear ones, and satisfaction because a
college in Jamshedpur meant the world to him. The top brass of Tisco tried to
dissuade Madan from his objective but when they found that there was no way
that he could be made to change his mind, they launched on a negative campaign,
going to the extent of publicly giving voice to the ludicrous proposition that
a college in an industrial place would be a cockpit of Communism!...
https://countercurrents.org/2020/09/the-untold-story-of-m-d-madan/
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