An Indian Official’s Trials and Struggles

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Ram Sahni
Keyword(s):  
Government College ◽  
Presidency College ◽  
The Government ◽  
First Job

In this brief chapter Ruchi Ram Sahni describes his first job after Government College, Lahore, as Assistant Meteorological Reporter to the Government of India, based first in Calcutta where he was trained, and then in Simla. In Calcutta he attended lectures in Chemistry at the Presidency College in order to work towards an MA degree, and made the acquaintance of men such as Ashutosh Mookerjee, who were later to become prominent figures in Bengal. The chapter follows him to Simla, where he worked under the supervision of Mr H.E. Blanford. Sahni records a great regard for the Englishman’s kindness, contrasting it with the general hierarchical attitude of other Englishmen towards Indians. It is these attitudes that create the ‘trials and struggles’ for Indian officials such as Sahni.

An Indian Official’s Trials and Tribulations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Ram Sahni
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
Government College ◽  
Chemistry Department ◽  
Senior Professor ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University

In this chapter Ruchi Ram Sahni recounts what he calls the most depressing and unpleasant incident of his life. It involved his supersession for the position of Professor-in-Charge of the Chemistry Department at the Government College, Lahore, by a much younger Englishman, fresh from university. The post in question was vacated by an English colleague, a Senior Professor, with whom the author had a difficult relationship involving a dispute about who was to be selected for the post of Examiner in the university examinations. This colleague went on to write a secret report against Sahni, resulting in his supersession despite his vast seniority. Sahni relates the psychological trauma resulting from this experience, and its contribution to strengthen his resolve to leave Lahore for a short period to do research in Europe.

scholarly journals Art. VII.—Note on the supposed Discovery of the Principle of the Differential Calculus by an Indian Astronomer

1860 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 221-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Spottiswoode
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Differential Calculus ◽  
Government College ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Asiatic Society ◽  
The Government

In the number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal last received, No. III., of 1858, is a short article by Bapu Deva Shastri, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Government College of Benares, in which he has undertaken to show, that Bháskaráchárya, an astronomer who flourished at Ujjayin in the twelfth century, was fully acquainted with the principle of the Differential Calculus, one of the most important discoveries of the last century in Europe.

scholarly journals Birbal Sahni, 1891-1949

1950 ◽  
Vol 7 (19) ◽  
pp. 264-277 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Reform ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Government College ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Banking Business ◽  
High Esteem ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time

Professor Birbal Shni, the eminent Indian palaeobotanist, was born on 14 November 1891 at Bhera, a small town in the Western Punjab. He was the second son of Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni, who was later Professor of Chemistry at the Government College, Lahore. His grandfather owned a flourishing banking business at Dera Ismail Khan and practised chemical experiments as a hobby. Sahni’s early days were spent in a family and a neighbourhood which were unusually enlightened, and where education was held in high esteem. Plis father, who has been described as a profound scholar and a pioneer in social reform, was responsible for his early education. He encouraged the boy to collect plants, rocks and fossils, and during his vacations took him on excursions to the Himalayas and other places. Even before coming to England for the first time, he had travelled widely in Northern India and had journeyed as far as the borders of Tibet. After attending the Central Model School in Lahore, he proceeded to the Government College, where he had the advantage of learning botany from Professor S. R. Kashyap, and he obtained the degree of B.Sc. of the University of the Punjab in 1911. Immediately after taking his degree he travelled to England and entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he worked until 1919. He obtained a First Class in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1913 and was subsequently elected to a Foundation Scholarship in his college, and afterwards to a Research Studentship. He was placed in the Second Class in Part II of the same Tripos in 1915, a year in which Professor G. E. Briggs was the only botanist to obtain a First. About this time he took the Degree of B.Sc. of the University of London

I Join the Punjab Education Department

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Ram Sahni
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Assistant Professor ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Government College ◽  
Science Class ◽  
Education Department ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University ◽  
University Science

In this chapter Ruchi Ram Sahni recounts his early years as Assistant Professor of Science at the Government College, Lahore. In addition to teaching and running experiments, Sahni delivered three lectures a week in Urdu at the University science class at the Oriental College as a Kapurthala Alexandra scholar. He also found the time to attend carpentry classes for six months at the Mayo School of Art, where he made the acquaintance of Lockwood Kipling and learned carpentry from the famous master architect, Bhai Ram Singh. The chapter also describes an unfortunate episode involving the leaking of examination papers by an English colleague in which Sahni was unfairly implicated, and discusses some British policies which discriminated against Indians in the field of higher education.

My College Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Ram Sahni
Keyword(s):  
Government College ◽  
College Life ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Government ◽  
Arya Samaj ◽  
Lengthy Discussion ◽  
General Culture

In this chapter Ruchi Ram Sahni describes four years of college life at the Government College, Lahore. It includes a lengthy discussion of his teachers at the time, such as Dr G.W. Leitner, J.C. Oman, and Maulavi Mohammed Hussain Azad. It offers several reflections on teaching and pedagogy, some drawn from his own experiences as a teacher. Sahni also describes attempts to challenge various forms of orthodoxy and occultism, for instance, in connection with a visit to Lahore by Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society. These challenges were of a piece of the general culture of discussion and debate in which Sahni and his friends found themselves, whether arguing over the texts of Mill and Bentham or engaging in public debates on a variety of topics. Many of these debates were with close friends associated with the Arya Samaj, whose doctrines were opposed by Sahni, an early adherent of the Brahmo Samaj in Punjab.

scholarly journals Between College and That First Job: Designing and Evaluating Policies for Hiring Diversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1331) ◽  
pp. 1-92
Author(s):  
Soumitra Shukla ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Job Search ◽  
Diversity Index ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Aptitude Tests ◽  
University Recruitment ◽  
Elite College ◽  
Job Offers ◽  
The Government ◽  
Hiring Policies ◽  
First Job

Despite widespread caste disparities, compensatory hiring policies remain absent from the Indian private sector. This paper employs novel administrative data on the job search from an elite college and evaluates policies to promote hiring diversity. Application reading, written aptitude tests, large group debates, and job choices do not explain caste disparities. Disparities arise primarily between the final round, comprising non-technical personal interviews, and job offers; the emergence closely parallels caste revelation. For promoting diversity, hiring subsidies — similar in spirit to the government-proposed Diversity Index — are twice as cost-effective as improving pre-college achievement. Conversely, quotas mirror a hiring tax and reduce university recruitment by 7%.

The Punjab Science Institute

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Ram Sahni
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Government College ◽  
Science Institute ◽  
The Government ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Magic Lantern

This chapter is devoted to the story of the Punjab Science Institute and Scientific Workshop, which Ruchi Ram Sahni set up along with Professor J.C. Oman of the Government College, Lahore. The aim of the Institute was to popularize scientific knowledge through the Punjab, initially through lectures illustrated with experiments and magic lantern slides, given both in English and the vernacular. The Institute’s lectures became so popular that Sahni and his colleagues were invited all over the Province, to small muffasil towns, to the native states of Kapurthala, Patiala, and Bhawalpur, as to the followers of a religious Sikh leader; for many years Sahni also lectured on scientific topics in Punjabi to an audience of shopkeepers in Lahore. In addition to his work of popularizing science, Sahni recounts his adventures in setting up of a Scientific Workshop which grew in time to produce such excellent instruments that colleagues at an Industrial Conference in Poona were convinced that they had not been produced in India, but had been made abroad and were being passed off as Indian. The narrative includes a discussion of Sahni’s acquaintance with M.G. Ranade, whom he came to know in Simla and then stayed with in Poona.

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