Makers of Jadavpur: A Technological Perspective

Book excerpt: This volume is authored by Rajat K. Baisya, alumnus of the department of Food Technology and Biochemical Engineering and a distinguished scholar, author and management consultant. The foundations of Jadavpur university and its origins as a technological institution imagined in a nationalist mould, established as a counter to the colonial British education and as a part of the movement for independence, are relatively well-known. What is less explored is the journey that the National Council of Education underwent to transform itself into the Jadavpur University. As a premier institution of higher learning in India at the present time, Jadavpur University has a number of stalwart professors to thank for its worldwide reputation. This book covers the biographies of twenty-two such professors of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology. Written from the ‘technological perspective’, the book attempts to trace a form of history of Jadavpur University through the microhistories of the individuals responsible for its beginnings and subsequent growth.