|
Tributes paid to
M L Sondhi
WSN Network
 New Delhi: Last
week, a number of Indian diplomats and scholars paid rich tributes
to M.L. Sondhi, a former IFS officer, Rhodes scholar, ISSSR chairman
and MP, who remained with India's right wing BJP for many years
before seeing its real agenda and dumping it for saffronising the
intellectual domain.
Born in Lahore on December 14, 1933, Manohar Lal Sondhi studied in
DAV College, Layalpur Khalsa College and the Law College at
Jalandhar before moving to the Delhi School of Economics for a
post-graduate degree. A Rhodes scholar, Sondhi also studied at
Oxford University and Balliol College in UK.
An Indian Foreign Service (IFS) topper of 1959, Sondhi quit the
service in 1961 for a teaching job at Jawaharlal Nehru University in
1961. He successfully contested the Lok Sabha election in 1967 on
the ticket of the Jan Sangh, the predecessor of India's ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After his retirement from JNU, he was
appointed chairman of Indian Council for Social Sciences and Research
(ICSSR).
In 2001, Sondhi fell out with the BJP, accusing it of trying to push
the its Hindutva agenda into the research and academic activities
undertaken by the council. His outspoken attitude toward the ruling
party cost him the chairmanship of the council.
Paying tributes to him, editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, M.J. Akbar,
said in the light of the ongoing row over Indo-US nuclear deal, men
like Sondhi would have asked: "Since when did diplomacy turn from
patient task to impatient decision-making?" A timeframe of six
months or a year should not be assigned to the conclusion of a deal
that might affect the country for years to come, he said. A book,
Rising India: Friends and Foes: Essays in Honour of Prof. M. L.
Sondhi, was released on the occasion.
Sondhi's wife, Madhuri S. Sondhi, is currently a regular contributor
to The Asian Age and is one of India's brilliant book reviewers,
often bringing to the fore many titles which escape the scrutiny of
most intellectuals. She writes regularly for The Asian Age.
3 October, 2007
|
Read Also