Osmania University memories turn Chukka Ramaiah nostalgic

Hyderabad: Prominent Educationist Chukka Ramaiah turned nostalgic while recalling his long association with Osmania
University.Sharing his experiences with The Hans India, Ramaiah said it was unbelievable to think that 100 years had passed since the varsity had been set up and the university was celebrating its centenary now.

Recollecting his association with the university, the 90-year old teacher told to The Hans India, “For the last 60 years, I have been staying in the vicinity of the university. I was from a village and my whole education from school days to university was in Urdu medium. Teachers like Khaja Moinuddin, who taught me Mathematics, besides my teachers of Physics and Chemistry had given me the much-needed training.

At the university-level, while pursuing my Masters in Science, teachers like Raghavendra Rao, Venugopalachary and Vanaja Iyyengar were a few who inspired us with their punctuality and teaching. It was their training which made me a Mathematics teacher. Otherwise, I don’t know where I would be today. The very thought of them make me feel humble,” he said. Ramaiah said it was their training which laid the foundation for his teaching skills and in turn he could train his students who had gone to IITs.

Now they are spread across the globe and some are CEO’s of big companies in the USA, some could become even executive members of NASA. “All this was the indirect contribution of OU,” he added.“Common man might not have directly benefited by OU. But, it had played a key role when students took their learning to villages and brought social transformation. This was akin to the way Berkeley University had championed the cause of Afro-American’s in USA,” Ramaiah said.

“Revolutionary ideas of freedom emanated from OU had triggered the Telangana Armed Struggle. Students’ penchant for Russian literature had added to the revolutionary ideas.
This had influenced me to participate in the freedom movement and to go to jail for two years.
At Aurangabad jail, I had met others fighting for the cause and read books like ‘Letters from a Father to her Daughter and ‘Discovery of India’ by Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Nizam government had created two kinds of layers in imparting education. The elites needed for administration had studied in English medium at Nizam College which was affiliated to Madras University. But, common man was taught in Urdu medium thus limiting them to the in the roles of clerks and other lower rung jobs. But, our teachers filled the gap and we were given the best education, he said.
Autocratic regime like the Nizam’s government supported education with an intention that it would protect its authority. But, the inspiration given by the teachers ended up education being used against the authority and to bring transformation as students practised what they had learned and played the role of social workers in villages.

Though the university was established by the Nizams, some of its founders had a great foresight and were influenced by the developments taking places in Europe in those days. Giving enough scope for expansion, they had allocated 8,000 acres for the university. Now, the Engineering department alone has 16 branches in it.

There is much left to be accomplished and the current generation of students has greater responsibility than their predecessors in keeping up the spirit of OU and to complete the task of bringing positive changes in the lives of people of Telangana, he added.

BY V R C Phaniharan