Conferring doctorates on people in recognition of their contribution to any particular field, is one of the most noble things that can be done by a university. However, the initiative has lost much of its significance in the recent past due to immense political interference in the centers of higher learning. Surprisingly, the universities abroad too, do not seem to be any different.
Many a times,I cannot help feeling disturbed when I read of honorary doctorates being given to a few people. It leaves me wondering how correct it is on the part of a university to confer honorary doctorates, as people who are NOT worth their salt tend to be hailed for their so called contributions, which are practically zilch. A classic case that I would like to mention at this juncture is the one of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, who was awarded a doctorate by the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, in the year 2007. It was around the same time when she had been a victim of racism in the reality show "Celebrity Big Brother" ; Jade Goody, Jack Tweed, Daniel Lloyd etc, her fellow participants in the show were learnt to have made offensive statements about the actress, which created quite a lot of tension between India and UK. In order to ward off the tension, the organizers of the show, declared Shilpa as the winner (of course people across the world were foolish enough to adjudge her as one) and as if that were not enough, an honorary doctorate was bestowed upon her by the University of Leeds! Shilpa whom the world looked upon as a victim of racism, had not uttered a single word of defense against her fellow contestants. Her act would have been commendable if only she had said asked the people who presumed to be extremely dignified themselves, not to hurl obscenities at her as it would hold their own decency and civilization as also culture, in bad light. Prior to the commencement of the 'Celebrity Big Brother', Shilpa was reported to have expressed happiness over having received an opportunity to do her country proud, by participating in an international reality show. All that she did was just to shed tears and endure all the insults that were thrown at her. Was there a need to honor such a lady by means of a doctorate? Any positive response in this regard calls for a justification. Is it for her "Immense contribution to cinema" ? Is she an extremely good actress? Not in the least! Declaring her as the winner of the show was (a lot) more than sufficient. University of Leeds has clearly dis-honored a doctorate of honor.
When it comes to honoring an actor with something as high as a doctorate, the concerned people need to think a lot. A host of universities in India and elsewhere honoring actor Amitabh Bachchan is acceptable as the actor can really act besides being exceptionally good at many other things. His ambi-dexterity is something that has not been adequately exposed to the world. Other talented actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri merit a such an honor as well.
One of the Indian actors who truly deserved a doctorate was Kannada film actor late Raj Kumar. As in the opinion of Dr Girish Karnad, "Dr Raj turned out to be a great man not merely because of his austere lifestyle or ability to act. His strength lied in that he took several mythological characters coupled with human values to the laymen among the audience and made them REVIEW the characters played by him!! This was not hero-worship but the intense positive effect created by the hero on his audience, to bring out the critic in a layman among them, something which very few actors in the world have been able to do. An ordinary man could not understand Kuvempu (a great poet and a writer in Kannada) or Shakespeare, but everyone could understand Raj Kumar. He deserves a special place as he took Indian culture to people".
(I owe a word of gratitude to Dr Karnad for having shared this observation, something that had not struck me, until then)
Another Kannada actor, Vishnuvardhan (Late) who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Bangalore University in the year 2005, deserves appreciation. This is because, he openly accepted the fact that he was no great actor and that his contribution to cinema was nowhere closer to what was being said. He accepted the doctorate saying that rejecting it would be a display of arrogance and that his stature was too small to question the perusing power of the jury in the university. At the same time he expressed gratitude to the University of Mysore for having honored veteran actor K.S Ashwath (Late), as the actor was one of the greatest in the Kannada film industry. Recently another theater actor who has carved a niche for himself in the movies as well, 'Mukhyamantri' Chandru was awarded a doctorate by the Gulbarga University. 'Mukhyamantri', the drama that catapulted the actor to a more lucrative career in films, continues to be staged even today and holds the record of having been one of the very few plays to have offered nearly a 1000 stage shows, the reason being Chandrashekhar's refreshingly fine performance each time it is staged.
The real shock came in the year 2009 when the then chief minister of Karnataka, Mr B.S Yeddyurappa was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Saginaw Valley State University, USA, at a time when he had visited the country. It was bestowed on him for his immense contribution to the field of public work. Personally I feel that the university should have waited for a little longer so that its selection committee could learn in detail, the kind of resource that Mr BSY was. However, the university has a lot of reason to be proud. When the members of the selection committee in the Saginaw Valley State University conferred a doctorate on Mr BSY, little did they know that they were doing it for a man who had the potential to be an ENTIRE SUBJECT MATTER himself!!! BSY has done the university proud by living up to their expectations.
The latest politician to obtain an honorary doctorate was the union minister for labour, Mr Mallikarjun Kharge. The Gulbarga University awarded him a doctorate last year, "in recognition of his yeoman service for the welfare of the people". The one waiting to join the bandwagon is the former chief minister of Karnataka, N. Dharam Singh, who is presently an MP from the Bidar district in the state. Gulbarga University is learnt to have met last week to finalize the list of awardees ; DG and IGP for Karnataka State as also the former Commissioner of Police, Bangalore, Shankar Bidari -IPS (who is known to be corrupt) was one of them. However, Mr Dharam Singh, thanks to his "BUSY" schedule, was unable to send his complete bio-data to the members of the selection committee in the university syndicate, because of which he does not feature in the list of awardees. This has left the Gulbarga unit of Congress workers furious. In the words of the regional congress president (I am forgetting his name), "Mr Dharam Singh is a well known person who has been striving for the welfare of our state since the past 4 decades. Why does he need to send a bio data to the university?". Surprisingly, in spite of Mr Singh's struggle spanning 4 decades besides a brief stint as a chief minister, Gulbarga (Mr Singh's home district) continues to be one of the most backward regions in Karnataka. The district along with Bidar (which Mr Singh represents in the parliament) features at the bottom when it comes to the results of the SSLC and PUC exams, despite being hotspots of mass copying.......
Let's hope that Mr N Dharam Singh sends his bio-data to Gulbarga University at the earliest. Perhaps the count down for Mysore University to fulfill its responsibility of awarding doctorates for the former PM, Mr H.D Deve Gowda has already begun ; Bangalore University owes one to Mr H.D Kumaraswamy...................
Many a times,I cannot help feeling disturbed when I read of honorary doctorates being given to a few people. It leaves me wondering how correct it is on the part of a university to confer honorary doctorates, as people who are NOT worth their salt tend to be hailed for their so called contributions, which are practically zilch. A classic case that I would like to mention at this juncture is the one of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, who was awarded a doctorate by the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, in the year 2007. It was around the same time when she had been a victim of racism in the reality show "Celebrity Big Brother" ; Jade Goody, Jack Tweed, Daniel Lloyd etc, her fellow participants in the show were learnt to have made offensive statements about the actress, which created quite a lot of tension between India and UK. In order to ward off the tension, the organizers of the show, declared Shilpa as the winner (of course people across the world were foolish enough to adjudge her as one) and as if that were not enough, an honorary doctorate was bestowed upon her by the University of Leeds! Shilpa whom the world looked upon as a victim of racism, had not uttered a single word of defense against her fellow contestants. Her act would have been commendable if only she had said asked the people who presumed to be extremely dignified themselves, not to hurl obscenities at her as it would hold their own decency and civilization as also culture, in bad light. Prior to the commencement of the 'Celebrity Big Brother', Shilpa was reported to have expressed happiness over having received an opportunity to do her country proud, by participating in an international reality show. All that she did was just to shed tears and endure all the insults that were thrown at her. Was there a need to honor such a lady by means of a doctorate? Any positive response in this regard calls for a justification. Is it for her "Immense contribution to cinema" ? Is she an extremely good actress? Not in the least! Declaring her as the winner of the show was (a lot) more than sufficient. University of Leeds has clearly dis-honored a doctorate of honor.
When it comes to honoring an actor with something as high as a doctorate, the concerned people need to think a lot. A host of universities in India and elsewhere honoring actor Amitabh Bachchan is acceptable as the actor can really act besides being exceptionally good at many other things. His ambi-dexterity is something that has not been adequately exposed to the world. Other talented actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri merit a such an honor as well.
One of the Indian actors who truly deserved a doctorate was Kannada film actor late Raj Kumar. As in the opinion of Dr Girish Karnad, "Dr Raj turned out to be a great man not merely because of his austere lifestyle or ability to act. His strength lied in that he took several mythological characters coupled with human values to the laymen among the audience and made them REVIEW the characters played by him!! This was not hero-worship but the intense positive effect created by the hero on his audience, to bring out the critic in a layman among them, something which very few actors in the world have been able to do. An ordinary man could not understand Kuvempu (a great poet and a writer in Kannada) or Shakespeare, but everyone could understand Raj Kumar. He deserves a special place as he took Indian culture to people".
(I owe a word of gratitude to Dr Karnad for having shared this observation, something that had not struck me, until then)
Another Kannada actor, Vishnuvardhan (Late) who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Bangalore University in the year 2005, deserves appreciation. This is because, he openly accepted the fact that he was no great actor and that his contribution to cinema was nowhere closer to what was being said. He accepted the doctorate saying that rejecting it would be a display of arrogance and that his stature was too small to question the perusing power of the jury in the university. At the same time he expressed gratitude to the University of Mysore for having honored veteran actor K.S Ashwath (Late), as the actor was one of the greatest in the Kannada film industry. Recently another theater actor who has carved a niche for himself in the movies as well, 'Mukhyamantri' Chandru was awarded a doctorate by the Gulbarga University. 'Mukhyamantri', the drama that catapulted the actor to a more lucrative career in films, continues to be staged even today and holds the record of having been one of the very few plays to have offered nearly a 1000 stage shows, the reason being Chandrashekhar's refreshingly fine performance each time it is staged.
The real shock came in the year 2009 when the then chief minister of Karnataka, Mr B.S Yeddyurappa was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Saginaw Valley State University, USA, at a time when he had visited the country. It was bestowed on him for his immense contribution to the field of public work. Personally I feel that the university should have waited for a little longer so that its selection committee could learn in detail, the kind of resource that Mr BSY was. However, the university has a lot of reason to be proud. When the members of the selection committee in the Saginaw Valley State University conferred a doctorate on Mr BSY, little did they know that they were doing it for a man who had the potential to be an ENTIRE SUBJECT MATTER himself!!! BSY has done the university proud by living up to their expectations.
The latest politician to obtain an honorary doctorate was the union minister for labour, Mr Mallikarjun Kharge. The Gulbarga University awarded him a doctorate last year, "in recognition of his yeoman service for the welfare of the people". The one waiting to join the bandwagon is the former chief minister of Karnataka, N. Dharam Singh, who is presently an MP from the Bidar district in the state. Gulbarga University is learnt to have met last week to finalize the list of awardees ; DG and IGP for Karnataka State as also the former Commissioner of Police, Bangalore, Shankar Bidari -IPS (who is known to be corrupt) was one of them. However, Mr Dharam Singh, thanks to his "BUSY" schedule, was unable to send his complete bio-data to the members of the selection committee in the university syndicate, because of which he does not feature in the list of awardees. This has left the Gulbarga unit of Congress workers furious. In the words of the regional congress president (I am forgetting his name), "Mr Dharam Singh is a well known person who has been striving for the welfare of our state since the past 4 decades. Why does he need to send a bio data to the university?". Surprisingly, in spite of Mr Singh's struggle spanning 4 decades besides a brief stint as a chief minister, Gulbarga (Mr Singh's home district) continues to be one of the most backward regions in Karnataka. The district along with Bidar (which Mr Singh represents in the parliament) features at the bottom when it comes to the results of the SSLC and PUC exams, despite being hotspots of mass copying.......
Let's hope that Mr N Dharam Singh sends his bio-data to Gulbarga University at the earliest. Perhaps the count down for Mysore University to fulfill its responsibility of awarding doctorates for the former PM, Mr H.D Deve Gowda has already begun ; Bangalore University owes one to Mr H.D Kumaraswamy...................
