These memoirs provide crucial insights into the major forces activating the post-Independence Nehruvian era. The author was a witness as well as a contributor to the planning of India's economy in the 1950s; to the resolution of the vexed question of linguistic states; to the management of big Public Sector companies. He met a host of colourful personalities in India and abroad. He writes delightfully of all this in a work that combines the public with the intimate.
Oroon Kumar Ghosh (1917-2010) retired as Managing Director of Hindustan Petroleum Ltd. in 1976. Earlier he served as Finance Director of the Fertilizer Corporation of India and The Accountant General of U.P. and Maharashtra. He was also in the Planning Commission as Deputy Secretary, The Indian High Commission in London (1960-64) and a Member of the States Reorganisation Commission. During the course of his long and distinguished career, he traveled widely both within and outside India. He was UN Fellow in Canada and USA. He was also a scholar and the author of several books including The Convergence of Civilizations and Science, Society and Philosophy. In the final analysis he considered himself to be a Radical Humanist.
My father, the late Oroon Kumar Ghosh had a long and distinguished career as a civil servant under the Government of India from 1941 to 1976. As a ""backroom boy"", he came into close contact with many of the politicians, leaders and personalities who shaped the future of the country during the Nehruvian era. The author was involved in the drafting of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 which introduced the concept of a ""mixed economy"". He worked, on a daily basis, with P.C Mahalanobis on the Planning Commission.
As a member of the States Reorganisation Commission, he went to 104 places in India, travelled over 38000 miles and interviewed over 9000 people to try and solve the emotionally charged problem of linguistic states. As Counsellor in the Indian High Commission in London, as United Nations Fellow to America and Canada and as Finance Director of a major public sector company, he visited many foreign countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait, Iran and Beirut. He writes of his diplomatic experiences laced with his interesting observations on the cultures and histories of these places. He was not only a public servant, but also a scholar, who formed close associations with other scholars like A.L Basham, Romila Thapar, Nirad. C. Chowdhury and Sibnarayan Ray. He gives us vignettes of varied colourful personalities whom he encountered and intimate anecdotes about them. These include Nehru himself, and Tagore; Political leaders like Indira Gandhi, Charan Singh and Krishna Menon; as well as artists, journalists and writers like Nayantara Sehgal, Romesh Thapar, Mahasweta Devi and Kalyani Karlekar.
His memoirs are enriched not only by his experiences as an administrator and bureaucrat, but also by his philosophical and erudite comments on many aspects of life in India and abroad, as he was a thinker and a writer. He is the author of several books. His first published book was Tales from the Indian Classics (Crest Publishing House). Dance of Shiva (Signet Classics) was published in America (The New American Library of World Literatures Inc., 601 Madison Avenue, New York). It was very popular there. It was subsequently re-published by Jaico Books. He has written books such as The Changing Indian Civilization (1978), The Convergence of Civilizations (1978) and Science, Society and Philosophy (1985), expressing his views of the world from historical, anthropological and philosophical perspectives. Published by Minerva Associates, Calcutta and Ajanta Publications, Delhi, these books received good reviews in major dailies and magazines. His other books include Planning India's Future (1978), Problem of Economic Planning in India (1957, 1964), The Indian Financial System (1956), How India Won Freedom (1989), Changes for a Better Constitution (1996). The Essential Gita for Everyone (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Publication, 2000). He has also written Bengali books on Rabindranath Tagore and has published a translation of his poems from Bengali to English (Renaissance Publishers).
He was the Honorary. Treasurer, Delhi University (1966-73). He was an Honorary Lecturer at Indian Statistical Institute (Kolkata) and at IIM (Joka). He contributed regularly to Sibnarayan Ray's ""Jigyasa"" magazine in Bengali.
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