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International Research 

Collaborations
&

Academic Leadership

  Dr. Rath's visiting professorship assignment at several universities including Concordia University (Canada), Birmingham University (UK) and Malmo University (Sweden); and the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) in the '70s and '80s brought together the Eastern and the Western thoughts on Psychology, sensitizing Western scholars to the unique parameters of Indian and indigenous Psychology. Dr. Rath also participated in several National Delegations to different countries. These included visits to the USA in 1957, as a member of the visiting team to observe the general education program run by American Universities. During his visit, he spent two working days with one of the greatest psychologists of the contemporary era, B. F. Skinner, who presented him his book ‘Walden Two’ published in 1955 and signed by him. In his personal discussions with Prof. Rath, Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalytic thinker, expected him to appreciate and carry forward the concept of ‘collective unconscious’ as he represented Eastern cultural thinking because Jung’s concept was at that time not well accepted in the Western world.

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Having been recognized for his outstanding thoughts on social issues and culture by the Indian Government, he visited the USSR in 1966 and 1968 as a member of Indo-Russian cultural delegation. In every such visit, Prof. Rath assertively placed the Indian orientation to philosophy and Psychology as a necessary complement to Western views to understand humans and society, and was honored with the Lenin Gold Medal for his book on the Soviet Union. His manifold research and study of Psychology paved the way for the generation of scholars to explore new frontiers of the discipline. His original insights on Psychology earned him laurels from reputed institutions of the world, and he traveled more than 20 countries to deliver lectures, guide research on the subject, and teach as a visiting professor. He visited a large number of Universities in Canada, the USA, the USSR, the United Kingdom, Sweden, China, Japan, Honolulu, Thailand, and many other countries, presenting his research and exchanging ideas.

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Rath was a great leader and a successful organizer. Many national and international conferences were organized by the Department of Psychology under his leadership. He successfully organized the International Congress of the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) as the Chairman in 1980 at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and edited the publication of selected papers presented in the Congress along with H.S. Asthana, D. Sinha, and I.B.P. Sinha [14]. The Bhubaneswar IACCP is still remembered as a successful Congress, and till date, it is the only major international Congress of IACCP held in India. The conference attended by more than 150 world-known cross-cultural researchers from abroad and about 200 delegates, representing the Indian thoughts on Psychology, created a platform for sharing international perspectives to analyzing social and cultural issues governing human cognition and behavior.

        Prfoessor Radhanath Rath was the local secretary for organizing the first Indian Science Congress at Ravenshaw College in 1962. The event was attended by several iconic and eminent figures. In the above photo, the personalities (from left to right) are as follows-

 

  1. Y.N. SUKTHANKAR (FORMER GOVERNOR, ODISHA)

  2. BIJU PATNAIK ( FORMER CM, ODISHA)

  3. JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (FORMER PM, INDIA)

  4. PROFESSOR PRAN KRUSHNA PARIJA

  5. PROFESSOR RADHANATH RATH

  6. PROFESSOR BANSIDHAR SAMANTARAY

  7. PROFESSOR A.K. DEY

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In 1977, Professor Rath was again given the charge for organizing Indian Science Congress at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. He organized many other national and international conferences, seminars, and symposiums, including the annual conference of the Indian Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) [1].

The multifaceted experiences in national and international circles distinguished him as having an enviable position in his discipline in India, and he was looked upon as a nurturing and transformational leader by teachers and researchers in Psychology for attaining personal, professional and organizational excellence. In the early 1970s, he led Psychology in India as the President of the Psychology Session of the Indian Science Congress and the President of the Indian Association of Applied Psychology and monitored the spread and the progress of the discipline in the country as the Chairman of the UGC Panel in Psychology. In his own state too, he pioneered the universalization of Science in everyday life as one of the founders of Vigyana Prachar Samiti in 1949.

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His relentless pursuit for creating a space for his newly founded department of Psychology in national and international horizons yielded highly acclaimed positive results. The recognition of the Department of Psychology at Utkal by the UGC as the Center of Advanced Study in Psychology in 1980 constituted his crowning achievement which attracted academics and professors of Psychology from across the world, who regarded the center as a nucleus of research and study on Psychology in India. Professors from the UK, USA, USSR, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and other countries believed that the discipline of Psychology as pursued at Utkal represented Indian ethos and thoughts on Psychology with the regional-knowledge bases serving to strengthen the Indian Psychology. Such was the tone and tenure of the center that students from the northern and the southern parts of the country rushed to Utkal in the '80s and '90s to complete their doctoral and post-doctoral research under the supervision of the faculty members who grew to positions of eminence under the nurturance and leadership of Prof. Rath.

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It will not be an exaggeration to speak of Rath as an institution builder as he was not only engaged in the infrastructural expansion of the department he headed for over two decades but was also very meticulous in adding potentially effective human resources to the department. Even though he started the department single-handed, it had 19 teaching faculty members, including three professors and 44 Senior Research scholars from different Universities for PhD and D. Litt degrees, three visiting Professors, and about 40 non-teaching staff when he retired from his profession in 1981. The Psychology faculty at Utkal under Rath had the singular distinction of having the largest number of PhD holders from universities abroad, many with prestigious scholarships (Commonwealth Scholarship, Killam Scholarship, etc.). Out of 19 faculty members, 14 had doctoral degrees from Canada, the UK and the USA. Students and faculty members from the Department of Psychology at Utkal, under Rath’s leadership and inspiration, bagged the largest number of Commonwealth Scholarships in Psychology till about the late 1970s. Rath always emphasized on the holistic development of children and took steps that contributed immensely towards early childhood education. Through this process, a new feather was added to the cap of the department in 1980 when a model preschool was opened in the department as a Demonstration and Research Centre for Early Education (DARCEE) with three trained teachers, six caretakers, and an annual intake of 60 three-to-five-year-old children. DARCEE was recognized and lauded by the UGC, which sanctioned teacher’s positions for this early childhood education program. Now the DARCEE is renamed after Professor Rath and known as “Radhanath Rath Centre for Early Childhood Education.” The Department of Psychology was also running a one-year diploma course for training prospective nursery teachers. Rath was the chairman of the Odisha Child Care Organization and academic director of the Early Childhood Education and Care Programme of Odisha. At Cuttack, he established a nursery school and introduced a one-year diploma course in childcare and education for women having graduate degrees. During his tenure as the head of the Department of Psychology, an animal laboratory, one of the few such labs in the country, was set up at Utkal.

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Prof. Rath had said many times that he had the knack of jumping into unknown waters without knowing swimming and deriving satisfaction on arrival at the destinations. Through perseverance and broad-based visions, he relentlessly served the institution and people and shaped their destiny and retired from the university job in 1981, leaving all his colleagues and ardent followers with memories to be proud of. Following his retirement, he whole-heartedly devoted himself to writing novels as a means of understanding and portraying the human mind and characters.

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