Post-Retirement Period

During the post-retirement years, besides writing novels, he practiced Psychology by teaching young children and teachers in a preschool nurtured by him and through social and literary activism on furthering the causes of universalization of elementary education. During these years, he started a movement called Prathamika Sikhsha Vikas Andolana, which aimed at reforming and enhancing pedagogy in primary schools. He went on a mission to strengthen elementary education in the State following an integrated developmental approach that called for the participation of doctors, teachers, social reformers and administrators. He was able to successfully enrich the quality of teaching-learning climate in more than 300 primary schools of the state. He donated the land and the house of his ancestral village to build a residential school encompassing classes I to X, which currently has a strength of about 500 students.

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During the retirement years, he pressed into service the experiences gathered from international and national platforms to state-level missions. From the university to preschools, from the academic settings to government advisory bodies and from hard-core Psychology to an applied focus in the world of media and entertainment, he traversed all roads in multifarious ways to leave in the minds of the public the overwhelming influence of Psychology in human life. Not only did he lead university teachers as their president for a long span, but he also led a mission to enrich the quality of learning experiences of young children in primary schools and preschools. As a psychologist and a member of the Board of Secondary Education, Odisha, for a long span over one decade and a half, he brought positive changes to the course of secondary education in the state and was instrumental in the nationalization of school textbooks. Not only did he contribute immensely to the course of teaching and research in Psychology, but he also used his psychological intuitions in shaping the architectural plan of Cuttack as a member of the Cuttack Development Authority for many years. It is not that he studied, professed and preached Psychology only in his life and academic circles; he brought Psychology closer to the common man through his articles and writings on psychological issues in Odia newspapers as an invited popular columnist for a long span and also by acting as a member of the state's Film Censor Board to evaluate films on the criteria of human psychological parameters. Known for his social and psychological activism, he advocated all along for human rights and adorned the Chair of Odisha State Child protection Society until 2010. A many splendored personalities, he blended in his distinctive and uncommon personal profile, a philosopher, an educationist, a researcher, a writer, a social reformer, an activist and a visionary.

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Starting from the traditional to the contemporary era in the history of Psychology, both psychologists and Psychology have been preoccupied with the challenge to establish Psychology as a science and with analyzing the kind of science it is. Methodologies are thoroughly divided by the boundaries between the quantitative and the qualitative, sometimes one being dominant over the other, and sometimes one is less objective than the other. The goal is to go above the dilemma where a psychologist acts, keeping in view the mainstream as well as indigenous perspectives. Prof. Rath was one of the very few Indian Psychologists who rose above these ambiguities and, in an interdisciplinary manner, contributed immensely to the fields of Psychology and Literature. With his eclectic orientation, he emerged as a hardcore academic and channeled his energy towards psychological activism. Great medical professionals of the state turned to him for psychological help for themselves as well as their patients. He was a missionary with a vision of a better world and to realize his visions; he constantly strived hard to make things better than what they were.

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His life is an important chapter in the history of Psychology in India and he would be remembered as a pioneer and as one who shaped the course of discipline in Psychology.