The field of political science and Asian studies lost an important scholar on March 17, 2022, when Dr. Jyotirindra “Jyoti” Das Gupta passed away. His enormous academic contributions to the field will continue to shape scholarship for decades to come, especially in understanding the relationship between pluralism/multiculturalism and federalist institutional structures in promoting integrative accommodation in multi-ethnic postcolonial countries including India.
Professor Das Gupta’s distinguished professional career at the University of California, Berkeley spanned from 1966 to 1995 when he retired with emeritus status from the Political Science Department, although he continued with select advising duties and especially his scholarship up until his passing. Along with his research and teaching duties, Prof. Das Gupta established and chaired the Development Studies program in 1976 and later served as the chair of Center of South and Southeast Asian on campus. He also was a core advisor and a faculty member of the Group in Asian Studies.
During his academic career, professor Das Gupta produced groundbreaking works that promoted an understanding of both inclusionary and exclusionary processes in the developing world. His first major book, Language Conflict and National Development: Group Politics and National Language Policy in India (University of California, 1970) remains a foundational work for understanding the use of language identity during the mobilization for India’s partition by various political groups and, more importantly, how supposedly divisive “language conflicts” actually became instrumental in integrating various linguistic groups into post-partition democratic India. His deep research revealed nationalistic dynamics in the pre-partition phase that shaped the unfolding of the partition and made Urdu, a minority language, an official language of Pakistan and Hindi an ongoing contentious issue in India. The linguistic reorganization of Indian states, he demonstrated, was eventually central to the construction of an overarching and integrative Indian national identity after partition. His research remains critical for understanding the role of language in Indian politics.
Professor Das Gupta’s subsequent book, Authority, Priority, and Human Development (Oxford University Press, 1982) also represented a major contribution to the field of comparative development studies and the dynamics of democracy in postcolonial societies. It examined the interplay of official government policy and various local stakeholders in the development process in rural India. This book argued that the concepts of “authority” and “priority” were derivative of the political process both within and between the official government structures and competing political interests at the local level.
Over his long and illustrious career, professor Das Gupta also produced important articles and book chapters on numerous topics relating to Indian politics, nationality construction, and federalism. This included scholarship on the effects of multi-layered federalism in accommodating insurgent ethnic groups in the Northeast, the role of intra and inter-group bargaining within a democratic political context to facilitate postcolonial nation-building in multicultural India, and the impact of various forms of political leadership in either escalating or ameliorating ethnic conflict/separatism in postcolonial societies. In recent years, he continued to write on important contemporary movements such as the Right to Information (RTI) and its relationship in democratic development and elections in India.
Das Gupta’s sensitivity and deep knowledge of such subjects was perhaps due to the fact he born in Kolkata in pre-partition Bengal in 1933 and was a witness to India’s independence and the violent partition. He also actively engaged in India’s independence movement by attending Mohandas Gandhi’s civil action meetings and participated in the country’s democratization movements as a college student. He later brought these ideas into his teaching of political development and accommodation as a professor at University of California after getting his PhD from Berkeley in 1966. This personal background and experience also contributed to professor Das Gupta’s exceptionally polite and gracious personality, which made him closely attentive to the individual needs of his students.
Professor Das Gupta leaves behind a wife, a daughter, a son-in-law, a granddaughter whom he loved tremendously, and numerous students over the decades who owe him a debt of gratitude for his mentorship which ranged from introduction to important scholarly sources, regular lunches in new restaurants in Berkeley, exposure to new Indian music (especially classical), and a commitment to promoting his students which never wavered even after he retired as a full professor of political science. He will be missed tremendously by those who had the distinct honor and privilege of having known him as dear friend and intellectual mentor.
