A doyen of history & guiding light

Dharam Prakash Gupta

While in the death of Prof SC Mehrotra recently, the country has lost a reputed historian, it is also a personal loss to many people like me who studied in the history department of Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), Shimla, during the seventies and eighties.  

Prof Mehrotra was selected by the first Vice Chancellor of HPU, Dr RK Singh, along with several distinguished professors and scholars, like eminent mathematician Dr PL Bhatnagar, another great historian Dr Ravinder Kumar, and English professor Dr Gokakh, when the university was being established in the early seventies.

Prof Mehrotra, who had returned to India after teaching history at Oxford for more than a decade, played a major role in establishing the history department. His students and the university community would always remember him as an excellent teacher of modern Indian history, a dedicated researcher and a very affectionate person. Despite being an acclaimed historian, he was always ready to help students and researchers. I remember an incident when he was head of the department and Dean, Studies. My MPhil dissertation was delayed as my research guide had joined the Central University, Hyderabad, and I needed extension of the deadline for submitting the same.

Prof Mehrotra strongly recommended my case of extension and also assured me to talk to the Vice Chancellor if needed. Though he was a thorough gentleman, he fought several legal battles in the Himachal Pradesh High Court to bring relevant changes in the rules for academic improvement at HPU. He had never studied law, but would plead all his petitions himself, without any lawyer, and helped to bring about several changes in the university’s statutes.

He also remained concerned about public causes and had filed a public interest litigation to improve the quality of drinking water of Shimla, when the supply was found contaminated in a laboratory test.

After his retirement, he and his wife, Eva Mehrotra, also a history professor, had settled in Shimla. It was always a delight to see them walking daily to the Mall, from their house in Chaura Maidan to buy things of daily need. After the death of his wife, he would be seen walking alone.

It was his habit to ask about the well-being of his former students who would be meeting him after decades. His students and people who knew him would miss this gentlemanly and extremely warm professor.