Life and Works of Dr. Anath H. Pandya

Life and Works of Dr. Anath H. Pandya

Just before the beginning of the Second World War, the Bengal Engineering College at Sibpur was seeking a new Head of the institution. This post had always been held by an Englishman and, thus, the advertisement came in the London papers only. Anant, living in England at that time applied and was selected and recommended by the English Committee, but the Government of Bengal hesitated and referred the matter back to London, but, again, the Committee recommended Dr. Pandya, and in September 1939, Dr. Anath H Pandya was appointed as its first ever Indian Principal of Bengal Engineering College. Pandya family rushed to leave London before the war, and it was one of the last ships for them to leave for India. Most of their baggage went to a watery grave aboard a following vessel, sunk by German submarines. He was aged only thirty when he took over the charges of Bengal Engineering College. That was the early days for Dr. Anant H. Pandya (1909 – 1951), the engineer, educator and public servant, who was later recognised as the pioneer of India’s industrial, and educational future.

Early Life
Anant was born on July 11, 1909, at the Pandya family of Bhavnagar, Saurashtra in Gujarat. His father, Hiralal H. Pandya, during his childhood, was completing his education in the United States. On return he joined as an agricultural engineer of several princely States. Anant grew up in Bhavnagar under his grandfather’s care.

From early childhood, his education at the Dakshinamurti Vidyarthi Bhavan emphasized overall development, with Indian music, art and culture, taught science first-hand in the surrounding fields and hills. He also served as a volunteer in Mahatma Gandhi’s camp, came in contact with Rabindranath Tagore, studied physical culture with revolutionary Prithvi Singh, and music of many of India’s foremost musicians. Creativity and individual thinking, patriotism and national feelings were emphasized, and Anant became the school’s best student and also an artist.

As an adolescent, Anant and his cousin cum companion Upendra Bhatt, started a hand written monthly literary magazine, Kumar. Anant did the illustrations and won several prizes for paintings and drawings. At the age of fifteen, he and his cousin Upendra had to take a crucial decision. Upendra relates: “If we wanted to pursue the study of literature, economics and social sciences or wanted to join the upsurge of nationalism, the way was clear to Mahatma Gandhi’s Gujarat Vidyapith. If, however, we wanted to pursue science or engineering, there was no other go, but to pass Matriculation of the Government sponsored University. In those days of fight for freedom, it was considered a sin to go to a government school. On the other hand, we felt that science and engineering were inevitable for national reconstruction. Our trusted teachers analysed the situation of self-aggrandizement (Government school of engineering) versus renunciation (Gujarat Vidyapith). Certain desires, ambitions and attitudes led us to the path of science.”

Education
They passed Matriculation from Bombay University, then studied for a year at Samaldas College in Bhavnagar and then, in June 1926, took admission at Gujarat College, Ahmedabad, for science. In 1927 Anant passed the Inter-Science and joined the Engineering College in Karachi, where they established the First Congress Youth League, to protest against Gandhi’s imprisonment, and fasting to save money for flood victims. Finally, Anant became the first class topper for all the three years in engineering studies with several scholarships and gold medals including the coveted James Berkeley Gold Medal. Opportunities were open in the Indian Services of Engineers and also for scholarship in the best British Universities, but Anant decided to join the world renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (M.I.T.) USA.

Anant excelled in all the subjects, secured extra-ordinary marks in the subjects he selected. With additional assignments during the summer of 1931, he was qualified for the degree of Master of Science in Civil Engineering. In his second year, Upendra and Ramesh joined him at M.I.T. Upendra Bhatt relates: “The American way of life demonstrated to us the ideal of individual liberty and democratic social order. We, students, formed the Hindustan Association and expressed our national aspirations. We realized that America’s wealth and strength consisted in development of the country’s resources through Technology, and we also dreamt and planned the development of India on the same lines’

Anant secured the Austin Research Fellowship for research in Soil Mechanics and within a year and a half he completed his thesis on “The Design and Construction of Ports and Harbours”, and also another work on “Large Dams”. By August 1932, at the age of 23 he was elected a Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1933, he was one of the first and youngest to receive the Doctorate of Science in Engineering. Many of his professors considered Anant the finest student of their teaching career. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute.

Outstanding Career
He returned to India at a time of economic depression (late 1933) when American degrees were ‘unrecognised’ in India by the British influenced economy. He got a job in a junior design position in the Mckenzies Ltd., of Bombay, at a stipend of Rs.250/- per month. But he could realise that there was no opportunities elsewhere in India. So, he left for London in autumn 1935 and within fortnight, he was hired for a major position by the large international firm of Trussed Concrete Steel Co. Ltd. In early 1936, he was deputed to India as an adviser of M/s. Hindustan Construction Engineering. Co. Ltd., which had earlier refused to hire him (because of his American qualifications) in the design of earthquake proof buildings at disaster-struck Quetta.

During his brief stay to India, Anant married Shrimati Lilyben Shah and both of them returned to London. While in London, he was responsible for the development of new design and construction in steel and reinforced concrete and for research in welded structures. In November 1937, in appreciation of his merit, he was elevated to the position of the Chief Engineer of Diagrid Structures Ltd., a subsidiary of Trussed Concrete. In September 1938, he was awarded the James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation International Prize of $32,000 for a paper on “The Arc-welded. Grid Applied to Plane and Spatial Structures”, written in collaboration with his assistant, Mr. R. J. Fowler. During this period, Anant made a special study of Structural Air Raid Precautions in England and prepared his own design for a reinforced concrete shelter, and received praise and appreciation with a merit prize for it. In 1939, he took out British Patent 512867 (also later patented elsewhere) on his process for “Continuous Cranked Beam Construction”. His superior at Trussed Concrete, E. R. Hole, remarks: “Many contracts involving engineering design of a high standard in both concrete and welded steel stand to the credit of Dr. Pandya both in Britain and overseas, and they range over almost the complete scope of industrial, public and domestic building, including aircraft hangers and large factories.”

By then just before the beginning of the Second World War, the Bengal Engineering College at Sibpur was seeking a new Principal. The post had always been held by an Englishman and, thus, the advertisement came in the London papers only. Anant applied and was recommended by the English Committee, but the Government of Bengal hesitated and referred the matter back to London, but, again, the Committee recommended Dr. Pandya, and in September 1939, Dr. Anath H Pandya was appointed as its first ever Indian Principal. Pandya family rushed to leave London before the war, and it was one of the last ships for them to leave for India. Most of their baggage went to a watery grave aboard a following vessel, sunk by German submarines.

Dr. Anant Pandya was aged only thirty when he took over the charges of Bengal Engineering College. In addition to his duties as Head of the Engineering College, he distinguished himself as a member of the Senate and Syndicate of the University of Calcutta, a faculty member there and at Rajputana University, also an advisor to Benaras Hindu University and a Member of the Central Advisory Board of Education and numerous other special Committees of Education for both the Central and Bengal Governments.

Dr. S. R. Sen Gupta, his faculty colleague and later the Principal of Bengal Engineering College, Sibpore and also later the Director of I.I.T., Kharagpur, remarks: “He was kind and courteous to all concerned, students and staff, from the poorest paid employee to the senior most Professor…. After the outbreak of war, Dr. Pandya was one of the first to realise that it would be essential to extend the technical training facilities for the training of craftsmen, and I know personally that he took the initiative in writing to all the important government officers and placing the facilities of college at their disposal—. He has done more for this college than anyone else before or after him.”

In April 1943, Dr. Pandya was transferred to the Department of Industries and Supply as the Controller of Metals where he was outstandingly successful, and soon he was promoted to the position of Dy. Director-General of Munitions Production, a post during British rule was never held by any Indian. After the war, he was offered a major post with the Central Government’s Planning Department, but politics and communalism intervened, and he was not, finally, offered the post.

During this period Dr. Pandya was made a Member of the Planning Commission, which was established under the Chairmanship of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Dr. Pandya submitted the project to establish five IIT’.’s across Indian cities on the concepts of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thus he was one of Architects of founding the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in India.

Dr. Antia, his friend and the former Director of Union Carbide in India, said: “To harness the big rivers and make them work for the prosperity of the country, to modernize agricultural methods and to make engineering serve the country in such a way as to abolish hunger and want. His main aim was to gather a group of Indian engineers to start a consultancy service. It was not necessary to place foreign consultants on a pedestal as done hitherto. Indian engineers could do as well or even better.”

Dr. Pandya became the Director and Chief Consulting Engineer of Hind Constructions Ltd, Calcutta, and secured contracts for the big and complicated projects like construction of tunnel at the Bhore Ghat for the Central Railway, the building of the tunnel for laying the pipe line for the Vaitarna-cum-Tansa scheme of the Bombay Municipality and construction of the Konar Dam and other projects for the Damodar Valley Corporation, development of the ports of Saurashtra, Kandla Project (Cutch). In these projects,

Early in 1949, Dr. Pandya was offered the position of General Manager, Hindustan Aircraft Ltd (HAL)., at Bangalore., and he was the first Indian national to be appointed as General Manager of HAL. During World War II, the management of HAL was solely in the hands of American technicians. C. V. S. Rao, then the Director and colleague at Hindustan Aircraft, said, “Anant infused a new spirit and created a new atmosphere altogether. His charming manners and sympathetic and tactful handling of the personnel won for him the hearts of the staff and the rank and file, while his undoubted mastery of general engineering commanded the respect of even experts in aircraft engineering of which he did not profess to know much. The outstanding event of his brief stewardship was the formation of definite plans for manufacture of Trainer Aircraft. The first planes of Indian design and manufacture in independent India”.

His Sudden Death
When Dr. Pandya could successfully set Hindustan Aircraft on a new and vigorous path, in a brief nine months, he moved his family to Bombay. He was now, primarily, associated with Patel Engineering and looked forward to building it into a pre-eminent firm for large construction projects in India, and eventually, perhaps, elsewhere in the newly developing countries. From December 1949, until his death in June 1951, he pursued large construction projects of dams, ports, and tunnels, including ports in Gujarat, dams in eastern India, and tunnels near Bombay. That was the time, he was instrumental in planning the foundations of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). To understand the new techniques and purchase needed equipment, he travelled to Germany, France and the U.S.A. in 1950, and to Germany and Scandinavia in 1951. While returning to Calcutta, after inspection of Konar Dam in Darnodar Valley, on June 1, 1951, the car in which he was sleeping was struck and he was killed. He passed away from physical sleep to death, at the age of only 41.

In closing, let me quote Dr. Sudhir Sen, who worked with Anant in Damodar Valley and was later an economic adviser in the United Nations, and with Dr. Pandya himself. “You could almost see the fire of youth ablaze in his soul; capable of grim resolve and great tenacity; and crowning all, he had an unbending faith in his own future and in the future of his country. All these, taken together, made of him the most forceful and colourful personality I have ever known. . . . It was his dream to lift the contractor’s profession in India to a new level of dignity and integrity, just as the Tagore family, not long ago, rescued Indian music and dance from the gutter, gave them the stamp of social acceptability and turned them into a source of beauty and joy for all. This was his dream. And I have no doubt that he would have realized it, only he had lived long enough.”

Dr. Anant H. Pandya began as an artist, sketching scenes in Bhavnagar and remained an artist until his death—an artist of dams, and tunnels and ports and harbours, an artist of schools and factories, an artist of his country’s future and of life itself.

His quote:
“The principle of intellectual training in and through a craft is the most fundamental feature …. The true function of education is a creative one. . to create new forms of skill and by doing so to confer a higher social status upon occupations which do not at present possess it, or, as is the case in some crafts, have lost or are tending to lose it…. There is no substitute for experience, Each of us must go through the Mill’.”

Source: Indian National Science Academy
& excerpt from an article by Lily Pandya.

I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
– Isaac Newton

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