Bhubaneswar: Development paradigms, proposed by eminent anthropologist from Odisha LK Mahapatra, needed to be emulated in present day context, said Kalyan Chakravarty, an eminent administrator and public intellectual.
He was speaking at the 4th LK Mahapatra Memorial Lecture held at the Utkal University in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. In his lecture on “Mission LK Mahapatra: Decolonising Development”, Chakravarty said it was high time the administrators and academics followed the intellectual path laid down by Prof Mahapatra. He recalled Prof Mahapatra’s seminal work in shaping the development discourse in India and the World.
Chakravarty discussed the continuing local and global relevance of Dr LK Mahapatra’s mission of decolonising community knowledge and development. He described Dr Mahapatra’s focus on liberating the developmental theory and practice of the state in independent India from colonial inhibitions in natural and human resource management.
Dr Mahapatra’s views on these aspects can be known from his works on forestry, agriculture and governance in Odisha in the Indian and Asian context, he added.
Chakravarty, an eminent action anthropologist and art historian, served as an IAS officer and was Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) and Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi.
Prof Kamal Kumar Mishra, former vice-chancellor of Utkal University of Culture and also a student of Dr Mahapatra reminisced about his teacher, who was also his doctoral supervisor. He called Dr Mahapatra an extraordinary teacher and an outstanding scholar, who was also an activist fighting for justice to the tribals and marginalised sections of the society through his teaching and writings.
Prof Sabita Acharya said Dr Mahapatra was the ‘Pitamah’ of Anthropology studies in Odisha, and she was a beneficiary of that legacy as she was his direct student and most of her teachers like Prof KK Mishra were also Dr Mahapatra’s students. She drew everyone’s attention to Dr Mahapatra’s pioneering and provocative Keynote Speech at the International Anthropology Congress in Vancouver in 19083 titled, “Development for Whom?”
Prof Debendra Biswal, Head of the Department of Anthropology in Utkal University, said it was an honour for the Department to honour the intellectual legacy of Dr Mahapatra, who made the Department as the most vibrant and pioneering Department of Anthropology in the country.
Dr Mahapatra’s daughter Sheela welcomed the audience, which included eminent academics of the state from social sciences including Prof DP Patnaik, Prof AB Ota, Prof Amareswar Galla, Prof Deepak Behera and Prof NC Dash, research scholars, and graduate and undergraduate students of anthropology and the social sciences.
The memorial lecture was jointly organised by the LK Mahapatra Memorial Trust and the PG Department of Anthropology at the Bakul Library in Utkal University to commemorate the 95th birth anniversary of Dr Mahapatra.
Prof Lakshman Kumar Mahapatra (1929-2020) was a world-renowned anthropologist and educationist from Odisha, who spent most of his career at Utkal University establishing the discipline of anthropology in Odisha. He was also Vice-Chancellor of Utkal and Sambalpur Universities and Director and later Chairman of the Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies.
