ALUMNI
Contemporary records and anecdotal history together throw
up a list of alumni at once long and distinguished,
covering every aspect of human endeavour. This list is
therefore meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive. In
the arena of politics and governance, Delhi University
alumni have been Heads of State, Union Ministers,
Governors of States, Ambassadors, and Constitutional
Authorities. Alumni of the University have headed both
India and Pakistan: Fakhruddin All Ahmed in India and Zia
ul Haque in Pakistan. Salem Salem has served as Prime
Minister of Tanzania and Kintu Musoke as Prime Minister of
Uganda. Among those who have been Union Ministers or
members of the Cabinet, mention may be made of Mani
Shanker Aiyar, Vijay Goel, Arun Jaitley, Meira Kumar, R
Kumaramangalam, Arun Shourie, Kapil Sibal, Kanwar Natwar
Singh, and Sahib Singh Verma. Among those who have served
as Chief Ministers of States, we may mention Sheila
Dikshit and Sahib Singh Verma in Delhi, Ajit Jogi in
Chhattisgarh, Sucheta Kripalani in Uttar Pradesh, and
Veerbhadra Singh in Himachal Pradesh. Many others have
distinguished themselves in politics, of which those in
recent public memory include Salman Khurshid, Piloo Modi,
Ambika Soni and Sitaram Yechuri. Our alumni have always
had a strong presence in the halls of Parliament. Among
those recently elected we can list Sandeep Dikshit, Rahul
Gandhi, Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The list of those who have held constitutional positions
would include Governors of States such as Arvind Dave in
Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, Ved Marwah in Jharkhand,
Sarup Singh in Gujarat and Kerala, Gopal Gandhi in West
Bengal, and Vijai Kapoor, who was Lt Governor of Delhi.
Two very important Constitutional Authorities have been
alumni of the University: VN Kaul as Comptroller and
Auditor General of India, and JM Lyngdoh as Chief Election
Commissioner.
The Law Faculty has produced many distinguished persons
who have made a name for themselves, both in the Bar and
on the Bench. Justice BN Kirpal retired as the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Notable judges of
the Supreme C ourt have included Justices Arun Kumar, YK
Sabharwal and BP Singh. Judges of the High Court who are
University alumni include Justices Badr Durrez Ahmed,
Vijender Jain, Sanjay Krishen Kaul, Madan B Lokur, HR
Malhotra, Geeta Mittal, Mukul Mudgal, MM Punchhi, Arun B
Saharya, and Vikramjit Sen. The University has also
contributed many distinguished members of the Bar over the
years - Arun Jaitley, Dinesh Mathur, Rohintan Nariman, PP
Rao, Raju Ramachandran, Mukul Rohatgi, Kapil Sibal, Gopal
Subramaniam, and Mohan Lai Verma.
Many captains of industry and commerce have been students
of the University.
Names that come to mind immediately include those of Rahul
Bajaj, K.K.Birla, Gun Nidhi Dalmia, Shanker Lai, Lalit
Nirula, Bharat Ram, Lala Shri Ram and Siddharth Sriram.
The world
of art, literature and entertainment owes much to those
who were students of Delhi University. Arguably the two
biggest stars of the Indian cinema, Amitabh Bacchan and
Shah Rukh Khan, have gone on record expressing their
gratitude to the University. Manoj Bajpai, Kabir Bedi,
Neena Gupta, Manoj Kumar, Om Puri, Konkona Sen-Sharma,
Roshan Seth, Shekhar Suman, and many others have walked
the corridors of colleges in the University dreaming about
their future success on the silver screen. Shekhar Kapur
and Meera Nair are internationally acclaimed film
directors, while Debu Chaudhuri, Amjad All Khan and Sharan
Rani have excelled in the field of classical music, and
Geeta Chandran and Shovana Narayan have made a name for
themselves in classical dance.
There have been significant contributions to Indian
writing in English by our alumni thanks to Rukun Advani,
Aga Shahid All, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Amitav Ghosh, Manju
Kapoor, Amitava Kumar, Anurag Mathur, Makarand Paranjape,
I Allan Sealy, Sudip Sen, Khushwant Singh, Shashi Tharoor,
and Pavan Verma. Writers in Hindi include Nirmal Verma and
Ashok Vajpai. The world of newspapers has benefited from
our alumni too: the senior brigade led by Swaminathan
Anklesaria Aiyar, Ajit Bhattacharjea, Prabhu Chawla,
Harish Khare, and BG Verghese, and the somewhat younger
set of Swapan Dasgupta, Chandan Mitra, Paranjoy Guha
Thakurta, and Pankaj Vohra. On the television screen you
are likely to see Vinod Dua and Prannoy Roy on the news
channels or the ubiquitous quiz master and compere
Siddharth Basu.
In the
world of sports, we can list the Test cricketers Mohinder
Amarnath, Kirti Azad, Nikhil Chopra, Vijay Dahiya, Ashok
Gandotra, Rajinder Singh Hans, KS Inderjitsinhji, Ajay
Jadeja, Arun Lai, and Manoj Prabhakar; the athletes Asha
Aggarwal, Ranjit Bhatia, and Piyush Kumar; the swimmer
Supra Singhal; the shooters Rajashree Kumari, Kami Singh,
Manavjit Singh, Mansher Singh, Randhir Singh, Shilpi
Singh, and more recently Jaspal Rana; and the mountaineers
Hari Dang and Joginder Singh who were awarded the Padma
Shri and Manmohan Singh Kohli who was honoured with the
Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. Sanjit Roy gave
up his championship squash racquets and went to work in
remote Tilonia, Rajasthan. Our alumni have been honoured
by Dhyan Chand and Dronacharya Awards and with over 40
Arjuna Awards. And lest we forget, MN Masud, an alumnus of
the University, reportedly captained our gold medal
winning 1936 Berlin Olympics hockey team.
The Civil
Services have always been a popular choice among the
graduates of the University of Delhi. Mentioning even the
most distinguished members of the administrative,
diplomatic and police services would probably require
considerable space. Our alumni have over the years held
the most senior positions in the civil services system:
Cabinet Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Secretaries to the
Government of India, India's Ambassadors world-wide, Chief
Secretaries of State Governments, Director Generals of
Police. It would be impossible to name all of them.
Former
faculty members of the University as well as former
students have played pivotal roles in the domain of public
policy. The most distinguished of these have been Montek
Singh Ahluwalia, CD Deshmukh, PN Dhar, JN Dixit, DS
Kothari, Deepak Nayyar, CNR Rao, VKRV Rao, Arjun Sengupta
and of course Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Many a
Delhi University alumnus has returned to teach in the
university, while other teachers have distinguished
themselves in many fields after finishing their tenure in
the University. The economics profession has such
distinguished members as Amartya Sen, only one of three
Nobel Prize winners from India. Other distinguished
academics and teachers include Kaushik Basu, Jagdish
Bhagwati, Sukhomoy Chakravarty, Veena Das, PK Kabir, DS
Kothari,
Venkatesh Narain Murthy, Deepak Nayyar, Gyanendra Pandey,
Jogesh Pad, Prabhat Patnaik, KN Raj, CNR Rao, VKRV Rao, BD
Sanwal, TR Seshadri, MN Srinivas, Sanjay Subramaniam,
Romila Thapar, IK Vasil, and of course, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, who taught at the Delhi School of
Economics.
Many of
our faculty have made notable contributions to the world
of academics and of letters while they taught at the
University. It would be appropriate to conclude with a
list of some of these distinguished teachers and the
awards and recognitions they have received: Professor Debu
Chaudhuri, Padma Bhushan, recipient of the Tansen Award,
the Raseswar Award of the Delhi State, and awards from the
Mumbai Sangeet Natak Academy and the National Academy of
Music, Dance and Drama; Dr Aruna Chakravarty, Professor
Indira Goswami and Professor Gopi C Narang-winners of
Sahitya Akademi Awards; Professor Avtar Singh Paintal,
Fellow of the Royal Society; and Professor Andre Beteille,
Fellow of the British Academy.