The publication of the commemorative volume is a part of the Silver Jubilee celebration of the Sambalpur University. The contributors of the essays have spared no efforts to record the true picture of the people of the region who, though highly placed socio-culturally, are agro-ecologically disadvantaged and economically distressed due to a great many reasons. In each essay an attempt has been made to identify one or more of the important socio-cultural dimensions, the past history, the present situation and the future potential of the region. Development is not, after all, a historical event which can be recounted once and for all, but a continuing process which demands a perpetual follow up. It is hoped that the volume will be of benefit to future researchers in the field and provide a reasonable data base for regional planning.
I wish to take this opportunity of offering my thanks to the authors, the Steering Committee, and the Editorial Board without whose enthusiastic, unstinted cooperation this volume could not have been made ready for the memorable occasion.
All significant endeavour in human civilisation, be it in poetry or science, religion or social organisation, shares a common characteristic of seeking to satisfy psychological needs that pertain to both local and universal conditions. The best civilisations are precisely those that facili-tate an integrated approach to the possibilities of life, and demonstrate a marked competence in satisfactorily tackling human problems belong-ing to both micro and micro-environments, neglecting neither for the sake of the other, and fostering a multi-faceted cultural growth by sponsoring sophisticated and popular forms alike. As centres of human understanding and culture-labs for the future, universities in particular have the obligation to safeguard and promote socio-cultural potential both in their immediate specificities and in their non-denominational, universal dimensions. Contrary to certain traditional notions, universi-ties are not really institutions that cut themselves free of local moorings in order the better to project a non-provincial character. In addressing themselves to the problems of ignorance, misapprehension, and human sufferings of various kinds, they do not have to foreswear the normal use of their ordinary eyes and remain glued to a microscope or a telescope all the time. Charity, even in this instance, should begin at home.
For an institution like the Sambalpur University which came into existence in 1967, vested with the responsibility of nurturing higher education and research in a region which had the ironical distinction of combining enviable natural plentifulness with crippling educational and economic backwardness, the prirorities were only all-too-clear. It had to be at the service of a large tribal population as also of a people with a rich cultural heritage who continued to suffer privations born out of centuries of exploitation and administrative neglect, people who were excitedly looking for deliverance, enlightenment, and progress with the support of institutions like itself, which had been set up, they believed, to ensure their proper rehabilitation in the modern world. Their eman-cipation from age-old psychological bondage and economic shackles had to feature as a major item in the developmental blue-print prepared by the managers and experts drafted for the institution. Thus many of its objectives had to be radically different from those of the metropolitan universities which had been established in pre-Independence days. It had to fulfil a regional destiny while contributing to a broader national regeneration, and, at the same time, to build and sustain an intellectual eminence that might successfully protect its young, aspiring minds from a debilitating sense of inferiority and insecurity. And all this it had to attempt in defiance of certain near-paralysing constraints of history and socio-political culture.
A Silver Jubilee year is a time for much introspection and critical stock-taking, apart from being one of jubilation and celebration. The authorities of the university, therefore, planned a wide range of activi-ties in response to the demands of the occasion, including publication of a commemorative volume which should sketch an authentic profile of the people put under its educational care, tracing the shaping of their identity, examining their attainments and failings, and deciphering their future potential. The intention was to critically situate an ethos so as to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of scholars elsewhere and also to furnish a proper sense of context for planners engaged in drawing up program-mes for improving the quality of life in the region, But for the unfortu-nate failure, for one reason or the other, of a number of scholars to meet the deadline, the study thus offered here would have been far more com-prehensive than it is. Even as it stands, however, it is hoped, the volume would be felt to have fulfilled its task in not-too-mean a measure.
Reliable scholarship joined to an insider's feel, intellectual objectivity and emotional affinity born out of first-hand experience, detachment and involvement, are both what constitute mental prerequisites for a successful study of the kind attempted here. While it may be relatively easy for an expert to marshal critical data for the purpose and engage in large academic pronouncements, translating his immediately human perceptions into a general idiom is rather a daunting enterprise. The difficulty grows particularly acute when it comes to the business of interpreting emotional and aesthetic aspects of the lived reality, the response of the community to social life, to nature, and to art and literature; more so, when one has to negotiate the experience for a wider readership, and adopt a foreign medium like English for the purpose. To add to all that, limitations of space force an author to suggest and indicate in broad general terms what can be properly conveyed only through copious illustrations and elaborately argued out details. It is to the credit of the authors represented here that they have not allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the difficulties of time, space, and subject matter, and have made such commendable efforts to meet the requirements of the volume.
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