Radhakamal Mukerjee: An Eminent Scholar, Saint and Social Worker

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The book contains some of the ideas of Professor Radhakamal Mukherjee, who was one of the few multidisciplinarians of the twentieth century and wrote with equal ease on various aspects of society including economics, sociology, politics, civilizations, art, values, morals, philosophy mysticism and religion. He wrote about fifty books on various subjects. His view is that peace and prosperity in the world can only be brought out by religious teachings particularly as expounded in Bhagavad Gita and not by politicians. He was not only an eminent social scientist but a saint and voluntary social worker too, like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma, President of India who was in personal contact with him as a teacher in Lucknow University praised him for hist simple living, high thinking and voluntary social work as mentioned in this book. Many foreign scholars have highly appreciated his writings and personal life. Professor Manuel Gottieb observes, "I hold Radhakamal Mukerjee in very high regards, he being to my mind one of the two or three outstanding minds in the social sciences in this century..... He is the master and we can all be grateful that he gave to us so fully in his many works and writings so that we can draw upon his spirit even while he is gone."

Dr. G. R. Madan (b.1923), the Editor of this volume was connected with Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889- 1968) in three ways. He was not only his student but was also involved in voluntary social work as desired by him and got guidance in spiritual life being in close touch with him for about 15 years in his later life. He taught in the Department of Sociology and Social Work from 1954-84 and later on was Visiting Professor of Sociology in Maharaja Surajmal Institute, New Delhi. He was so much impressed by his latest writings which came to his knowledge when he edited the book, Integral Sociology (Four Volumes) by Dr. Mukerjee in collaboration with Shri. V. P. Gupta in 2000 and wrote a book on World Civilizations and India (in 2007). He also thought of bringing another book about Dr. Mukerjee's writings and of life in addition to four earlier volumes which contains more matter about his latest writings and future of civilization.

I had edited a Souvenir entitled, Radhakamal Mukerjee- Scholar, Saint and Social Worker Centenary Celebration Commemorative Volume 1989 when we celebrated the Centenary Celebration Year of Professor Mukerjee. This Souvenir became out of stock in 2007. We had then approached some of the scholars, social workers and his disciples who had come in personal contact with him during his lifetime in India. List of the same is given in Part II of this book. In this function, about twenty persons paid their tribute to him. Earlier to this Volume, four books had been published in his Honour, the details of which are given in the Introduction of this book. However, I found that some of his books, which have been published after 1955 have not been reviewed. Therefore, I with the assistance of Professor V.P. Gupta, Secretary of our Society, edited a book in 2000 under the head, Integral Sociology in four volumes covering some of his other works published after 1955. The manuscripts of this book, Integral Sociology, were passed on to me by Professor G.C. Hallen, as mentioned in the Introduction.

Therefore, I approached Professor V.P. Gupta and suggested that another book should be brought about in his honour which will contain some information about his books published after 1955.

I met Professor V.P. Gupta at his residence twice, once on 18.7.2007 and again on 24.8.2007 as he was not feeling well. As the Publisher wanted that this book should be of small size, we decided to take some material from his earlier publications brought out in honour of Dr. Radhakamal Mukerjee since 1955, so as to show his interest in various fields and write in more detail about his later publications so as to have a comprehensive view of his personality.

A broad outline was drawn out in August 2007 and I started getting some material printed. He expired all of a sudden on 1.9.2007 and I was left alone to get that matter published.

The first publication brought out in Honour of Dr. Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889-1968) was by Dr. Baljit Singh, Head, Depart- ment of Economics and Sociology, Lucknow University, in 1955 entitled, The Frontiersof Social Science in Honour of Radhakamal Mukerjee when he was Vice-Chancellor of the Lucknow University and Director, J.K. Institute of Sociology and Human Relations. In this book more than 30 scholars from all over the world who had shared the good fortune of personal and professional association with Prof. Mukerjee collaborated in this volume. Majority of them were foreigners. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Vice-President of India wrote a Foreword to this book.

After his death in 1968, two more publications were brought out in his Honour by two teachers of Lucknow University. One was by Prof. Zafar Hasan, Head, Department of Sociology and Social Work in 1971 and another by Dr. Ishrat Z. Husain in 1972. In the book, Research in Sociology and Social Work- Radhakamal Mukerjee Memorial Volume mostly the summaries of Ph.D. dissertations submitted in this Department from 1955 to 1971 were given. In the other book, Population Analysis. and Studies-Radhakamal Mukerjee Commemoration Volume by Dr. Ishrat Z. Husain, Joint Director, Population Research Centre, Department of Economics, in which more than 20 experts both foreigner and Indian contributed articles. Dr. Ishrat Z. Husain prepared a summary of all those Papers. in the Introduction which along with his own Tribute to Dr. Mukerjee in the beginning, a copy of which is given in Chapter 7 of this book.

In this book, Population Analysis and Studies after the Intro- duction is given 'A Tribute to Dr. Radhakamal Mukerjee,' by Dr. Manuel Gottlieb, University of Kansas, who had contributed two Papers in the earlier Volume, The Frontiers of Social Science in Honour of Radhakamal Mukerjee in 1955. These were: (1) Parsons and Mukerjee: An Essay on Ecological Analysis in Social Thought and (2) Theory of an Economic System.

**Contents and Sample Pages**