A Royal palace to knowledge hub!

Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury

India is a country with naturally gorgeous places like Himalayan Mountains which decorates it as a majestic crown and towards down of it Indian Ocean where the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal meet each other.

The mountains are covered with snow and start glittering on the Sun shine. Slow wind blowing makes it even more pleasing. India has beautiful green crops that fill our land greenery.

It also has many rivers flowing, making the soil fertile, a variety of flowers, flora and fauna. So, India has natural beauty which will never fade away.

The countries like Portuguese, French, and Britain had a planning to establish their colony and reached India throw different corners after an adventurous voyage.

Out of these, Britain reached on the peak, initially established as East India Company and gradually overwhelmed the power of ruling kings and started to rule our country stepwise. The overall environment was not suited to Britishers as they hailed from chill places so always tried in search of some hilly areas where cold breeze blows naturally.

The Europeans in India had always a special attraction of charming Shiwalik hills where the British officers posted at Sabathu Cantonment. Normally in the lower Shiwaliks, the British officers visited the thick forests for hunting expeditions and on the ridge of it the present Shimla is situated.

It was Captain Charles Kennedy, the political agent of the East India Company, who came to the  hill station and became the first European to build a permanent house near the original village called ‘Shemlah’ in the year 1822.

The village ‘Shemlah’ turned to Shimla in due course of time and Britishers decided that hill station would be the summer capital and declared it in 1864. It was Lord Lytton who conceived the plan to build the residence of Viceroy and fruition during the viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin.

The main architect of the building was Henry Irwin, also the Chief Superintendent of the works along with F.B. Hebbert and L.M. St. Clair Wilkins were the executive engineers and A. Scott, T. Macpherson and T. English assisted the project as assistant engineers. Lord Dufferin forwarded his suggestion of the Viceregal lodge with alteration or modification in time to time.

It was the first priority of Dufferin, who used to visit the construction site both in the morning and evening and often he accompanied by Lady Dufferin, she also suggested some considerable point on personal interest. Lord Dufferin knew that a few months left as the Viceroy of India so he extended the urgency of completing the work within the time frame.

Due to  Dufferin’s sense of urgency the original drawing of Irwin was changed to make the cost a bit lower and as a result the upper walls of the main gallery around which the rooms were made narrower in respect to original drawing. Finally, Dufferin moved to the Viceregal Lodge on 23^rd July 1888. It was best recorded by lady Dufferin’s wife in her dairy.

It was 11^th August, 1888 Lady Dufferin hosted the first ‘At Home’ at Viceregal Lodge  and received almost 300 visitors and they were mostly women and that was followed by the tennis tournament on 17 August where Maharaja of Coach Behar participated along with Mr. Irwin and other players. Maharaja declared as the winner of the match. The Viceregal Lodge finally became a home.

The Elizabethan and Scottish architectural structure with beautiful wood-paneled wall and wonderful stairway witnessed by several memorable occasions like historic round tables as well as ‘Simla Conference’ of 1945.

This Viceregal Lodge hosted many National leaders of India, like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mulana Abul Kalam Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and others who visited in connection with different political dialogues and conferences. After the independence, the lodge was transferred to the hands of President of India and renamed as Rashtrapati Nivas.

The Nivas was almost in an unused condition except the then President Rajendra Prasad who stayed for a week in every year. When Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan became the President of India then he conceived a concept to introduce that building as a research study centre. His dream came true and named this centre as ‘The Indian Institute of Advanced Study’ and formally inaugurated by him on 20 October 1965 which was fully funded by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

Radhakrishnan imagined that the Institute should be a place of free and creative inquiry into the themes and problems of life and thought. As a residential centre for advanced research, it encourages creative thinking in areas of deep human significance.

Before the commencement of the inaugural ceremony, the guests had been given a booklet wherein the founder Director of the institute, Professor Niharranjan Ray, briefly outlined “What this institute is and what it aspires to be.” Again in his own words the institute would aim at ‘Providing opportunities for such meeting of minds and commence of ideas as are likely to extend our horizons of knowledge and wisdom and add new dimensions to our life and thought.’

The fully well maintained institute has a beautiful garden with variety of flora and is one of the best landscape gardens located at such a height. There are three nurseries in the garden with some rare Himalayan plants. It is recognized as one of the best garden in this region. Besides this, there is a sports complex, theatre space and many more which encourages the residential scholars for relaxation and to some extend entertainment also.

This institute has a library with huge collection of books and the number exceed more than two lakhs presently. It has a reading room capacity of fifty users. The collections of the library pertaining to the disciplines of different branches like anthropology, history, linguistic, literature philosophy, sociology and comparative religion. The collections of the library are further enriched by the patronage of scholars like R.C. Majumder and many more scholars.  

 Regular academic programs are organized by the institute and eminent scholars can visit the institute for some academic pursuit under the scheme of visiting professor schemes. Several national and international seminars, workshops, conferences, symposia, study weeks on themes of contemporary relevance as well as those of fundamental theoretical significance are organized every year in which distinguished scholars from across the globe participate.

The main significance of the institute is the intellectual freedom which is supported by government also. Therefore, the then President of India Dr. Zakir Hussain expressed the hope that the institute would, ‘grow into a site of free enquiry, of disciplined intellectual activity, both critical and constructive, where the illimitable freedom of the mind is respected and natured, and where excellence in all its aspects is the guiding star.’ 

Recent visit to the centre accelerated me to pen down about the institute which will flourish across India once again especially for the scholars and intellectual who are stirring in thirst of knowledge.   

Dr.Jagadindra Raychoudhury. Mobile No. 8812011012

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