Remembering Prof Wadwalkar

Col DS Cheema (retd)

I had not been in touch with Sanjay ji — this is how I called him — for a long time now. In fact, after I left DAV College, Chandigarh, in 2007, where I served as the Director, Department of Professional Studies, for eight years, I lost contact with the good professor.

The short man was a hard-core professional who must have undergone arduous penance to gather the merit he had as a teacher. He was indeed the precious child of pure meritocracy and it was visible in his teaching as well as in his behaviour towards others.

Before joining DAV College, I was the principal of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Dayanand College of Communication and Management where we conducted evening PG diploma programmes. While in DAV College, I thought of replicating some of those programmes if they could be recognised by the PU. It took me almost a year to prepare the syllabus, equip the library with essential books and magazines and find the right faculty before the college took up the case.

I recall how Dr KN Pathak, the then VC, asked me about the need for conducting evening programmes when the PU was already conducting such courses through distance learning. When I submitted to him that a regular programme would be more useful as compared to the distance-learning ones, he saw reason and accepted my request to grant recognition. A lot of my time was spent in sorting out issues with the university authorities, but slowly and steadily, inspection teams were detailed, inspections carried out and permission granted for courses.

Prof Sanjay Wadwalkar, as the chairman of the Mass Communication Department, was the head of the inspection team when it came for checking the first time. I was briefed that he was a difficult man to deal with by those who knew him better. The first inspection was a disaster, Wadwalkar tore apart every argument I put across and told me very clearly that a prestigious course of the Mass Communication Department, which was more than 100 years old, could not be allotted to any college just like that. The other two members were just on-lookers and the meeting ended in a fiasco. A lot more effort had to be put in to deal with the 40-odd points given by the team. The second inspection was on similar lines. I was frustrated and had almost given up, but decided to make one last effort. I wanted to plug all loopholes.

The third inspection team consisted of Dr Radhey Shyam Sharma, the first VC of Communication University, Indore, and Dr SL Sharma, retired PU prof, apart from Prof Sanjay Wadwalkar. It was my luck that I happened to know the two members and had discussed the need for the courses with them before the team arrived. On the crucial day, I was keeping my fingers crossed but the discussion started on similar lines as before. When I asked Wadwalkar why was it that his more than 100 years old department which boasted of the likes of Shekhar Gupta had never earned a PhD, he got up and shouted, “Sir, you are hitting me below the belt, I will not accept it.” It took the team members and some others in the room to control the situation. However, after three hours, he touched my knees, hugged me and we parted as friends. The inspection team had recommended permission for the programme. I was left thoroughly impressed with the fierce loyalty he had for his department. Thank you, Sanjay ji!