West Bengal Political Science Association (WBPSA)
WBPSA is the academic forum of the teachers and research scholars of Political Science in West Bengal for pursuing and promoting their academic interests. The post-graduate students doing M.Phil. and Ph.D. courses are also admitted to the membership of the WBPSA.
The need for having a state level association was keenly felt first in the early 1960s when it was found that many teachers and research scholars did not always get an opportunity to attend the annual conferences of the All India Political Science Association. The first initiative for forming the WBPSA was taken by Prof. Nirmal Bose, then a senior lecturer in Political Sceince, Uluberia College, and a prominent leader in West Bengal College and University Teachers’ Association (WBCUTA) in 1959-60 with enthusiastic patronage and cooperation of Professor Nirmal Chandra Bhattacharya of Scottish Church College and Professor Subimal Kumar Mukherjee of Calcutta University, and his senior and junior colleagues in some colleges such as Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, Bangendu Ganguly, Mrigendranath Banerjee, Probodh Krishna Das Mahapatra, Asit Kumar Basu, Sukumar Dam, Amiya Kumar Chaudhury, Sobhanlal Mukherjee, Asoke Mustafi, Basab Sarkar, Dilip De, Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, Chitra Ghosh and Asoke Kumar Mukhopadhyay (then a post-graduate student).
WBPSA was formally inaugurated in Darbhanga Hall, Calcutta University’s College Street Campus, in November- 1960 by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of the West Bengal, in the august presence of Professor Nihar Ranjan Ray, an eminent historian and the Dean of Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University, and Professor Naresh Chandra Roy, Centenary Professor of Public Administration and then Head of the Department of Political Science, Calcutta University.
During the next six years WBPSA held occasional seminars and small group meetings to discuss important issues in political theory, international politics and Indian Government and politics. Prof. Nirmal Bose was the first General Secretary of WBPSA. In his indivudial capacity, Prof. Bose was the Editor of the first journal on Political Science “Rastra”
With political upheavals and disturbances taking place in West Bengal since 1967, the WBPSA remained practically dormant till 1977-78 when Prof. Bose again revived the WBPSA with the help of Professor Nirmal Chandra Basu Ray Chowdhury, Professor Mohit Bhattacharyya, Professor Prasanta Kumar Ghosh and Professor Chitra Ghosh. After he became a minister in the Second Left Front Ministry in West Bengal, the responsibility of running the WBPSA fell on Professor Mohit Bhattacharyya and Professor Prasanta Ghosh with Prof. Nirmal Bose as the patron of WBPSA.
After demise of Prof. Bose, the initiative of reviving the WBPSA was successfully taken up by Prof. Satyasadhan Chakraborti, the then Higher Education Minister of West Bengal Government. The WBPSA began its new life as a registered body under Registration of Societies Act. Prof. Mohit Bhattacharyya (President) and Prof. Prasanta kumar Ghosh (General Secretary) took WBPSA on a high level of activities with Prof. Satyasadhan Chakraborti as the Patron. A major achievement of the WBPSA during this new phase was to publish it's own journal, ‘The West Bengal Political Science Review’. The inaugural number of this bi-annual journal came out in 1998 under the editorship of Professor Asok Kumar Mukhopadhayay (Calcutta Universityh). The purpose of the WBPSA is to provide a forum for intellectual discourse among its members on theoretical and practical problems of political science and other related disciplines, on a non-partisan, scientific and academically objective basis. The WBPSA aims at stimulating interest and debate on various aspects of political and socio-economic studies and encouraging intellectually honest and non-partisan exploration of the horizons of understanding the stale, society and politics. Professor Mukhopadhyay edited the journal till the end of 2002 and was succeeded by Professor Goutam Kumar Basu (Jadavpur University).
Prof. Amritava Banerjee became the editor in 2007. However, with the selection of Prof. Banerjee as the President of WBPSA, Prof. Gautam Kumar Basu has been given the responsibility to edit the journal o the Association. |
