So, when he returned, it was natural that he should get involved with issues of civil liberties beginning with the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, the explosion at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the burning of the train at Godhra, the human disaster in Kashmir, and the elusive search for peace between the people of India and Pakistan.
Each was imbued with the flavour of scientific temper as laying bare the anatomy of the social barriers that prevent the application of rationality.
And he was fierce about the friendships he made over so many decades, so many generations, and so many nations. Always ready to fight over an argument, but always gracious and generous and hospitable to a fault to all who came to know him, from plebeian to patrician. The numbers who remember him with affection and awe will stand testimony to the fierceness of his spirit.
(Dr Anubrotto Kumar Roy, popularly known as Dunu Roy, is a Chemical Engineer by training, a social scientist by compulsion and political ecologist by choice. This is a personal blog and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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