Kolkata, Amid outpourings of grief over the death of professor Rajat Kanta Ray, whose lectures at the then Presidency College were a major draw among students, eminent personalities on Monday recalled how the historian had mesmerised and inspired all in his illustrious teaching career.

Ray, also a former vice chancellor of Visva-Bharati, a central university founded by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in West Bengal’s Santiniketan, died on August 6 at the age of 79.

Prasar Bharati’s former CEO Jawhar Sircar recalled Ray’s active support in taking select paintings of Rabindranath Tagore to several countries, while Victoria Memorial’s former curator Jayanta Sengupta said Professor Ray had elucidated the importance of grasping “historical narratives”.

Visva Bharati’s senior faculty member and historian Atig Ghosh described Ray as “the best teacher” among those he came across.

“He was six years my senior but centuries ahead of me in scholarship and achievements. I shall miss his warmth and detailed comments on each of my recent pieces that his wife Nupur used to read out to him,” Sircar said.

“Without Rajat Babu’s intervention, we would not be able to take selected paintings of Rabindranath from Kala Bhavan to seven important countries of the world- for the first time ever- during the 150th Birth Anniversary celebrations of Tagore in 2011-12,” he recalled.

Ray continued to “mesmerise generations of students” till the end, the former Rajya Sabha MP said.

Sengupta, also the Alipore Museum director, recollected how “Sir (as Roy was known among his students) made an amazing evaluation of the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte” in a session.

Ray taught at the Presidency College (now a university) from 1975 to 2006, mentoring generations of historians and history teachers.

“Despite having come in contact with many renowned teachers during my student days in Presidency College, Jawaharlal Nehru University and abroad, Ray was the best teacher I came across. I had the opportunity to get him as a teacher in the Presidency College from 2000-03,” Ghosh, the Visva Bharati teacher, told PTI.

“There can be some other historians who are as colossal as Ray, but he was the best teacher of history,” Ghosh said.

He recalled how Ray used to take his students on a heritage walk across the Presidency campus on their first day in the hallowed institution, “as we could see history unfolding before us as if in a live manner”.

Ghosh said Visva-Bharati has called a memorial meeting for Ray on the campus on August 19.

Between 2006 and 2011, Ray served as vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati.

Ray was “unusually bold and was often disliked by a bunch of mediocre teachers who had got into Presidency thanks to political patronage of the Left Front”, Sircar claimed.

“I know this because some of them – led by a vitriolic Bengali teacher who taught Hindi – went after him in the 2003-2006 period and complained to me as higher education secretary of West Bengal.

“I went straight to CM in 2005 and requested him to stop his partymen from harassing Rajat Babu, who was an outstanding teacher. CM supported me fully and after retirement, he continued to teach in the Presidency as Professor Emeritus,” Sircar added.

Presidency Alumni Association vice president Bivas Chaudhuri said Ray had received the ‘Atul Chandra Gupta Distinguished Alumnus Award 2024’ at a function and also delivered an illuminating speech, despite ill health.

Ray, who had done his PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, is survived by his wife and two daughters.

His acclaimed books include ‘The Felt Community: Commonality and Mentality Before the Emergence of Indian Nationalism’, and ‘Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875-1927’. PTI