Last evening, Professor Ashoke Chatterjee spoke from his heart at the MP Ranjan Memorial Lecture, a design event where he was being felicitated by us as Design Guru 2022 at the JK Lakshmipat University ( JKLU), Jaipur.
Here is my introduction to the man, the event and the context.
DESIGN GURU DAY is an event that has grown from strength to strength. What started as an emotional reaction to Prof MP Ranjan’s passing, has now grown in stature and strength. It’s a day to remember Ranjan’s contribution to Design education and also to choose a design educator who has played a major role in it. Ever since I proposed this idea to the ProVC in 2019, JKLU has been consistent in honouring the heavy weights of Design education. The pandemic and the lockdown, did not deter us a for celebrating Ranjan and felicitating another senior member of the Design community Professor Ashoke Chatterjee, who is here with us this evening..AC as he is fondly called, stands tall amongst his peers for teaching the design students the importance of empathy, the necessity to have a moral compass that will guide you in your decision-making and the bravado to call a spade a spade.
He believes in the value of Design, just like Ranjan did. When we approached him for the celebration and his felicitation, he initially refused. He was not too sure about being a ‘guru, because he hardly taught Design. Several e-mail exchanges later, well into the wee hours of the night, he agreed.
I agreed with him, that the term Guru is overused and means different things to different people. However, to our design community, the definition of a Design Guru is not limited to someone who has taught ‘design’. It must, and it does include those people who have influenced design and design pedagogy in meaningful and visionary ways. Like Ranjan did. Like AC continues to do. Both have been promoting and evangelising design in all possible forums and conferences.
And AC introduced to us students that, design to our community is not restricted to contributing to business profits but also includes contribution made to the livelihoods of artisans, farmers, and the marginal populace. We have to deal with social issues, sustainability using strategic design management and communication.
There was a time in our country when design, leave alone design education, was hardly known. Sustainability was an emerging idea. In 1977, Prof Chatterjee got the UNIDO and ICSID members to agree to come to Ahmedabad for a 2-day symposium and designers and educators thinkers from world over camp to Ahmedabad to the NID campus and the symposium ended with the historic ‘Ahmedabad Declaration’ by members of UNIDO and ICSID. The document was about Design’s role in development in India. Professor Ashok Chatterjee was the person behind this announcement. He reminded everyone about the power of Design and it’s the force that can bring a better quality of life in the developing world. 40 years ago, advocated the idea of local solutions to local problems, which has become the mantra for sustainability today.
What was most needed besides demonstrations of what design can do, was evangelists who could convincingly make a case about the relevance of design and therefore the need to support design education and its graduates to Government and Industry. We are in no doubt at all that AC, you were that evangelist, and you continue to be so.
Your lifelong and single-minded commitment to design and its promotion at every level is very well known to us. You have been our voice. And we continue to count on that voice. Your anguish about the state of design education today undoubtedly stems from that, reminding us, as you have always done, that there is a crisis we must address urgently. Your influence on design education is legendary. Thanks, AC!
Wishing you good health and Godspeed ! Next stop: Padmashree ?
Design thoughts 