(Marathi Bhasha Gaurav Din)
Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Three professors of the same subject, same department and same university from the city were honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for their contribution to the Marathi language and literature.
Perhaps this is the only such university department to achieve a feat. Their contribution to preaching and practising one language, Marathi, is important. This resulted in the professor being honoured with the Padma Shri for literature and education. This is significant at a time when Marwhen athi was granted ‘Classical Language’ statues.
Their names Dr Y M Pathan, the late Dr Gangadhar Pantawne and Dr Prabhakar Mande, all of them were researchers, professors and heads in the Marathi Department of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) and ideal for their students.
Talking to this newspaper, the head of the Marathi Department Dr Dasu Vaidya said that Dr Y M Pathan who is a former professor and head of the Marathi Department had a major contribution to Marathi literature through saints literature, critical writings and translations.
“Dr Pathan visited village to village to gather rare manuscripts (pothis) and did research on them. All the rare manuscripts have a special section in the university library. His research and contribution in Mahanubhav Sahitya are very remarkable. The Government took notice of his work and honoured him Padma Shri award in 2007,” he said.
Another professor Dr Gangadhar Pantawne was a prominent thinker and critic of the Marathi language.
He used to bring out a Marathi literary magazine ‘Asmitadarsh’ which became very popular within a short time and gave a new direction to the Dalit movement. Dr Pantawne who raised the voice for the deprived, suppressed and Dalit community through his writing, received Padma Shri in 2018.
The third Padma Shri is the late Dr Prabhakar Mande who researched and contributed a lot to folk literature in Marathi. He undertook a movement to introduce folk literature as a subject in the universities of the State. He established the 'Lok Sahitya Parishad’ and launched a movement with contemporary researchers to broaden folk literature research. He did critical writing and also gave lectures on folk culture. Padma Shri was present to Dr Mande in 2023.
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Dr Dasu Vaidy said that this is very rare that all the Padma Shri awardees are from the same Department and the same university made a lion’s contribution to the Marathi language and literature, helping it to get a classical language status.