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A Committed Scholar
C P Bhambri believed that the task of social science, like all other sciences, was to arrive at the truth on the basis of well-established facts. It was for his students and listeners to present an alternative argument and the facts to back it.
Intellectually fearless, never one to shrink away from a debate, baiting others to challenge his analysis, C P Bhambri was a formidable presence in the Centre for Political Studies (CPS), indeed in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the Indian academia.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, when studies on Indian politics were dominated by reflections on the “dominance of one party” and the “Congress system,” he undertook a class analysis. In the pages of Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), he used this framework to represent the Congress as a “coalition of classes under the hegemony of the national bourgeoisie.” This enabled him to speak of the tensions that existed within the party as well as alliances that surface across groups in different parties. This was a new perspective which enabled the observers of Indian politics to look beyond personality clashes and understand the subsequent split within the Congress party as well as coalitions that emerged on the scene.
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