“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou
Forty years back at the Kariavattom Campus, University of Kerala, Professor K. Raman Pillai (KRP) held out a truth in the middle of a lecture: “social life has too many vagaries that we often miss seeing the wood for the trees.” Though KRP was set to reflect on the complexities of international life, he had actually brought in the agonies of people around us—perhaps, after his watching Vida Parayum Munpe (Before Saying Goodbye), a 1981 Malayalam film directed by Mohan. The central character of the film—Xavier—acted by the late Nedumudi Venu was indeed “bearing an untold story” inside him. Sitting in his post-graduate class in International Politics, we could hardly sense why KRP referred to this film in the course of his lecture. But as we saw Vida Parayum Munpe, his words started ringing in our ears. Years later, we also realized that KRP had little hesitation in internalizing the fictional life-world and its characters—effectively coalescing into a metaphor for life-world situations.
But, ever since he lost his beloved son, Rajesh Pillai—a promising film director—KRP too was actually bearing an untold agony inside him. Yet he never gave up hopes. In an interview after the release of the film Traffic in January 2011, Mekha, Rajesh’s wife, told that it was the happiest moment in their life, at the back of some setbacks earlier. After watching the show in Thiruvananthapuram, along with KRP, Mekha said that the response of the audience made her ‘ecstatic.’ More importantly, KRP became emotional in the midst of this and she could see tears in his eyes. When the accumulated tears started flowing and the sobs wracked the face—of an ‘all-time serious’ person—we could imagine how sensitive KRP had been. For quite a long, Rajesh was known as KRP’s son, but after Traffic created a sensation, KRP became Rajesh’s father, said Mekha.
In less than two days after watching Traffic, KRP called me when I was with a family on a houseboat at Kumarakom. I could barely listen to his words in the midst of the moving boat and its disturbing sound. I called him back as soon as we came ashore. KRP was in a gleeful mood, sharing the best moments of his life with his son making a successful return as director. He asked me to watch it as soon as possible. Yes, we did and called him, after watching, to share our joy too.
However, KRP’s elation did not last long, sadly. He lost his son in another five years’ time, that too at the early age of 41, and since then KRP looked like a devastated man for the rest of his life. I couldn’t see him before he left for Bangalore to live with his daughter.
Academic Profile of Professor Raman Pillai
It was a turning point in the life of KRP when he decided to do PhD in India’s Foreign Policy at the Indian School of International Studies (ISIS), New Delhi in the 1960s, which he completed in 1968 under Professor K.P. Karunakaran. ISIS was started by the Indian Council of World Affairs, housed at the Sapru House at that time (ISIS was incorporated into Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1970). KRP continued his postdoctoral research as a fellow in ISIS until he took up a research position at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi. Then he moved to Delhi University where he served as Senior Lecturer in Political Science, at Ramjas College. It was in 1978 that KRP came back to Kerala to take up a position at the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala where he became Professor and Head, and later Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Director, Academic Staff College, Director, State Resource Centre, and Founder Director, V.K. Krishna Menon Study Centre for International Relations. After his retirement, he was associated with C. Achutha Menon Foundation, Thiruvananthapuram, as secretary for almost a decade and officiated as Chairman & Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Social Science in Perspective. Author of several books and edited volumes, KRP also served in different positions with the Indian Political Association, Indian Institute of Public Administration and several academic and professional bodies including the Board of Studies of several Universities, NCERT and U.G.C. Expert panel in Political Science and Public Administration. He visited France under the Cultural Exchange Programme of the Government of India and had been to West Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherland and the United Kingdom. In 2021, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu conferred Paul H. Appleby Award to Professor Raman Pillai. The Award was set up by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) for outstanding achievements in the field. KRP was the chairman of the Kerala Chapter of IIPA.
Professor Raman Pillai’s admirable and compelling personality—as well as his professional demeanour—would help explain the remarkable growth of the Department of Political Science and its frontier areas of International Relations, Policy Studies, and Public Administration under his leadership. He saw the potential power of these interrelated areas to advance the knowledge and understanding from different vantage points, from different countries, beliefs, and cultures. The Centre for Policy Studies he instituted within the Dept was symbolic of his thinking, the idea of which he later translated into VK Krishna Menon Study Centre for International Relations at the university.
On a personal level, KRP was an influential mentor to me. With all affection and gentleness, he stimulated our own thinking and interest in Foreign Policy Studies and International Relations (IR). Nearly half a dozen students of my batch (1981-83), including my long-time colleague in Kottayam, Prof. A.M. Thomas, opted for the elective he offered, India’s Foreign Policy. We never missed his lectures on International Politics and India’s Foreign Policy. KRP was very systematic and punctual, always trying to link ideas and theories with contemporary events. He was undoubtedly the consummate classroom teacher. In fact, Thomas and I selected IR topics for the dissertation just because of our exposure to and inspiration from him. KRP used to instruct me to go to the Soviet Cultural Centre library in the city to consult some of the best available books on the subject I had chosen. Indeed, my first level of exposure to IR studies came from the experience of working with him. That, in fact, helped me a lot to take up the challenge when we started teaching at the newly constituted Department of International Relations, Mahatma Gandhi University in 1984. KRP was so proud to tell all that Thomas and I landed on the academic terrain of IR Studies he embarked on.
Way back in 1986, when we organised a national seminar on “India’s Foreign Policy: Continuity and Change,” we invited him along with Professor V. Suryanarayan (Madras University), Professor A.H.H. Abidi (JNU) and others. After the sessions, we had dinner with them at Hotel AIDA. I still recall the way he admired us, in his talk with Professor Abidi, saying that this ‘IR dept amity’ is what we are really missing in many places. KRP could experience the way we worked as a team in the IR School. It was in the same year that he asked me to write a paper for the journal of the Dept of Pol. Sc—Kerala Journal of Political Studies. I wrote my piece on “Empiricist Liberalism: Bertrand Russell’s Perceptions of Politics” in KJPS and he had a very deep appreciation of the way I approached Russell.
Years later, after KRP’s retirement from the University of Kerala, I had hinted him, when we met in Thiruvananthapuram if he could come to Kottayam IR School as a Visiting Professor. He was so excited to accept the invitation and MG University nominated him as UGC Visiting Professor. He served two consecutive terms with us (1997-98) and taught students. KRP never showed any kind of hierarchical approach in our relations, as teacher and students. Rather he worked as colleagues with all dignities of a university faculty. Once in a while, he used to come to my room and spent time with me sharing many things—both personal and academic. My colleague Thomas had the same experience, and I felt at times if Thomas was following, albeit unwittingly, his body language and style. Thomas has always been so systematic and punctual in his teaching, like KRP. I too followed his footsteps, in a way, but it was mainly in the structuring of lectures with detailed notes prepared in advance for each class.
When the IR School was shifted to the main campus in the early 1990s, we had organised a colloquium on the ‘New World Order.’ There were only two speakers from outside—Ambassador KPS Menon (Jr) and Professor K. Raman Pillai. KRP spoke well touching on all critical issues of the time. It was held a few months after KRP organised a major Conference on “India’s Foreign Policy in the 1990s” under VK Krishna Menon Centre at Trivandrum. KRP had asked me to make a presentation and I did amongst the experts in the field. I was again happy to contribute the paper presented at the Conference to a volume KRP edited, which Radiant (New Delhi) brought it out later.
KRP was one of the major inspirations which helped me set up the K.P.S. Menon Chair for Diplomatic Studies in Kottayam IR School. If I taught India’s Foreign Policy as well as IR Theory as core courses at the MA, MPhil, and PhD levels with all confidence, it was because of the positive energy he generated in us. For more than thirty years, KRP remained a great inspiration. When I organised a major conference on India’s Foreign Policy in 1998, with the support of the Ministry of External Affairs and KP Koirala Foundation, he promised a paper and he kept it. I was glad that he sent a paper on India-Pakistan relations and gave me full freedom to edit it according to the format of the Orient Longman. So, the Radiant (1997) and Orient Longman (2005) volumes remain the symbol of our academic give-and-take.
Eminent economist Professor M. Kunhaman, KRP’s colleague at the University of Kerala in the 1980s, and later Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai said he knew Prof. Raman Pillai “very intimately.”
Professor Kunhaman says: “In fact, he was one of the few teachers in the University with whom I had liked to interact. Others were feudal and hierarchical in their attitude and thinking. Naturally, a person like me used to stay clear of such anachronisms. In contrast, KRP was broad-minded, humane and a great source of inspiration and guidance. He always made it a point to invite me to every academic programme he organised and wanted to ensure my participation. A teacher par excellence, he used to be a torch-bearer. My fond memories of that association continue to be a driving force in my life,” Professor Kunhaman noted.
Professor B. Vivekanandan, former Chairman, Centre for American and West European Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, recollects: “My long-time good friend, Professor K. Raman Pillai is no more. He was a distinguished academic in India. I have observed Prof. Pillai’s activities ever since we met first, 56 years ago, at the renowned Indian School of International Studies, at Sapru House, in New Delhi, where we were doing our PhD research on foreign policies of India and Britain. Since then, our friendship remained very warm. In Delhi, we fought several battles together to oppose moves harmful to our alma mater.”
According to Professor Vivekanandan, KRP “was a doyen of Political Science in India, well-known for his incisive writings. He was a great scholar, a marvellous teacher, and a dedicated research supervisor, who has become a role model for his students. He later held responsible academic positions in various universities and colleges in the country. Always, he was warm, friendly, reassuring, and reliable in times of need. He was a man of principles and values who has shown the highest integrity and transparent honesty, throughout his academic/administrative career. He was a workaholic, and a meticulous organiser, which he had demonstrated, time and again, by organising a large number of national seminars and conferences on important socio-economic and political issues of the country.”
Professor Vivekanandan said, “by habit, Professor Raman Pillai was highly disciplined, inspiring and hardworking. He was an erudite and prolific writer, whose writings carried great clarity and precision. He was a beacon of intellectual honesty and objectivity while making assessments. He was free from narrow loyalties and prejudices and made merit the sole basis of his assessments. In whichever institutions he was attached to, including the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala and C. Achutha Menon Foundation, Trivandrum, he has left his indelible mark on them. Indeed, he was mainly responsible for the tremendous increase in the academic content of the activities of the Achutha Menon Foundation and for making it a hub of intellectual activities in Trivandrum. Professor Raman Pillai was a socially conscious academic. His demise is a severe loss for the state and the country. I deeply mourn his death.”
Professor V. Suryanarayan, former Senior Professor and founder-Director of the Centre for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of Madras said that he knew Professor Raman Pillai from ISIS days and he was one year senior to him. “KRP was a born leader of men.” Professor Suryanarayan says, “Writing about Oliver Goldsmith Samuel Johnson wrote, “There was nothing that he touched which he did not adorn.” The same is true of Prof. Raman Pillai, Professor Suryanarayan added.
According to Dr J. Prabhash, former Professor, a colleague of Professor Raman Pillai and later Pro Vice Chancellor, University of Kerala, “KRP was a great teacher and scholar with a brain, heart and guts. He was strong to the strong and weak to the weak and did what he thought with much insight and courage. He also established himself as an excellent administrator and good organiser. KRP was a student-friendly teacher who not only listened to his students but always tried to fill them with hope and taught them how to tide over failure. He firmly believed that helping students to suffer less is essential to the work of teaching and transmitting knowledge. Also, nothing democratic and humane was alien to Prof. Pillai. Prof Prabhash said that KRP was realistic too. He remembers one of his pieces of advice to his students – “when your house is on fire, you can’t wait for ‘Ganga jal.’ Instead, you have to do with well water.” Prof. Pillai’s tenure as Head of the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala, “was definitely the best of times for the discipline, his students and colleagues as well for the entire Political Science fraternity of the State.”
Prof Prabhash also writes: “When everything is said, I will be failing in my duty If do not add a personal note. I owe a great deal to Prof. K. Raman Pillai for what I am today as he played a crucial role in inducting me as a faculty of the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala, guiding my PhD thesis and mentoring me throughout my career. He taught me to approach each action as if it was my last action, and always encouraged me to attempt the impossible so that what is possible won’t elude me. What else can one expect from a great teacher, a concerned intellectual and a considerate human being,” Prof Prabhash noted.
According to Professor G. Gopakumar, KRP’s colleague and later Vice Chancellor, Central University of Kerala, “Professor Raman Pillai provided substantial leadership to the Department of Political Science at a time when the Department suffered a major leadership gap in 1982 following the loss of three senior Professors. He built up the Department through his hard work and brought visibility and earned credibility in the public sphere. He also popularised the study of International Relations in Kerala state for the first time, among other areas in the discipline of Political Science. He maintained excellent relations with his colleagues, staff, and students. A fine human being, Professor Raman Pillai had a great appreciation of the civil society of Kerala,” Professor Gopakumar noted.
Professor A.M. Thomas, former Director, School of International Relations and Politics and Dean of Social Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University notes: “Professor Raman Pillai was like a father figure to me. I met him for the first time at the MA admission interview at the University of Kerala. He was a great teacher, dedicated, sincere and meticulous. I had taken two of his courses—International Politics and Foreign Policy of India. I also wrote both my MA and MPhil dissertations under his guidance which I must assert was an excellent experience. He showed great concern about the future of his students. He had great faith in them and guided them appropriately. He was also the warden of the hostel where I was an inmate. He was concerned not only about our academic matters but also about our personal lives. He was a mentor par excellence who had a major impact on my life.
Prof Thomas said that KRP was extremely happy when I joined the School of International Relations and Politics at Mahatma Gandhi University. It was a great honour that after his retirement Prof. Raman Pillai taught with us in the School as a Visiting Professor. We were indeed proud to tell our students that he was our teacher. I remember that he stayed in the Guest House of the University and was as punctual and vibrant as ever. I am happy that I was able to visit him in Bangalore three years ago. Despite the passing years, he was still as active and energetic as I remembered him. Prof. Raman Pillai’s demise is a great loss to all of us,” Prof Thomas said.
Dr Shaji S., faculty at the Department of Political Science, Central University of Hyderabad writes: “Deeply saddened by the demise of Professor Raman Pillai, UGC Visiting Professor who taught us at the Kottayam IR School. Prof Raman Pillai was an outstanding teacher whose wide range of knowledge and perspectives on the subject was clearly reflected in the clarity and lucidity with which he presented arguments in class. As a Visiting Professor at the IR School during 1997-98, he was engaged in teaching various courses of Political Science. He was a passionate and committed teacher and his style of teaching in terms of linking political thoughts/Ideas, ranging from classical Greek political thought to modern Indian political thought, with contemporary issues of international relations was always quite nuanced and refreshing,” Dr Shaji noted.
Professor Raman Pillai deeply influenced our academic life, broadened our worldview, and profoundly inspired our thoughts on scholarship, leadership and humanity. With great affection and immense appreciation, it is our privilege to pay tribute to Professor Raman Pillai: beloved mentor, visionary, institution builder and a great colleague.
