Dipak K. Nandy (born 21 May 1936) is an Indian academic and administrator.
Beginning his career as a lecturer in English literature, Nandy developed greater interests in race relations and was the first director of the
Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a race equality think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, ...
. He was later a special consultant to the
Home Office and deputy director of the
Equal Opportunities Commission.
Early life
Nandy was born in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
, India, on 21 May 1936, into a middle-class
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
family,
[Olivier Esteves, Stéphane Porion, ''The Lives and Afterlives of Enoch Powell: The Undying Political Animal'' (Routledge, 2019, )]
p. 147
/ref> and was educated at St Xavier's College.
He arrived in Britain in March 1956 with the aim of getting a university degree,[ and worked for a time on the night shift at ]Cadbury Schweppes
Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mars ...
. He was then offered a place in the English literature department at the University of Leeds
, mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased
, established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds
, ...
. He later stated that Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
, in the 1950s, was, in range, variety and intellectual strength, the most exciting place in Britain to be. He took his first degree at Leeds in 1960, then began to work for the degree of doctor of philosophy, but was distracted from that by interests in physics, maths, music, and philosophy, and in 1962 was appointed to his first academic post, at the University of Leicester
, mottoeng = So that they may have life
, established =
, type = public research university
, endowment = £20.0 million
, budget = £326 million
, chancellor = David Willetts
, vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah
, head_labe ...
.[
]
Career
On his arrival at Leicester, his colleague Monica Jones described Nandy as "a coloured communist". In 1964, he was appointed as a lecturer, and from 1964 to 1967 chaired the Leicester Campaign for Racial Equality and also took part in sit-ins at the Admiral Nelson pub, which at that time had a colour bar
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Internati ...
. In 1966 and 1967, he was Director of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasted until 1967, that lobbied for race relations legislation. The group's formation was inspired by a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. to Londo ...
Summer Projects; he also joined the Information Panel of the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants and served as Secretary of Equal Rights.
Nandy left his academic post in 1968 to found and run the Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a race equality think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, ...
, which he directed until 1973. He was also a member of the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
's Immigrants Advisory Committee and of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an "anti-racist think tank".
Proposed by ''Sund ...
.
After a brief break at Social and Community Planning Research from 1973 to 1974, he was recruited as a special consultant by the Home Office, to work on the Sex Discrimination Bill, before in 1976 helping to draft the Labour government’s Race Relations Act 1976
The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. The scope of the legislation included discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and na ...
.
In 1975, Hugo Young
Hugo John Smelter Young (13 October 1938 – 22 September 2003) was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at ''The Guardian''.
Early life and education
Born in Sheffield into an old recusant Roman Catholic family, h ...
described Nandy as a highly intelligent academic, administrator and politician.
In 1976, he went to Manchester, where the Equal Opportunities Commission had been located, and remained its Deputy Director and chief policymaker for the next ten years, remaining until 1986. There, among other work, he was intimately involved in driving through the government's policy on taxation (''The Taxation of Husband and Wife'') by pressing for the equalisation of the State Pension ages of men and women. He successfully briefed Liberal and Labour MPs and peers to redraft the government's proposed amendment to the ''Equal Pay Act 1970''.
In 1979, Nandy began to forge a link with the Directorate-General V of the European Commission, and organised a representative conference on outstanding issues in the progress towards equal treatment of women throughout the nine members of the European Economic Community as at 1981, and acted as the conference secretary.
He was chased through the house and garden by police during the 1981 Moss Side riots after he tried to take a photograph of police officers sitting in the back of a van reading porn. In 1989 he supported Salman Rushdie against the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini. His house was firebombed, and he, too, was issued with a fatwa.
Nandy always had a detailed personal interest in broadcasting as 'the way a society talks to itself', and he served as the chairman of the BBC's Immigrant Programme (1983–1988), and as a member of its General Council (1983–1990). He was appointed a member of Lord Annan's Committee of Inquiry into the Future of Broadcasting (1974–77), which created Channel 4 instead of the widely expected ITV2, and successfully lobbied through the Committee's report for a unified Broadcasting Complaints Commission.
Personal life
In 1960, while a student at Leeds, Nandy met Margaret Gracie, whom he dated until 1964, when they were married in Leeds. They separated in 1971, and in 1972, in Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
, Nandy married secondly Ann Louise Byers, a daughter of Lord Byers, Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
. Their youngest daughter, Lisa Nandy
Lisa Eva Nandy (born 9 August 1979) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Wigan since 2010.
N ...
, was born in 1979. She became a Labour Member of Parliament in 2010, and has stated that her father considers her right wing.
Publications
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Filmography
*''Racial Discrimination'', Rediffusion, 1967
* Question Time
A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
14 February 1985
*''A Question of Colour'', Open University, 1982
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nandy, Dipak
1936 births
Living people
Bengali Hindus
20th-century Bengalis
Bengali writers
Indian broadcasters
Indian Marxist writers
Politicians from Kolkata
Writers from Kolkata
Academics of the University of Leicester
Indian emigrants to the United Kingdom