D.P Mukherjee's View on the Concept of Personality, Tradition, Modernity and Modernization

Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji (1894-1961), a popularly called as DP, was one of the founding fathers of sociology in India. He was born on 5 October 1894 in West Bengal in a middle class Bengali family that had a fairly long tradition of intellectual pursuits. According to Satyen Bose, the famous physicist, when DP passed the entrance examination of Calcutta University, he, likes Bose, wanted to study the sciences, but finally settled for economics, history and was to have proceeded to England for further studies. DP began his career at Bangabasi College, Calcutta. In 1992 he joined the newly founded Lucknow University as a lecturer in economics and sociology. He stayed there for a fairly long period of thirty-two years. Radhakamal Mukerji, the first professor in the department, had been responsible for bringing DP to Lucknow. He retired as Professor and Head of the Department in 1954. For one year (1953) he served as a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. After his retirement from the University of Lucknow, he was invited to the Chair of Economics at the University of Aligarh, which he occupied with great distinction during his last five years of active academic life. He was the first President of the Indian Sociological Conference. He also remained the Vice-President of the International Sociological Association.¹