Who was Dr. George Moraes?
Sudhir Raikar
Biographer, Chronicler, Role-play actor, Knowledge worker focused on healthcare, technology, and BFSI; music, literature, cricket, and cinema buff; happy misfit, eternal struggler, and hopeless optimist
Dr. George M. Moraes was an excellent academician, incisive research scholar, ardent Mumbai lover, professor of History, head of Mumbai University's History Department, and director, Institute of Historical Research, Bombay.
1965 marked the completion of 300 years of the British invasion of Mumbai. It was on 18 January, 1665 that King Charles had granted Humphrey Cooke the possession of Bombay (save for Salsette, Mazagaon, Parel, Worli, Sion, Dharavi, and Wadala that were then still under Portuguese possession.)
On the historic occasion, Dr. Moraes conceived a one-of-a-kind project titled "History of Bombay". Knowing well it would take more than 30 years to single-handedly execute the ambitious project spanning ten volumes, he thought of a unique way out.
He guided 35 of his Ph.D. students to collectively work on the project and led the ten volumes to fruition by the year 1985. Unfortunately, this sterling case study, a project implemented without any government support whatsoever - no grant, no machinery and no man power - inadvertently posed a problem for its readers. Since the ten volumes were published by different publishers under different titles, the whole work is not available in consolidated form.
Thankfully, the priceless books and research papers have been preserved by Institute of Oriental Studies, Thane.
Dr. Moraes died on April 17, 1994 at the age of 90.