History

The Gauhati University Act 1947 was passed by the Assam Legislative Assembly and the university came into being in 1948 after the approval of the President of India. However in the initial stage, the university classes were held in the premises of the Cotton College. The Mathematics Department also started functioning from Cotton College premises. As has been stated earlier, it was the only Department having Post Graduate courses in Mathematics comprising of Pure and Applied mathematics and Statistics.

The department was shifted to its present site at Gopinath Bardoloi Nagar, Jalukbari, Guwahati 781014, in the year 1955-56. It was due to dedication and relentless efforts on the part of a galaxy of teachers of the Department like V.D.Thawani (founder Professor and Head),Huzurbazar, Jyotiprashad Methi, Siben Barua, A.K.Palit, E.R.Suryanarayan, S.C.Nag,. B.C.Deka, M.K.Mahanta, Prabhu, A.Bezbaruah, A.D.Misra, B.K.Tamuli, M.N.Baruah and K.R.Singh that the Mathematics Department of Gauhati University was developed into a centre of excellence for teaching and research in Mathematical sciences. The Statistics Department was bifurcated from Mathematics Department in mid fifties and shifted temperarily to the Physics building in mid sixties and finally accommodated at its present separate building.

The department gained further momentum research, teaching and research activities under the headship of B K Tamuli, K.R.Singh and B P Chetiya. Various activities of the department including rersearch has been persued vigorously during the headship of the persons following them.

We remember also some other teachers of the department who served the department for a short period or passed away during their service. Thjey are Professor A.C.Das, Professor G.C.Sarma, L.N.Tluanga, Late Sarat Ch. Kalita, and Late Bhgaben Ch. Mena.

We have no hesitation to admit that in the initial stages up to mid sixties the research activities of the department were not quite significant. But there were only a few teachers in the Department (only 3 teachers for Mathematics and about the same numbers of teachers for Statistics) to teach the Post Graduate classes. During that period stress was given on upgrading the syllabus and procurement of books for the Central Library (at present named K K Handique Library) relevant to the subjects taught in the department .Again, to make the students and other participants from various college aware of the new developments in the subject, some visiting Professor from outside the state or the country were invited to deliver lectures on certain new topics during summer schools, seminars and conference. Newly developed topics like Abstract Algebra, Algebraic Topology, Measure Theory, Functional Analysis, Numerical Analysis, Magnetohydrodynamics(MDH), Non-Newtonian fluids and Plasma Physics were introduced either in syllabus or in research work. This helped the teachers and the students passing out from this department to undertake research work in premier institutes like universities of Oxford, Barmingham, Edinburg, Florida, Rhodes Island, Halifax and Trent and Physical Research Laboratory, IITs and IISc. etc.