Partition trauma to 12 terms in Panjab University senate: Education the only wealth of this Punjab family

When Harpreet Singh Dua, 51, an associate professor at Ludhiana’s GGN Khalsa College, recently won his sixth term as a member of the Senate — the highest elected decision-making body of Panjab University, Chandigarh — he carried forward a legacy that not many families leave behind: the wealth of education.

With their roots in Lyallpur (now in Pakistan’s West Punjab), the Dua family in Ludhiana migrated to India during partition and decided to accumulate education as their wealth. Not just the men, but even women in the family pursued a career in teaching. And since then, they have been passing this legacy on from one generation to the other.

With Harpreet’s sixth term as a PU Senate member, the family now boasts of 12 terms as PU Senate members together.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Harpreet said that seeing his grandparents and parents dedicating their lives to education, he never had two thoughts about being an educator.

Late Gunwant Singh Dua and his wife late Surinder Kaur, both professors. (Express photo)

His grandfather, the late Ram Narain Singh Dardi, who migrated from Kamalia of Lyallpur, was a poet-writer and had published 24 books. “He was a freedom fighter and also participated in the Punjabi Suba Movement. He spent around 10 years in jail,” Harpreet says. “My grandfather was a qualified ‘Giani’, an academic qualification in older times. He established Guru Angad Dev College in Ludhiana’s Field Ganj — the first college to offer degrees like ‘Giani’ and ‘Parbhakar’.”

Dardi married Tej Kaur, also a partition migrant from Rawalpindi. “My late grandmother was in Class X at the time of partition. She appeared in her matriculation examination in India, and pursued a career in teaching. When my grandfather was in jail, she would take Punjabi classes at his college. She retired as a senior Punjabi language faculty from SCD Government College, Ludhiana,” Harpreet says.

Harpreet’s father, late Professor Gunwant Singh Dua, a postgraduate in English, also dedicated his life to education and teachers’ rights. He was a three-time elected Senate member of PU from the teachers’ constituency (1980 to 1992). He had a five-decade-long career as an English professor at GGN Khalsa College. A prominent educationist, academician, and tireless activist for teachers’ rights, he was among the key founders of Gujranwala Guru Nanak Institute of Management and Technology (GGNIMT), and also the president of the Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union (PCCTU) — the largest union of college teachers.

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Harpreet’s late mother, Surinder Kaur Dua, had also retired as an officiating principal of DD Jain College in Ludhiana.

Gunwant’s younger brother, Amarjit Singh Dua, now in his eighties, a Punjabi professor, was also a three-time PU senate member (elected in 2000 and twice nominated in 1996 and 2004), and also served as dean, colleges, Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar.

Harpreet’s grandmother late Tej Kaur Dardi. She was also a professor. (Express photo)

With his grandparents, parents and uncle being prominent educationists, Harpreet, too, followed the same path.

With a postgraduate degree and a PhD in Punjabi, Harpreet won his first senate election in 2004. “I started as an ad hoc teacher at GGN Khalsa College in 1998 and was regularised in 2001. When I contested my first senate election from the teachers’ constituency in 2004, I never faced any difficulty in understanding the issues faced by teachers, because my family would experience the same.”

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After 2004, Harpreet won in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2021 and now 2026. He is also a six-time member of the PU Syndicate body and a one-time Dean, Faculty of Design and Fine Arts, PU. “If teachers have voted for me for six terms, it means they know that I always stood by them for their rights and genuine demands.”

“When I was first elected, my father had told me to stay away from corrupt practices and not to fall for bribes that senate members are offered during college inspections. Senate members are often offered bribes by colleges to clear physical inspections after raising seats in a course without having adequate infrastructure or faculty, but I can never compromise on that,” he adds.

His wife Prabhjeet Kaur Dua is a school teacher, and brother Tripat Singh Dua is a computer science professor.

About his priorities for the sixth term, Harpreet says: “The commercialisation of education has hit both teachers and students hard. Teachers are being exploited work-wise, and students are being forced to shell out heavy fees by private institutions. The AAP-led Punjab government, which promised a better public education system, has run away from its promise. Around 90 per cent of government colleges have been turned into private institutions in several aspects. Our focus will be strengthening public educational institutions for students who cannot afford private ones.”