Donald E. Smith, 89, Penn professor who loved India

A memorial service will be held Saturday, Aug. 26, for Donald E. Smith, 89, of Wayne, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who died July 6 of complications from Parkinson's disease at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

Born in Phoenixville, Chester County, Dr. Smith grew up in Berlin, N.J., where he ran high school track and served as president of the student body at Haddon Heights High School.

He earned the rank of Eagle Scout. During funerals for hometown veterans of World War II, he played an echo of Taps on his bugle, his family said.

Dr. Smith received dual bachelor's degrees, one in arts, the other in theology, from Eastern Baptist College and Theological Seminary in 1951. He completed a master's degree in 1953, and a doctorate in 1956, both in political science at Penn.

While studying at Eastern, he was ordained and preached in Spanish at a small parish in Harlem, New York City.

He taught at the University of Rhode Island for eight years and returned in 1964 to Penn, where he served on the faculty until his retirement in 1999. He specialized in comparative politics and political development, religion and politics, and the military and politics of South Asia.

Dr. Smith received two Fulbright fellowships for research in India and a 1968 grant from the Social Science Research Council for research in Latin America. He also received grant money from the Carnegie Corp. to conduct a seminar in Sri Lanka in 1964, and funds from the East-West Center in Honolulu, which led to a 1970 book about religion and modern politics.

His friend John F. Smith III, a retired Philadelphia lawyer who is not related to Mr. Smith, recalled the latter's "deep affection" for India and Sri Lanka. "He brought those themes into our community, as well," John Smith said.

Dr. Smith authored Nehru and Democracy (1958), India as a Secular State (1963), Religion and Politics in Burma (1965), and Religion and Political Development (1970). He was the editor of Religion, Politics, and Social Change in the Third World (1971), and was editor and a contributor to South Asia Politics and Religion (1966) and, with, Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Anti-Americanism in the Third World (1985).

He chaired the committee on academic freedom and responsibility at Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, his family said.

In October 1994, he was honored by the Association of Indians in America "for his unique contributions to arts and letters, and to greater understanding between the peoples of India and the United States."

Although he had Baptist roots, Dr. Smith joined the Main Line Unitarian Church in Devon in the late 1990s, where for a decade he chaired the church's task force on Latin America. In that role, he led efforts to strengthen human and labor rights in Mexico and to fund micro-credit programs to alleviate poverty and aid the economic development of women in Mexico and Central America.

He helped organize learning trips for church members to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Cuba, Venezuela, and areas along the U.S.-Mexican border. A bridge-builder, Dr. Smith helped convey "the concern of the church and the American people" to citizens in those countries and "to bring back a true portrait of the lives of the people down there," John Smith said.

Dr. Smith was married to Violet Ramanjulu of Nellore, India. From 1975 to 1985, the couple opened their home in Wayne to several of her nephews from India and paid for them to attend college here. The nephews and several of her nieces, most of whom were married in India, settled in the Philadelphia area. Over the years, they and their children maintained close ties to Dr. Smith.

Ramanjulu died in 1993. He married Deborah Anthony Stuart in March 2000. She described her husband as very upbeat, warm, and kind.

"In keeping with the custom of South India, he referred to his more than a dozen great-nieces and great-nephews as his grandchildren," she said. "He regularly hosted parties for them, every Easter, Halloween, and Christmas when he dressed up as Santa Claus."

In addition to his wife and extended family, Dr. Smith is survived by a sister.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 26, at the Main Line Unitarian Church, 816 Valley Forge Rd., Devon. Burial will be private.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 689 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass. 02139, or the microcredit organization FINCA International, 1201 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.