Henry Benedict Medlicott is not someone an average Indian would have a quick recall about. But it would be worthwhile to know this British officer whose comment on Indians and their scientific aptitude and potential best sums up the discriminatory attitude colonial rulers had against Indians hoping to study, do research or make a career in the sciences. Head of the Geological Survey of India from 1876-87, Meldicott believed Indians were incapable of any original work in natural science. He wanted to wait till the “scientific chord among the natives” was touched and added that “if indeed it exists as yet in this variety of human race so let us exercise a little discretion with our weaker brethren, and not expect them to run before they can walk”.
It’s no wonder then, that the British blocked the advancement of scientific research among Indians and discriminated against those who made attempts to pursue it with rigour. Avenues for research in science were under the direct control of Britishers, and not easily accessible for Indians. Stories about how deserving and exceptional Indians such as Jagadis Chandra Bose and Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray were denied their due are now legendary, as also the case of Pramatha Nath Bose, who was superseded by a junior British officer as the director of Geological Survey of India. Scientists were being robbed of the recognition they truly deserved.
National Science Narrative
Struggling to bring back their national scientific identity, scientists such as PC Ray, JC Bose, CV Raman, Meghnad Saha, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Mahendra Lal Sircar, M Visvesvaraya and many others were very much a part of the emerging nationalism and freedom movement even though they did not directly participate in the political struggle. JC Bose once mentioned that ‘the highest expression in the life of a nation must be its intellectual eminence and its power of enriching the world by advancing the frontiers of knowledge’. His mission was not to introduce science to India, but to revive Indian science. There were others such as PC Ray who declared, in the midst of his scientific career, that ‘science can afford to wait, but Swaraj cannot’.
Struggling to bring back their national scientific identity, scientists such as PC Ray, JC Bose, CV Raman, Meghnad Saha, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Mahendra Lal Sircar, M Visvesvaraya and many others were very much a part of the emerging nationalism and freedom movement even though they did not directly participate in the political struggle. JC Bose once mentioned that ‘the highest expression in the life of a nation must be its intellectual eminence and its power of enriching the world by advancing the frontiers of knowledge’. His mission was not to introduce science to India, but to revive Indian science. There were others such as PC Ray who declared, in the midst of his scientific career, that ‘science can afford to wait, but Swaraj cannot’.
The establishment of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 is considered the landmark for the institutionalisation of western science in India. Until 1828, only Europeans were elected members of the society. In 1829, the trend changed and a number of Indians were elected members, such as Dwarakanath Tagore, Sivchandra Das, Maharaja Baidyanath Roy, Maharaja Bunwari Govind Roy, Raja Kalikrishna Bahadur, Rajchunder Das, Ram Comul Sen and Prasanna Coomar Tagore. On December 12, 1832, Ram Comul Sen was elected Native Secretary. Later, Rajendralal Mitra became the first Indian president of the Society in 1885. Indians could only publish 18 papers in the Journal of the Asiatic Society from 1836 to 1895. The European settlers, on the other hand, accounted for 1021 papers. But when the Indian scientists came up with their own societies, the count went up to 304 papers by 1920.
Infusion of Energy in Indigenous Science
With the establishment of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science (lACS) on January 15, 1876, the national science was born again in India. The man behind this institution was Mahendra Lal Sircar. He was an allopathy doctor by training but he was a strong advocate of homoeopathy. The uniqueness of this institution was the vision of its national objective in science and autonomy from the government laid down as early as 1875. Founded with Indian collection worth Rs 61,000 — a handsome amount for the late 19thcentury — the IACS got a worthy start without the help of the colonial authorities. Sircar said: “We should endeavour to carry on the work with our own efforts, unaided by the government. I want it to be solely native and purely national”.
The greatest contribution of the lACS during the period 1876-1901 was its contribution to the development of the idea of nationalism in the cultivation of science.
The greatest contribution of the lACS during the period 1876-1901 was its contribution to the development of the idea of nationalism in the cultivation of science.
Jogendranath Ghosh founded the Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Industrial Education (AASIE) in 1904. This Association played an important role in sending Indian students abroad in the Swadeshi movement. A leading educationist of Bengal, Satish Chandra Mukherjee launched the Dawn Society in 1902 to promote the idea of national education. The society’s magazine, The Dawn, provided an important platform for popularising science and applied science literature. The Dawn Society became the National Council of Education (NCE) in 1906 to organise parallel structures of education on ‘national lines under national control’.
Jogendranath Ghosh founded the Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Industrial Education (AASIE) in 1904. This Association played an important role in sending Indian students abroad in the Swadeshi movement. A leading educationist of Bengal, Satish Chandra Mukherjee launched the Dawn Society in 1902 to promote the idea of national education. The society’s magazine, The Dawn, provided an important platform for popularising science and applied science literature. The Dawn Society became the National Council of Education (NCE) in 1906 to organise parallel structures of education on ‘national lines under national control’.
The movement had begun well and spread within the scientific circles of Calcutta; it had a domino effect in other parts of the country too. In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Scientific Terms Society was established at Salem in Madras in 1916 by C Rajagopalachari. It coined new words in Tamil for terms related to botany, chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics. Karnataka Vijnana Pracarini Samiti was formed for the popularisation of science in regional languages.
The Indian School of Chemistry under PC Ray encouraged and trained a generation of students, who immensely contributed to the development of chemistry departments in the universities and gave at least four generations of chemists. The base for the Indian Chemical Society (1924) was, in fact, provided by the students of PC Ray and it goes back to the dream he shared with Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar in London.
Similarly, the School of Physics emerged in Calcutta. CV Raman, JC Bose and MN Saha constituted this school but until 1920, Raman was its leader and the school came to be identified as the ‘School of Raman’.
Indian Scientific Journals
Activities related to science and technology publications grew rapidly during the mid-1930s. This period is associated with the creation of a series of support structures. Parallel to colonial science, there emerged a stream of early science policy efforts in nation-building through a number of private initiatives which placed Indian science in the international scientific domain.
Patna Science College’s Philosophical Society was established circa 1931. The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, was founded by Sir CV Raman, and was registered as a society on April 24, 1934. Inaugurated on July 31 the same year, it began with 65 founding fellows. In their first general meeting held on the same day, the constitution of the academy was adopted and Raman was elected president. The Indian Science News Association was established in 1935 with the initiative of Meghnad Saha and PC Ray. Madras Science Club was started in 1935 with the initiative of KS Varadachar, who was actively associated with the foundation of Current Science.
The integration of research activity to advance science in these societies enabled the leading scientists to make a significant departure from the era of colonial science.
For the period 1807-1947, as many as 6,008 Indian scholarly publications appeared in 244 journals, which comprised the following: 4,899 articles, 880 letters, 125 notes, 43 reviews, 7 conference papers and 6 short surveys.
From the earliest publication in 1807 till 1858, India’s scientific publication history was irregular as only about 99 articles were published in half a century. But a massive growth was seen from 1929 onwards with 123 articles published in that year alone. The highest number of publications was in the year 1936 with 377 articles published from India. Perhaps, the growth of publication in the 1930s was due to the consolidation of institution-building process. The maximum number of publications were published in Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Section A (1432 papers) followed by Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences Section B (621 papers). The most productive author was T R Seshadri from Andhra University with 175 articles in the area of chemistry followed by NR Dhar with 143 articles from the University of Allahabad and Raman with 74 articles from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and Indian Institute of Science. The maximum research activity was observed in the area of chemistry followed by agricultural and biological science. Indian scientists preferred to publish their research output in Indian journals. The Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences published by the Indian Academy of Science since 1934 were the most preferred journals of publication.
National science truly started to grow once the Indian scientists came up with their own societies as it enabled them to do their research with freedom. Though the monetary situation was not favourable, the support structures created in the early 1900s proved to be a great boon for science in India in the next four decades and enabled further consolidation of the base of national science.
This emerging nationalism in the scientific community was very much connected to the struggle for independence. This community fought to get international accolades for national science and Indian scientists. The influence area of this group was limited but they believed that scientific excellence at international level could bring back the enthusiasm and dedication of Indians towards their homeland. With CV Raman winning the Nobel Prize in 1930 and later getting two more fellowships of the Royal Society, fellow researchers were infused with unprecedented energy and enthusiasm. These accomplishments in the early years of the 20th century were the result of the support structures created in the second half of the previous century. JC Bose had once said that the “impulse from outside reacts on impressionable bodies in two different ways. So, the first impetus of Western education impressed itself on some in a dead monotony of imitation of things Western while in others it awakened all that was greatest in the national memory”.
*The writer is Associate Editor, Science India
