Igniting fervours for nationalist science mission, self-reliance

“I have only now to reiterate my conviction that if our country is to advance at all, and take rank and share her responsibilities with the civilized nations of the world, it can only be by means of Science…”, are the prophetic words of Dr. Mahendralal Sircar, the founder secretary of the first National Science Association, established in 1876, aiming to cultivate science by original research in all departments solely by Indian natives to help improve the ‘arts and comfort of life’.

It is amazing that the same conviction was echoed more than half a century later in the first Scientific Policy Resolution (SPR) of the Government of the independent India in 1958, with the objects: “To foster, promote, and sustain by all appropriate means, the cultivation of science, and scientific research in all its aspects - pure, applied, and educational…. It is only through the scientific approach and method and the use of scientific knowledge that reasonable material and cultural amenities and services can be provided for every member of the community.”

Raja Rammohan Roy, the social reformer and founder of Brahmo Sabha, is aptly regarded as the herald of Scientific Education in Colonial India, who emphasized that Sciences, as practiced in the west, were the Desiderata for the country’s material development. Mahendralal institutionalized the ideas of Rammohan in the form of a National Science movement since 1869. As comrade, he got the Belgian Jesuit teacher, Reverend Father Eugene Lafont, regarded as the science missionary of the nineteenth century in India.

“I took upon myself the task of diffusing and popularizing science and joined my efforts to those of Dr. Sircar. I could in all conscience recommend to the natives of this country the unrestricted study of the western science without misgivings or restrictions, because I saw in it the study of the God’s works... I would not advocate with the same confidence many other products of the Western civilization,” Roy said.

At the inaugural ceremony of the Association, the Father remarked: “The superiority of the western nations was mainly due to their knowledge of science, and Dr. Sircar wanted to diffuse that knowledge among his countrymen in the hope that the Hindus might in the course of time, add their own discoveries to those of their fellow brethren in the West”.

The newly established Science Association shouldered the responsibilities to remind the countrymen about our glorious past and the path for the regeneration in scientific, material and spiritual terms. While Swami Vivekananda emphasized on spirituality and moral character, Mahendralal’s realm was intellectual and preached for the cultivation of science and building scientific attitude. “So long as we were earnest and diligent in exploring the secrets of Nature, we had mastery over her and could hold our own. But from the moment we gave ourself to luxury and ease, and were taught by an idle priesthood to depend invoking the aids of the gods without doing the necessary work ourselves, we began to fall from our high estate,” Mahendralal once said.

By 1880, the Association was equipped with sophisticated apparatus of international standard- thermotic, acoustic, electrical and optical. However, taking off of the original scientific research got delayed in want of qualified scientific personnel due to paucity of funds, but no grant was sought from the colonial government to degrade its Nationalistic identity. The secretary’s repeated appeal to the rich Indian community for appointing whole-time endowment professors failed. After his demise in 1904, the Indian Nation commented in the obituary note: “The Association is an institution, nobly conceived, but one in advance of the age, if not wholly unsuited to this country. No one in this country cares for an education that is not directly convertible to money. The science that plays in the market is the science of the factory…”

Has the outlook of our Society at large has changed in hundred twenty years?

Chandrasekhar Venkat Raman, an iconic figure of the National Science movement, and the only Nobel Prize winner in science till the date who worked solely on India soil, joined the Association in 1907. Discharging his responsibilities as a conscientious Accountant General, Raman worked at the Association only out of his passion for the science, and he used to say, “I have always felt that the Association is my proper home. Dr. Sircar has sown the seed, and it has fallen to my lot to reap the harvest.”

The other object of the Association was to rescue from oblivion the ancient Indian knowledge. In 1879 Mahendralal himself translated Charaka Samhita and Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy wrote in 1902 “A History of Hindu Chemistry”. Mahendralal having had an acute perception of India’s glorious past used to quote Friedrich Max Muller, “If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, I should point to India.”

On every July 29, IACS celebrates its foundation day, and this year it was 148th. By this time, the country has sailed through four Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies and is passing the regime of the 5th one. These policies have helped evolve the country’s STI ecosystem to be a scientifically advanced global player. We boast to have the 3rd largest higher education network, and rank at the 4th place in terms of number of science publications. A long way still to go as the global innovation index-2022, declared India at the 40th position. Some aggressive course corrections are needed, and a talked about one is our gross investment in R & D, which is paltry 0.8 per cent and below the world average of 1.8 per cent. A much deserve paradigm change in university education is on the way to encourage creativity over rote learning. The country has the potential, and committed to fulfill the aspirations of its people as dreamt by our forefathers.

(The writer is a senior professor, School of Chemical Sciences, IACS, Kolkata)