Growing the Tree of Science: An Excerpt

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 14:04:38 +0000

Sir Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, whose utopian vision for science this book invoked at the outset, played a significant role in the establishment of Bhabha’s institute. Bhabha’s friendship with Bhatnagar is less talked about than his friendship with Nehru, however, it was no less important. Their friendship dated back to the years Bhabha spent in Bangalore; in fact, both Bhatnagar and Bhabha were awarded the Fellowship of the Royal Society by Sir A.V. Hill during his visit to India in 1944. Bhatnagar’s presence in the council of the institute from April 1947 predated Indian independence. Soon after independence in August 1947, the affairs of Bhabha’s institute demonstrated a quick rise in tempo. The institute had had the support of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) from its inception but with Bhatnagar, the director-general of CSIR entering the council, government investment in the institute increased dramatically. This was an expected outcome. Welcoming Bhatnagar into the council, the chairman, Sir Sohrab, had anticipated benefiting from Bhatnagar’s ‘great experience in matters of administration and research problems’. Bhabha’s institute had started functioning with an annual budget of Rs 80,000 in 1945. Demonstrating the convergence of private and public funding, the CSIR had also offered the institute an annual block grant of Rs 75,000. By 1946–7, the CSIR offered an additional grant of Rs 32,400 for training a team of scientists in accelerators. The following year this had increased to Rs 50,840. Government funding to the institute increased at an accelerated pace from 1948 onwards. By then Bhatnagar and Bhabha had been friends for almost a decade. Bhabha’s friendship with Bhatnagar cannot be defined merely as instrumentalist. Bhatnagar, the older scientist, was respected within the colonial scientific establishment and he saw in Bhabha a worthy collaborator who was already groomed for leadership in science. Together they forged a relationship of admiration, trust, and a sense of participation in building science for a new nation. Having identified the younger scientist as a leader, Bhatnagar did his utmost to reserve for Bhabha’s institute the pre-eminent position of becoming the only institute for nuclear research. In a confidential letter written to Bhabha just before Indian independence, Bhatnagar informed him that the IISc, Bangalore, was about to start a branch of nuclear physics and create a chair for R.S. Krishnan, who headed the Department of Physics. This, Bhatnagar felt, would interfere with Bhabha’s plans for nuclear research. For one, their plans to recruit R.S. Krishnan would not materialize if the scientist already had a chair at IISc—a proposal backed by the Tatas and Meghnad Saha. Highlighting the single source of funding— the government—with which he was involved, Bhatnagar justified his apprehensions about competition between research institutions. This also really is in conflict with our programme of developing your Institute as the centre for nuclear research, While I am not against more chairs being created in universities, I am against the IISc, the CSIR and the TIFR competing amongst themselves in the progress of development of nuclear research as the funds come practically from one source.