Jagadish Chandra Bose’s new biography demystifies the Bosean myth. Author Sudipto Das in conversation with Debanjan Chakrabarti.
Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti is the Director, British Council, East and Northeast India. He has over 20 years of experience in leading education, development and cultural collaboration programmes in the UK-India corridor and internationally. A triple gold medallist in English literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Debanjan was awarded the prestigious Felix Scholarship from India for his PhD - in literature and media studies - from the University of Reading, UK. In his substantive role as the Area Director for East and Northeast India, he leads all of British Council's education and cultural relations work in East and Northeast India, covering 13 states and Bhutan. Debanjan is a trustee of the International Language and Development Conference and sits on the education and heritage committees of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
[Debanjan] Namaskar. Good evening. Thank you for being here with us, this evening, for a fascinating conversation, I hope, [about] one of the doyens of Indian science and much more. I have with me Sudipto, Sudipto Das. Sudipto is a writer of four books. Three of them are fictions, before this. This is his first non-fiction. The previous ones were fictions, The Ekkos Clan, The Aryabhata Clan, and The Broken Amoretti. And this, his latest book, is a brilliant biography of Jagdish Chandra Bose. And it’s got a very intriguing subtitle – The Reluctant Physicist.
He lived in the best of times and the worst of times in some ways. Could you tell us a little bit about the very interesting cusp of history when Jagdish Chandra Bose started out on his fantastic career?
[Sudipto] Jagdish Chandra Bose lived a very long life, almost 80 years. But the time period which I’ve covered, mainly 1890s till 1910, these two decades, I would say, in some way, symbolise a lot of things. First of all, I believe, the most important thing that happened during these 20 years was that wireless and electricity were invented. And, I believe, after the industrial revolution of the late 18th century, when the steam engine was invented, this was the biggest thing: wireless and electricity.
If you see, after that, the entire geopolitics of the world was somehow related to wireless and electricity.
If you just look back, everything that has happened in the world in the last 120 years, somehow, they are related to electricity or wireless. So, from that point of view, the second industrial revolution happened during this time.
Also, there were ominous signs during these two decades of several big events, which happened over the next 100 years.
Like, the signs were very apparent that World War was going to happen because England was fighting with the Dutch (Boer War, 1899-1902, Ref. page 227) and the French (Fashoda Incident, 1898) in Africa. They were fighting with the Russians in Afghanistan, which is known as the Great Game (till the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907). And, I believe, there are other ominous signs that the world is not going in the right direction, meaning, there would be some multinational warfare, which eventually happened in 13-14 years, which is World War One (1914-1918).
And more importantly, also, across the world, the extractive and the non-inclusive colonial rules, that were happening across the world, had peaked up.
Meaning, the extraction and the non-inclusiveness of all the colonial rules across the world [had] attained a certain level that it was very obvious that something was going to happen. And it happened.
Like, India got independence. And, between the 40s and 50s, almost all the countries which were ruled by the European colonies were freed. The ominous signs of this revolution, or this freedom, was also visible – in India, between 1890 and 1910, we saw signs that the Swadeshi movement would happen. And it did happen…
[Debanjan] The great thing about Sudipto’s biography of Jagdish Bose is, he weaves in this grand historical background brilliantly into the narrative. Just staying on that historical question, Sudipto, you know, Jagdish Bose also represents, within the flow of Indian history and Bengal’s history, almost the pinnacle of Bengal’s Renaissance, one which starts with Raja Rammohun Roy and carries on right through Rabindranath. And Rabindranath and Jagadish Bose were contemporaries.
Would you like to throw some light on this, and how Jagadish Bose was also a product of this Bengal Renaissance and not just a scientist?
[Sudipto] This [period of] 20 years (1890-1910):
It was also a sort of the confluence of so many people – Swami Vivekananda going to Chicago in 1893, and Rabindranath Tagore also coming out as more than a poet, his social activism, his social entrepreneurship, [and a] lot of things, which finally lead to the self-reliance movement for India, and also, most importantly, Science.
Today science education is a lot, sort of, [taken for] granted. I mean, we cannot imagine our education system without science. But we don’t even know that the British government, very consciously, kept the higher education in science out of reach for Indians. Jagadish Bose was the first Indian scientist of modern India. He was also the first Indian science professor. Before him, the Presidency College had only non-Indian and white people, who could teach science.
And he [Bose] was the first person, who had realised that self-reliance cannot come only through warfare and independence: self-reliance comes through science and innovation.
During the 1880s or 1890s when, I believe, the first thing in people’s mind was how India can become independent, during that time, a person is thinking that science and technology is also important and, also, not in a way, which is exclusive of the West!
The most important thing about Jagdish Bose, and where the Renaissance effect comes into picture: he wanted to reinvent and look back.
He wanted India to gain its position in science, which it had in ancient times, but not being exclusive of the West. He wanted the West and the Indian science to go hand in hand.
At the time when Indians were not allowed to do science a person was thinking that Indians and the West should go hand in hand in science! I believe, of course, it was the epitome of the Renaissance because, you know, the Renaissance is all about rebirth, reinventing the past and also using that as a binding force to create modern nations – one of the impacts of the Renaissance is that we have the birth of nations, and, that (the aspect of the birth of modern Indian nation) was there. He [Bose] not only wanted to re-invent [Indian] science, he also wanted to unite the entire India on some cultural basis.
A lot of us might not know that the amazing poetry collection, Katha (The Fables, 1900, Ref. page 207), which was dedicated to Jagadish Chandra Bose, was a collaboration between Rabindranath Tagore and Jagadish Bose.
And, in my opinion – I mean, in whatever little I have studied, I have researched – that was the first time any literary work was created, which united the entire vast expanse of India from east to West and from north to South on a cultural basis.
So, you had stories from Shivaji, from [Guru] Teg Bahadur, a lot of Buddhist stories, and, also, you had a story from Chitrangada from Manipur, during that time, uniting Maharashtra with Manipur, with Punjab, and also stories from the South…, creating a sphere, where the entire India can be united. So, that’s what Jagdish Chandra Bose did…
[Debanjan] This is not a very well-known facet – the collaboration of Rabindranath Thakur and Jagdish Chandra Bose on such an important book of pedagogy, almost nationalist pedagogy.
In one of your recent Instagram reels you have also spoken about Jagdish Chandra Bose’s house and Jagadish Chandra Bose’s institute, Bose Institute, incorporating elements of Indian design or Buddhist design etcetera…
[Sudipto] The [world’s] first exhibition of the Ajanta paintings happened in Jagdish Bose’s home. In fact, the paintings of the Ajanta caves were not known. I mean, sometime around 1908 (December 1909, Ref. page 351), an English woman took the pain of doing a sort of expedition to Ajanta. Nandalal Bose was part of that group, who actually went there, stayed there for a few months, and painstakingly recreated the paintings. And then, Jagdish Chandra Bose was also there for a few weeks with Sister Nivedita.
When the paintings were brought back to Calcutta, the first exhibition happened in his home and the Viceroy’s wife was also invited.
So, I believe, these are the things which, sort of, define Jagadish Bose – a scientist but also, at the same time, a very nationalistic art aficionado, who wanted to revive the ancient Indian art form, where obviously the inspiration comes from Sister Nivedita, who, I would say, is the mother of the modern Indian School of Art. The Bose Institute, if you go and see now, it looks like an Art Museum: from the artefacts, from the motifs, from the symbols, the Vajra. The symbol of the Bose Institute is Vajra, which is a very typical Buddhist motif.
So, I think, scientist is one of his identities. But apart from that there are a lot of other things, especially art and literature…
[Debanjan] We will dive into Bose the Scientist in a moment… In one of your previous interviews, you have mentioned that Sunil Ganguli’s especially Prothom Alo (First Light) and Shei Samay (Those Days) were sort of influences or inspirations behind your approach to Jagadish Bose’s biography and I think it shows in the exquisite research that you have done on this book.
Tell us a little bit more about the literary influences that have inspired [you].
[Sudipto] Yes, absolutely. I think, from the very beginning, I wanted to write a biography which would read like Prothom Alo or Shei Samay, because I didn’t want to write a very academic form of biography, which was already available.
I mean, there are some very technical, very academic biographies, but I wanted to write a biography, which would read like a story, and [would be] for the non-scientific audience.
Though it is a biography of a scientist, and there would be some references to science, I think, Sunil Gangopadhyay has shown the way very nicely that you can write about anything yet it can be very lucid, it would read like a story. So, one was that (the style). But the tougher part of that is the background research. People, who have read Prothom Alo, it reads so nice because you actually visualise the background: what is happening in 1820s and 30s, what’s happening in Calcutta, what food they are eating, what type of cloth they are wearing, and what type of music they are listening to.
All these very small insignificant things that happen around us, like [what] we heard about the history of fragrance and food in the previous session, those are the things, which make a thing appear very interesting…
[Debanjan] I call it the Downton Abbey effect.
[Sudipto] Yeah!
[Debanjan] Because Downton Abbey, those of you who are Downton Abbey fans will realise the enormous amount of background details on cars, on food. Everything changes as the decades change. So again, it’s a plus for Sudipto’s book. It’s beautifully written. It’s a compelling read. You never get bored for a minute, and, I think, the way it flips back and forth between time, it’s almost a novelistic-fictional device rather than kind of a straightforward chronological biography. So that's absolutely brilliantly done.
Tell us a little bit about the very intriguing subtitle of your book: Reluctant Physicist. Why do you think Bose was a reluctant physicist? Was he a reluctant scientist, too?
[Sudipto] Of course, he was not a reluctant scientist, but yes, why [reluctant] physicist:
He researched in physics only for four years, from 1896 to 1900, and the rest of the life he dedicated [himself] towards plants. He is the father of something called Plant Neurobiology.
Now it’s an accepted field that plants also have a sort of nervous system. Now, Plant Cognition, which is: since the 90s, this thing of non-human intelligence, or [that] which we call now Artificial Intelligence [has been gaining ground]. Anything, [that] which is non-human, we generally term it as artificial. But Bose, almost 120 years back, he was talking about non-human intelligence, but which is not artificial, which is natural.
So, since the last two-three decades, since we have this – Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence –, this Plant Cognition has become very important.
30 or 30 plus years of his life, he [Bose] did just plants. Only four years he did physics. Since his childhood, he was a naturalist. He loved plants, animals, rivers. He was a horse rider (Ref. page 31). He was a rower (Ref. page 48). He rowed in the Ganga, and in oceans. He was a hunter. So, he was a person, who loved the nature. And incidentally, what happened: in St. Xavier's, he had somebody called Father Lafont, another amazing personality that Calcutta should be proud of (Ref. page 45).
Father Lafont was a physics aficionado, and then, I think, he influenced a lot Jagdish Bose to take up physics.
[But] again, as the luck might happen, he went to England to study medicine (and not physics). But he had kala azar, and the scent of chloroform and all those things on the dissection table created a problem for him. So, he couldn’t do medicine… Reluctantly, he went to Cambridge, and there he registered to study, what at that time used to be called the Natural Science Tripos, which includes physics, botany, and maths. So that’s how he went there [Cambridge]. And there also, he got somebody like Father Lafont, I mean, some physics teachers, who took this young, adventurous guy from rural Bengal under their tutelage Ref. 53). So, reluctantly, he studied physics. But he was a naturalist by heart. His heart, and soul, was in plants and animals and rivers and all these things. So, I think, the fate brought him back to the plants and animals…
[Debanjan] But, I think, for many Bengalis, many Indians, there is this feeling that Jagadish Chandra post was almost duped of the credit of having invented wireless or the radio.
To what extent does your research throw light on it? Was it a myth? Or there is an element of truth in that.
[Sudipto] Yes, it is true. Now, if you even go to the Wikipedia, now Marconi is no longer considered to be the inventor of radio. They have acknowledged that Nikola Tesla and Jagadish Bose are co-inventors of radio, along with Marconi, and many other people. In fact, interestingly, the first claim to fame of Marconi, was this trans-Atlantic wireless transmission in 1901…
After a detailed examination and, also, after a lot of forensic investigation, it was proved that Marconi had used Jagadish Bose’s receiver and Nikola Tesla’s transmitter [in the trans-Atlantic feat].
So, this part is very clear. So, I believe, it is no longer a myth.
Also, it has been acknowledged everywhere that the frequency that 5G communication uses, which, you know, is the gigahertz frequency, and for which they use something called millimetre waves, which is nothing but the electromagnetic or radio waves few millimetres in length, was also first used by Jagadish Bose in the 1890s.
So, the 5G communication that, you know, the entire world is depending on, the genesis of the wireless communication which you see in 5G, also goes back to Jagadish Bose.
And these are well known facts. I mean, I didn’t research all these things because in academic circle it is well known. But I feel that even the proud Bengalis, who are proud about the heritage, also don’t know about all these facts, which are well known and which have been academically acknowledged. So, I feel that bringing all these things out for a common layman – it would be nice. So, there it is: it’s not a myth anymore. I mean, this is true.
[Debanjan] Before I open it out to the audience, I’m sure there are many questions bubbling away, a question that I really want to put to you is again going back to your very meticulous research… Our culture is not very focused on preservation of documents, or even… our buildings, monuments. We have a particular challenge. I mean, I’m not making a value statement. It’s how some cultures are. Western culture places enormous value on written records and preserving buildings and monuments. We probably don’t.
From an academic researcher’s perspective, did you face any challenge in terms of collecting materials or locating materials, sourcing materials, getting everything lined up?
[Sudipto] The only challenge was accessing old Indian newspapers. Like, till date, I don’t know where to get the first edition of Times of India from 1838, or the first edition of Jugantar, first edition of Ananda Bazar Patrika. But I have access to all the editions of New York Times, Times London, or any insignificant, small, some tabloid paper from Scotland.
So, I believe, yes, getting archival access of India newspapers is a big problem. At least, I haven’t figured out a way to surmount that…
[Debanjan] Yes, this is a really interesting thing that you touch upon, because during my PhD research, lot of it is on 1930s newspapers of Britain, and everything is available at the click of a button. I mean, all of it, from, as you said, very insignificant journals to the Times, everything, it’s searchable, and that’s the beauty of it. So, there is something for us to consider here in Kolkata in a literature festival. Would like to invite questions. I’m sure number of hands have gone up, so starting in the front row and then we will take two quick questions, the lady in red, and then, the gentleman. Thank you.
[Audience 1] This was a very engaging session.
I had read that Jagdish Chandra Bose was very interested in science fiction. He used to collect science fiction and he tried writing some.
Apparently, this was an interest encouraged by his Cambridge supervisor as well. So, if you could throw some light on it.
[Debanjan] Let me just take three questions and then you respond, fine? Yeah, ma’am, if you could…
[Audience 2] Your book is very interesting indeed and I really enjoyed reading it. My question is also something, which this discussion was started with, which is the subtitle of the “Reluctant Physicist.” So, that’s what my question is about. Basically, he transcended, I think, the narrow confines within which different disciplines used to be constrained and he had an inter disciplinary mind.
And, I think, as someone who is now recognised as one of the pioneering biophysicists, and who taught physics in Presidency College throughout his professional life, would it then be correct to call him a reluctant physicist?
Because, his love for physics, and he was such a committed, dedicated researcher in physics as long as he was working on those four years, but he stayed with physics all his life. So that was my question. Thank you.
[Audience 3] I really liked the discussion as a physics lover myself. Somewhere related to your (pointing to audience 2) question. You (pointing to Sudipto) mentioned a lot of contemporaries, like Nikola Tesla and other people.
If you could, maybe, share some information about: was he in correspondence with these people or, for example, may be, Tesla, Niels Bohr, Einstein, of course? So, if you can, maybe, share some stories that would be amazing. Thank you.
[Debanjan] (adding) Do buy the book. (laughter)
[Audience 3] I have not read the book. I plan on doing that, but if you could just share something.
[Sudipto] First, about the first question.
Yes, Jagdish Chandra Bose was a mountaineer. He was a trekker. Apart from the science fiction, he also wrote world’s first Himalayan travelogue in any language in Bangla.
The travelogue that he wrote was about his search [for the source of the Ganges River], and in Bangla it’s called Bhagirathir Utsha Sandhane ("In Quest of the Ganges’ Source," 1895, Ref. page 109). And, that was actually [about] a trek to the Pindari Glacier, which happens to be the origin of the Pindar River, which is one of the channels for Ganga, like Alakananda, Mandakini, Bhagirathi, and also Pindar. So, that’s one, (about Bose's Himalayan travelogue).
And, also, he wrote one of the first science fictions in any Indian languages.
I was trying to figure out if that can be the first science fiction in India, but there are few other contenders: one in Bangla (Hemlal Dutta, 1882), and one in Hindi (Pandit Ambika Dutt Vyas, 1884). Of course, he wrote one of the first science fictions in Indian languages.
But he did write the first ever Himalayan travelogue in any language. The next Himalayan travelogue in English (perhaps Francis Younghusband’s “The Heart of a Continent,” 1896) came at least a year later than this Bhagirathir Utsha Sandhane.
Now about the physics thing.
Yes, the last paper that he [Bose] wrote on physics was in 1901. After that, he never wrote any paper [in physics]. If you go and see the papers submitted to the Royal Society, after 1901, all his papers were in, what used to be called, [Botany].
See, at that time, this plant neurobiology or all these things (biophysics, plant cognition, etc.) were not there, so he had to submit the things (papers) in Botany. But the problem is that, he was more interested in biophysics. He totally dismissed the division between biology and botany and physics. He used to research in botany, but using instruments, which used a lot of the principles from physics. He invented a lot of very intricate instruments, which were absolutely unheard of in the research of botany.
So, I think, and also, seeing his letters, and also, seeing his lectures, it’s very apparent that his love is plants, animals, nature throughout his life.
Yes, he taught physics because that was his vocation. He had to, for earning. He couldn’t have got a lectureship for botany. He had his job to do. But in Presidency College also, the researches he did from 1901 till 1915, when he retired, were all on plants. From that point of view, I think, yes, only for four years, he was a serious physics researcher, but he used physics throughout his life…
And now, a very interesting thing.
He [Bose] didn’t collaborate or communicate with Nikola Tesla. But there was a very important link between the two, which is Swami Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda and Tesla had met (first in Chicago 1893). And, in fact, if you go through Swamiji's letters, written after meeting Tesla, his [Swamiji’s] perspective of science suddenly changes. He is talking about Prana and Akasha, which is: Prana is the energy in Indian philosophy and Akasha is matter. And, in fact, there is an amazing conversation, which Vivekananda quotes. He quotes that, actually, Tesla was very excited after hearing about Akasha and Prana, and Vivekananda writes in 1896 (Letter to E. T. Sturdy, 13 Feb), which is [almost] 10 years before Einstein brought out the Special Theory of Relativity and the E = MC square equation. In 1896 Swamiji is writing, and he is quoting Tesla as having said that “I can prove mathematically that matter and energy are convertible.” That is exactly like E = MC square.
That’s amazing that Swami Vivekananda is interacting with Nikola Tesla on something which Einstein would do after 10 years.
The same Vivekananda was also very closely associated with Bose. And Bose had read Nikola Tesla’s books, because one of the inspirations for doing research on radio [waves] was also Nikola Tesla’s books (Ref. page 86). But I haven’t found any proof that Tesla and Jagadish Bose would have interacted with each other. But, of course, through Vivekananda, they knew. At least, Jagdish Bose knew enough of Tesla through Vivekananda. But the other way round, I don’t think it’s true.
Einstein did meet Jagadish Bose in 1926.
Einstein and Jagdish Bose both were members of a committee under the League of Nations. The committee was known as International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, which later became UNESCO, and in that committee Jagadish Bose’s other members were Einstein, then, Mary Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, again a physicist and a Nobel laureate, and also the philosopher Henri Bergson, the French philosopher. Jagdish Bose was also a member of that. And, in Geneva, when he first went there, he was so extremely popular that in the lecture, which he gave, Einstein had to jostle for a seat.
And after hearing the lecture, where he [Bose] talked about unity, about life in plants and animals and human beings, he [Einstein] was so thrilled that he told the newspapers that only for this research this guy should have a statue in every European university (Ref. page 22).
So, that’s about it.
[Debanjan] What a brilliant way to end this session. Everyone here, this is a brilliantly researched book and as you could make out that Sudipto doesn’t make any claim in the book that is not verifiable through data and evidence and research. So, thank you Sudipto for presenting us with this brilliant book, making us all very proud as Indians and as Bangalis. So, thank you very much and, as always, a great pleasure speaking to you and a big thanks to Apeejay Kolkata Literary meet [AKLF], big thanks to Anjum for having us here.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment