Sudipto Das
| Photograph Credit score: particular association
Jagadish Chandra Bose was a polymath, a pioneer in wi-fi communication and plant electrophysiology. In 1917, he arrange the Bose Institute in Calcutta devoted to scientific analysis, however as a scientist he was misunderstood, as is evident from this letter to Patrick Geddes, written in 1917: “I don’t belong to any particular fold — the physicists assume that I’ve given up physics and gone over to the botanists; the vegetists assume that I’m the physiologist and so forth…” In his new e-book, Jagadish Chandra Bose: The Reluctant Physicist, Sudipto Das profiles Bose and his contribution to science. Edited excerpts from an interview:
Jagadish Chandra Bose
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Photograph Archives
Your e-book is split into 4 elements exploring the theme of unity. Are you able to elaborate on the importance of this theme within the context of Jagadish Chandra Bose’s life and contributions?
Bose belonged to the Unitarian Brahmo fraternity, like Rabindranath Tagore, Raja Rammohan Roy and different eminent Bengalis. Brahmoism was based on the ideas of Advaita Vedanta, the genesis of which will be captured in these phrases from a verse from the Rig Veda: “Ekam sat, vipra vahudha vadanti” or there exists solely “One, the clever name It variously.” At its core is the common idea of unity in every part. Bose’s pursuit of unity leads him to discover a commonality in life in a plant and human. He prophesied that crops, too, like people and animals, can really feel ache, thus creating the inspiration of recent disciplines like plant-neurobiology and plant cognition.
Jagadish Chandra Bose
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Photograph Archives
Bose’s relationships with Swami Vivekananda, Tagore, and European figures play a pivotal position in your e-book. How did you discover the intricate nature of those relationships?
Vivekananda and Tagore have been each world residents, as was Bose, whose life and work had a common enchantment, thus making his associations with westerners pure and spontaneous. Although a staunch nationalist, thriving on the concept of attaining India’s self-reliance by means of science and know-how, he at all times believed that India and the West ought to go hand in hand in all their endeavours. That was a deviation from the anti-British sentiment that was brewing in India at the moment. No marvel, a few of Bose’s largest patrons have been from the West. These relationships inform of his perception that information and human progress are a collective affair, not fragmented, or divided between borders.
Facsimile of the stamp on Jagadish Chandra Bose issued by the Posts and Telegraphs Division, in 1958.
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Photograph Archives
How did you uncover Bose’s neglected position as a radio inventor within the late Nineteen Nineties, and what strategies did you use to navigate historic data for this vital revelation?
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers introduced out a collection of publications within the Nineteen Nineties unearthing the reality that eluded us for a lot of many years. It was settled that Bose had arrange one of many world’s first functioning wi-fi programs earlier than Marconi, and that Marconi later used Bose’s radio receiver to obtain the primary trans-Atlantic wi-fi transmission in 1901, with out giving any credit score to Bose.
How did you painting him as a multifaceted persona, and what challenges did you face?
From the start, my purpose was to get underneath the pores and skin of the particular person and discover the person he was, along with his share of virtues and vices, slightly than current him solely as a scientist. That naturally introduced out his a number of facades, from a hunter chasing tigers within the Terai jungles to sculling within the freezing waters of the Cam River in Cambridge, writing the primary Himalayan travelogue in any language, influencing Tagore to put in writing poems impressed by tales of affection and sacrifice from Indian historical past and mythologies, and even surreptitiously holding quiet when, he maybe knew, lab aides planted by Sister Nivedita in Presidency Faculty have been commonly taking out explosive supplies from the laboratory to make bombs.
Rabindranath Tagore and scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose have been shut associates.
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Photograph Archives
Your e-book mentions a gathering between Einstein and Bose in 1926. Are you able to share extra insights into this encounter?
Bose and Einstein have been each members of the League of Nation’s Worldwide Committee on Mental Cooperation, a precursor of UNESCO, together with many different Nobel Laureates like Hendrik Lorentz (physics), Henri Bergson (philosophy), and Marie Curie (chemistry). Bose attended the committee’s first assembly in Geneva in 1926. The world had not but recovered from the horrors of the First World Warfare, and Bose’s talks about “unity” in every part, even in crops and people, struck a chord. Einstein was so impressed with Bose’s lecture at Geneva College that he reportedly stated, “If just for a single one in every of his many discoveries, Bose ought to have a statue erected to his reminiscence.”
How do you see Bose’s legacy extending past the scientific realm, and what message do you hope readers take away from his life?
I needed to current a persona that labored in the direction of making India a self-reliant nation, not by berating anybody else however by cooperating with everybody and seeing unity within the bewildering diversities throughout. I really feel that’s his legacy which is much more related as we speak.
Jagadish Chandra Bose: The Reluctant Physicist; Sudipto Das, Niyogi Books, ₹795.
The interviewer is a Bengaluru-based administration skilled, literary critic, and curator. He will be reached at ashutoshbthakur@gmail.com
