The Emergence of Indian Science Community: 1870s to 1940s

This chapter on the emergence of Indian scientific community explores the contribution of leading Indian scientists in laying the foundations for professionalization of science and advancement of scientific knowledge during 1870s and 1940s. As the chapter demonstrates, leading scientists in this era such as Mahenderlal Sircar, Ashutosh Mukherjee, C. V. Raman, M. N. Saha, P. C. Ray and S. N. Bose, to name some, waged an intellectual struggle against the British colonial gate keepers who resisted local and indigenous initiatives in the professionalization of science. In collaboration with Indian political elite, systematic efforts were directed at laying the foundations for cultivation of science institutions from translation of science into local languages, popularization of science, promotion of science teaching in colleges and higher institutions of learning to basic scientific research. These developments have come about relatively independent or outside the confines of colonial science enterprises promoted by British colonial regime. Between 1890s and 1940s half a dozen advance research specialist groups emerged in plant physiology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and astronomy. In a large measure, the genesis of Indian science community had taken roots outside the confines of colonial science enterprises as these institutions were not conducive for the professionalization of science and the advancement of knowledge. Indian scientific intellectual struggle in laying the foundations of basic research during this period had dented the Centre-Periphery relations or dichotomy in science practiced by British colonial scientific enterprise. This chapter challenges the basic assertion of key classical colonial thinkers, such as George Basalla, that independent scientific tradition in the colonial era emerged outside the confines of colonial science enterprises.