J C Bose: Scientist extraordinaire

Unsung Genius: A life of Jagadish Chandra Bose

Author: Kunal Ghosh

Publisher: Aleph

Pages: 477

Price: Rs 999

If you ask a Bengali about Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, the top-of-the-head responses will be: (a) Marconi cheated him out of a Nobel Prize by claiming primacy in radio transmission; and (b) Kolkata’s Lower Circular Road is named after him (The Bose Institute is actually on Upper Circular Road named after his friend, Acharya Prafulla Ray). Digging a little deeper, some might be aware that he did “some” work with plants, and that he had a connection with Sister Nivedita. 

All of this is true insofar as it goes. But it is also high time that the life of this unsung genius was chronicled by somebody who delved considerably deeper into the work of this scientific pioneer. This is not an easy task. The biographer must have a cross-disciplinary grasp of several branches of science, an ability to mine sundry archives for scientific history, and also a strong acquaintance with the history and culture of Bose’s India.

There are many strands to be unpacked there and Kunal Ghosh has done a remarkable job. An aeronautical engineer by training, he’s not only researched the hell out of a very complicated period; he’s also written some of the most lucid, non-mathematical explanations of basic science that one has come across in a long time. The sections on light, electromagnetism, plant physiology, and so on are all worth reading as standalone essays.

Moreover, the book is not all about the science. It cannot be, given who Bose was, and the tumultuous history of India and Bengal in the period between 1881, when he left Cambridge and 1937, when he died. Mr Ghosh does a decent job of taking us through the travails of Bose’s life as a colonial scientist who struggled to find funding and recognition. Almost in passing, it also offers an excellent description of the early years of the Ramakrishna Mission and of Swami Vivekananda’s impact on the late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as the lives of some of his more prominent foreign disciples.

Bose was a Brahmo — one among the third generation of followers of Ram Mohan Roy, the reformer who triggered the Bengal renaissance. He was a friend, contemporary and co-religionist of Tagore, whose father Maharishi Debendranath was a great Brahmo reformer-preacher.  The copious correspondence between the scientist and the poet is one source of delight for the reader.  Bose himself wrote science fiction and popular science articles, and he was fluently bilingual.

He was a nationalist who routinely suffered from racism that hindered him in the furtherance of his academic pursuits. He had to literally beg for money to set up adequate lab facilities in Presidency College, where he taught. As a matter of course, his salary was set at a third less than that of white men who worked with him in the same Higher Education Service. But he also received a great deal of help and approbation from many distinguished European scientists, and over the years, from several senior members of the Raj Administration. 

His father was a nationalist and a minor civil servant who sank his savings into dubious ventures with a nationalist tint and thus left the family deep in debt. Bose spent many years trying to sort out the family finances.

He was lucky in that he was taught by the legendary Jesuit scientist, Father Lamont, in school (St Xavier’s) and he joined Calcutta University at 16. His father had decidedly negative views about the possibility of his son serving the Raj. This meant Bose sought a life in science rather than aiming for the ICS. He nearly ended up studying medicine in London and was rescued from that fate only because he had fallen sick. Or else, he may never have ended up in Cambridge and found his metier.

While being an iconoclastic Brahmo, Bose also had deep, long-lasting relationships with Sister Nivedita and two other American followers of Swami Vivekananda, Sara Chapman Bull and Josephine MacLeod. The three ladies were among several friends, who came up time and again with concrete material support, raising money, housing him on his lecture tours, and finding funding for what became The Bose Institute. Another patron who happily opened his purse was the Maharaja of Tripura, who revered Tagore and adored Bose.

Bose worked on a variety of things in his scientific career. He was a terrific experimental scientist, who built apparatus that was in some senses, decades ahead of its time. He nailed down electromagnetism, and conclusively proved electricity was a wave, validating Maxwell. He built India’s first X-ray machine and pioneered non-optic photography. Most famously, he worked out how to send and receive wireless signals over long distances. He also worked on physiology, looking at the similarities and differences between the responses made by muscle groups, plant leaves and metals to stimuli. He invented instruments, which could detect multiple forms of radiation — his solid state detector was the first such to be patented. Incidentally, he refused to patent most of his inventions because he subscribed to the philosophical stance that knowledge should be free. He was persuaded to take out that singular patent by his American friends but he refused to renew it. He wrote acclaimed paper after paper making important discoveries in every field he researched. 

Should Bose have shared the Nobel along with Marconi? Yes, certainly. He should also have received a Nobel for his validation of Maxwell’s Theories. He could well have been the first Indian Nobelist. Unsung genius is an apt description and this book does justice to an amazing man.