Talk by Prof.S
Chatterjee
Science
can afford to wait but Swaraj cannot ...
P C Ray
The prolonged Indian Freedom struggle, and its chronicling in
retrospect seem to focus only on the efforts by a select few
national heroes. Whereas the freedom struggle itself was
brought to its momentum by hundreds of intellectuals and
revolutionaries, thousands of toilers and millions of the masses.
Reminiscing the contributions by many other great minds are certainly
needed to expand the understanding of our History, legacy of our
struggle, to further interpret the current state of affairs.
Prafulla Chandra Ray, the entrepreneur and scientist behind the Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, who was dearly called as Acharya Ray played an important role. Acquainting
with his life and works, certainly help us to understand the
Indian freedom struggle better from other necessary dimensions.
On the 15th of August, 2011 a talk about the Life and
Works of PC Ray by Prof. Chatterjee was organized at the National
Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc,Bangalore. This informative talk,
followed by a detailed discussion session certainly threw light upon
the life of the great confluence of an academician, entrepreneur,
scientist, historian, nationalist, pacifist and patriot that Acharya
PC Ray was.
Prof.Chatterjee traversed through the life, ideals, work and
accomplishments of Acharya Ray in an exhilarating talk which span for
about an hour. Prof.Chatterjee communicated all the dimensions of this
multi-faceted being in the most convincing manner. The correlation
that was brought between science, scientists and their social
responsibilities were elucidated in a comprehensive and riveting
manner.
PC Ray apart from being the entrepreneur behind the Bengal Chemicals
and Pharmaceuticals, was one of the important scientific visionaries
of pre-independent India. Under his guidance, his students would go on
to expand the realms of scientific contribution in India. His
students were of the likes of Meghnad Saha, Atul Chandra Ghosh, and
others who made significant contributions to develop science and
technology in India.
Acharya PC Ray was contemporary to Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish
Chandra Bose, Subhash Chandra Bose, MK Gandhi and other influential
personalities during the Independence movement. PC Ray had his own
crucial contributions to the Freedom struggle. Apart from propagating
science and grooming technology, PC Ray was known to have sheltered
numerous revolutionaries and provided them with support for their
work.
Prof. Chatterjee in his talk brought out the contradiction between
today's statesmen and the so called 'intelligentsia', with that of the
statesmen and intellectuals of the era of PC Ray, using PC Ray's
notions about self-reliance and sovereignty as examples.
The audience resonated to this contradiction, when excerpts from
Acharya PC Ray and another modern statesman were quoted for comparison.
PC Ray in his Essay “India before and after the mutiny” written
in 1885, makes a profound analysis of the British rule in India:
"England
unfortunately now refuses to recognize the hard and irresistible
logic of facts and does her best to smother the nascent aspirations
of a rising nationality. The selfish, and therefore, harsh and cruel
exigencies of an alien rule have imposed various disqualifications
and disabilities upon the children of the soil.... The lamentable
condition of India at present is due to England’s culpable neglect
of, and gross apathy to, the affairs of that Empire. England has
failed, grievously failed in the discharge of her sacred duties to
India... Tomorrow you will be the arbiters of the destinies of 250
millions of human beings, your fellow subjects. We fervently hope
your advent to power will be a death knell to the existing un
–English regime... I was a believer in those days in the doctrine
of mendicancy and with child like simplicity held that if the wrongs
and the grievances under which our country groaned could be brought
home to the British people, they could be remedied. The disillusionment
was not long in coming...
The
great mutiny had entirely unhinged the financial equilibrium. In 1857
the public debt had stood at 60,000,000 pounds. In 1863 it rose to
the incredible sum of nearly 110,000,000 pounds. Thus the indirect
expenditure incurred for mutiny amounts to almost 45,000,000 pounds.
And it is notorious that England did not contribute a farthing to
India as financial help.... India is a famished nation rather than of
Rajas and Nababs....A government which can squander 10,000,000 pounds
on palatial barracks,
but cannot spare a farthing for laboratories should forfeit the title
of a civilized government....The Indian government is essentially a
tax squeezing machinery and not a government for the people...."
And here's an excerpt from one modern Indian statesman, who
has the following perception of the same relationship, and was
quoted by Prof.Chatterjee towards the end of his talk:
Today,
with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time and
the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister
to assert that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial
consequences. Our notions of the rule of law, of a Constitutional
government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, of
modern universities and research laboratories have all been fashioned
in the crucible where an age old civilization met the dominant Empire
of the day. These are all elements which we still value and cherish.
Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are
all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration
and they have served the country well. Of all the legacies of the
Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern
school system. That is, if you leave out cricket!
Like in the audience at the talk by Prof. Chatterjee, it
is hard to guess that the above mentioned statesman is the
Dr.Manmohan Singh, exhibiting what could be termed an
anti-nationalist stand.
This instigated a good round of discussion amongst the
panel members. Arguments whatever arose, ultimately ended up rebuking
the statements that were made by Dr.Manmohan Singh in his convocation
speech at Oxford University in 2005.
Also detailed questions about Acharya PC Ray's
principles happened to be discussed, during which again the multifaceted
maverick that PC Ray was was much discussed and reminisced further.
One important aspect of the talk itself was the manner
in which it was presented by Prof.Chatterjee. The audience present
can be categorized conveniently as the intellectual elite and mostly
apolitical. Prof. Chatterjee, nonetheless was able to communicate all
the aspects of the life of Acharya PC Ray in a subtle but impacting
manner, which certainly got the audience thinking in relation to the
current scenarios. And that was the objective of the talk, which was
well accomplished.
Slides of the talk by
Prof.Chatterjee: http://bit.ly/rrek5w
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