National Space Day 2026: ISRO's Trials, Its Talent, and the Test of Its Unique Culture.

  

 Today, 23 August, India observes National Space Day — a day PM Narendra Modi declared in 2023 to mark the moment Vikram, the lander of Chandrayaan-3, made its historic soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon, a feat no other nation had achieved. That moment when Vikram made its tryst with its landing on the moon’s south pole surface is one which will continue to be etched in every Indian who witnessed this moment. 

In the earlier attempt in 2019 the Chandrayaan 2 mission’s Vikram Landing was telecast live at the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai and even at that late hour the auditorium was full — families, students, ordinary citizens who had come simply to watch, together, as the "15 minutes of terror" played out on the big screen. Unfortunately, Vikram lander came very close to soft landing but then did not achieve its goal.  That night, when Chandrayaan-2's Vikram came so agonisingly close before its final-descent failure, our auditorium was packed with people who had come to witness history in the making. I had written then that cricket, cinema and chillies were long the common threads binding Indians across every divide — and that ISRO, in its quiet, unglamorous, relentless way, had earned itself a place alongside them as something every Indian, regardless of politics, could claim as their own. 

After the failure of Vikram lander in 2019, the Chandrayaan 3 was a grand success when it made a soft landing on. 23 August 2023 and later enabling the Pragya rower to Rowe the moons surface creating history. 

This year's National Space Day carries a more complicated set of emotions for me, and I suspect for many who have followed ISRO's journey closely.

Two Setbacks the Nation Needs to Understand

ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle — the "workhorse" that has flown for over three decades and carried missions as consequential as Chandrayaan-1, the Mars Orbiter Mission and Aditya-L1 — has suffered two consecutive, and disturbingly similar, failures in less than a year. On 18 May 2025, PSLV-C61 lost the EOS-09 radar imaging satellite when an anomaly struck the rocket's third stage minutes after a flawless liftoff. ISRO set up a Failure Analysis Committee, adopted its recommendations, and returned to the launch pad on 12 January 2026 with PSLV-C62 — this time subjected to a record seven Mission Readiness Reviews. Yet the same third-stage anomaly recurred, and with it went the EOS-N1 earth observation satellite and fifteen co-passenger payloads, Indian and international.

What makes this particularly painful, beyond the loss of expensive hardware, is that both satellites, EOS-09 and EOS-N1, were meant to strengthen India's strategic surveillance capability at a time when our security establishment can least afford such gaps. For an organisation whose PSLV had, until recently, been a byword for dependability, two identical failures in the same critical stage is a rare and sobering occurrence that deserves honest scrutiny rather than either panic or denial.

The Quiet Exodus

Unfortunately, even as ISRO is making all our efforts in overcoming its setbacks, a development that has troubled many Indians and ardent ISRO fans, even more are the reports that over a hundred Group 'A' scientists and engineers — many of them experienced hands working on flagship programmes — have resigned or sought voluntary retirement from ISRO in recent months. Reports suggest that around eighty are said to have left the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru alone, with more than twenty departing the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. It appears that India's own burgeoning private space sector — now home to several hundred start-ups and drawing substantial fresh investment — is offering compensation and speed that a government salary structure struggles to match, which could be the reason for this unprecedented attrition. The Department of Space has taken cognisance of this and is reported to responded by centralising and tightening exit approvals, particularly for scientists attached to Gaganyaan and other critical missions, reversing an arrangement that had earlier let centre directors decide such matters locally. I hope that the famous ISRO culture which was painstakingly built by its founders - Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan - and those who followed them in leadership role, will help ISRO to bounce back to its successes.

The attrition has understandably created anxiety and that should not be dismissed as ordinary attrition. However, we must also look at this attrition with caution against reading it only as loss. If some of these scientists are moving into India's own private space industry rather than leaving the country altogether, they may still be building India's space capability — only outside ISRO's four walls rather than within them. What matters, as always, is whether the ecosystem as a whole keeps growing. Even so, the government would do well to ask why our most experienced hands are choosing to leave a mission-driven institution they once could not imagine leaving, and to address that honestly rather than simply making the door harder to walk through.

Holding On to the ISRO Culture

It is worth remembering what made ISRO different in the first place. Vikram Sarabhai did not build a bureaucracy; he built a culture — of scientific pursuits married to public purpose, of scientists who saw themselves as nation-builders in the mould of SITE, Aryabhata and the SLV programme, carried forward with equal conviction by Satish Dhawan. That culture is precisely what turned a modest, resource-starved space programme into one capable of soft-landing on the Moon's south pole on its very first attempt at that feat. Setbacks like PSLV-C61 and C62, and an exodus of experienced scientists, test that culture in ways that success never does. My hope, on this National Space Day, is that ISRO's leadership — and the political class that oversees it — recognises that retaining this culture requires more than tighter exit rules; it requires making ISRO a place scientists still choose, not merely one they are prevented from leaving.

What Lies Ahead

Even amid these challenges, ISRO's calendar for the months ahead is a reminder of why the country continues to invest its hopes in this institution. The first uncrewed Gaganyaan flight, G1, carrying the half-humanoid Vyommitra to validate life-support and re-entry systems, is targeted for the last quarter of this year, with India's first crewed spaceflight to follow in 2027. Beyond that lie Chandrayaan-4, a lunar sample-return mission, and the longer horizon of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, envisaged to be operational by 2035. Each of these carries the same demand the Moon landing did: precision, patience, and scientists who are given the reason and the room to stay.

Revisiting ISRO's Story

For readers who wish to go further back into ISRO's history and the spirit that built it, I have over the years written several blog pieces that may be of interest:

1. Tribute to Dr Vikram Sarabhai — the visionary founder of ISRO

Centenary tribute to Prof. Satish Dhawan — who turned Sarabhai's vision into institutional reality

https://khened.blogspot.com/2020/08/tribute-to-dr-vikram-sarabhai-father-of.html

2. Tribute to Prof Satsih Dhawan

https://khened.blogspot.com/2020/09/centenary-tribute-to-prof-satish-dhawan.html

3. How Aryabhata got its name — the story behind India's first satellite, named by Smt Indira Gandhi.

https://khened.blogspot.com/2025/04/19-april-2025-commemorating-golden.html

4. ISRO NASA Partnership and NISAR

https://khened.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-nasa-isro-partnership-and-nisar.htm

In Closing

On this National Space Day, my greetings go out first and foremost to the scientists, engineers and technicians of ISRO — those who stay, and those who have moved on to build India's space capability elsewhere. May the Failure Analysis Committee's findings restore the PSLV to the reliability the nation has come to expect of it. May Vyommitra's flight this year go as smoothly as Vikram's did in 2023, and may our Gaganyatris follow safely in 2027. And above all, may ISRO — through setbacks as much as through triumphs — hold fast to the culture that Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan gave it: driven by purpose, undivided by politics, and belonging, always, to every Indian.

Jai Hind, Jai ISRO, Jai Vigyan.

August 12, 2026 Total Solar Eclipse.

Reminiscence of my tryst with the 1980 Total Solar Eclipse in Raichur (6 February 1980)

 

Later today, 12 August 2026, the world will witness its next Total Solar Eclipse (TSE) — a narrow band of darkness that will sweep across the northern hemisphere encompassing a remote stretch of Siberia, eastern Greenland, western coast of Iceland, and will cover northern Spain and Portugal, at sunset. Totality at its maximum will last around two minutes and eighteen seconds, over the North Atlantic, attracting scientists and eclipse enthusiasts from across the globe to the path of totality.

India, unfortunately, will not be part of this celestial spectacle since it lies outside, even the outer fringes of the partial eclipse, this time.

Speaking of the eclipses, over the years general public in India has moved from fear to curiosity and amazement when it comes to dealing with eclipses and their observation.

 Nature's improbable geometry and arithmetic

In the process of evolution, nature has bestowed planet Earth, with the spectacles of eclipses – Solar and Lunar eclipses. The Sun's diameter – our star, which sustains life in all its diversity that helps the blue planet, perhaps the only one of its kind in the unending expanse of this vast universe -  is approximately 400 times that of the Moon. By a providential coincidence, the Sun also is approximatey 400 times farther away from Earth than the Moon does. These two ratios, when seen from the vantage point on Earth, reveal that the Moon's disc appears almost precisely the same size as that of the Sun's disc, which we see regularly. It is this nature creation which help us witness the lunar and solar eclipses, spectacles of the cosmos.

Nowhere else in our solar system does this celestial coincidence happen with such precision. Earth alone, perhaps, has a moon whose apparent size approximately matches that of our sun.  And this matching is so miraculously same that during the TSE the Sun - which gets eclipsed - appears to apparently vanish behind the Moon for a few minutes during eclipse totality and reveal, in that brief window, that spectacular "diamond ring" of the Sun's last rays bending around the Moon's edge, and the spectral corona — the Sun's own outer atmosphere —normally not seen due to Suns glare.

It should also be remembered that this providential alignment of the Sun and Moon, is temporary rather than permanent. Each year the Moon is drifting a few centimetres farther from Earth. Over the next tens of millions of years from now, total solar eclipses as we know them today, may no longer be possible from Earth. We are therefore, living in the window of cosmic time when this natural beauty of the TSE can be witnessed and all those who live in the path of eclipse must not let go of the opportunity to witness this nature’s spectacle with mandated safety measures.

India’s journey from Eclipse as a Taboo to natures spectacle.

India has seen a transformative change in people’s behaviour in its understanding of this natural phenomenon. There was a time until the beginning of the 1990s, when most citizens remained mostly indoors while the eclipses (both solar and lunar) occurred. The roads were empty with Covid 19 like situation, owing to the superstitious belief that plagued Indian society. However, all that changed – gradually. The TSE of 1995 was a path breaking event, which was telecast live across India and the man who was rendering live commentary on this celestial event was Prof Yashpal, whose physical appearance of a quintessential scientist with a look alike hair style of the legendary Einstein, and the collective efforts of science communicators across India including science centres and planetariums, helped the people to not only see the live telecast of the TSE but also throng to the nearby science centres and planetariums and also on to the streets, armed with safety sun glasses, to witness live the TSE playing out in sky. This was a moment of celebration for science communicators and ever since the eclipses have appealed to the people and motivated them to witness them live and begin to wonder with awe natures creation. Supported by the media- the eclipses – lunar and solar – have no longer remained taboo but begun to be appreciated, notwithstanding section of people who continue to hog headlines for their astrological, so called predictions. The science centres, planetariums and other science and technology departments and patrons of science and most importantly the media, have ensured that superstitions surrounding eclipses are gradually being eclipsed.

My First Tryst with the 1980 TSE

My first memory of the TSE goes back to 1980. It was on Feb 16, 1980 that the path of totality passed over parts of India including, most importantly, Raichur, my native place.

I was then studying in Engineering at Gulbarga (now Kalaburgi) and the buzz of the TSE was heard across the campus more particularly because one of the villages Jawalagera (Jalagera) in Raichur district was chosen by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) Bangalore for conducting observations and experiments. I must also confess that most of us believed – herd mentality - in the so called ill effects of the eclipses, as the rest of the country and were not initiated into observing eclipses.  

I vividly remember, 16 Feb, Saturday, was declared a holiday in our college. With two consecutive holidays, most of us who were not locals, travelled home on Friday evening and I reached my home, Raichur. Those were the days, whenever we had a day or two off, we used to go back home.

The news of IIA preparing for a temporary camp at Jawalgera – a village near Raichur, for conducting some experiments and observations during the TSE, had spread to Raichur. Now in hindsight, more importantly after serving the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) for 35 years, I can understand how important the occasion must have been for the scientists from not only IIA but many others who had assembled at Jalagera, a nondescript village to witness the TSE.

My research while writing this post has helped me understand that IIA had set up a camp at Jalagera, building a heavy steel structure, 23 metres tall tower, at the site. The tower included “an optical system consisting of a coelostat - an astronomical instrument with two flat mirrors. One of which is a clock-driven mirror, which would track the Sun and a second fixed mirror was meant to reflect a steady beam of light into a stationary telescope”. The telescope would send the image of the eclipsed Sun to the laboratory established at the base of the tower. The set up was meant to study the spectral readings from the flash spectrograph in order to analyse the chromospheric and coronal radiation.

Interestingly, the villagers were amused, if not fascinated to see so many people thronging to their village that included not just Indians building some temporary tower and setting up experiments, but also foreigners - Czech and Yugoslav teams that set up experiments of their own in the village.

All I remember now about this incident is that we were able to witness this TSE sitting at home (not seeing the TSE directly), and seeing the day turn into night and birds making chirping sounds as if dusk had dawned prematurely. Then there was this superstitious belief about TSE and I must admit, obeying my sister’s advice we all took bath after the TSE and that ended my tryst with my first TSE.

Today, as I look back in history I feel so sorry that such a golden opportunity to witness the diamond ring and the suns corona radiation live was missed and that too in our hometown,

During the course of my research for this article, I have come across a reference that suggests that the IIA team led by Dr RC Kapoor, recorded a special film on a 16mm film projector of their TSE observations from Jalagera. It is believed that this celluloid film was later converted into an audio visual film in VHS format with a commentary by J C Bhattacharya, which was played at Vigyan Bhavan during the 1985 International Astronomical Union (IAU) at Delhi. This film, I understand, is now preserved in the IIA Library.

What is most significant about this TSE and its scientific studies carried out by IIA is that it was spearheaded by one of the doyens of astrophysics in India, Dr Vainu Bappu, the founder of IIA.  He shouldered the responsibility of the scientific expeditions conducted during the 1980 TSE in Karnataka. Unfortunately, he was not there to present the findings of their experiments conducted during their TSE studies across sites in the districts of Raichur and Gadag when this was presented at the IAU in 1985.

Let me end this write up with a brief tribute to Dr Vainu Bappu, who founded IIA.

Recognizing that India lacked adequate advanced equipment to match its intellectual potential, Dr. Bappu spearheaded the creation of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in 1971. Incidentally, during my tenure (Jan 2011-Jan 2013) as the Director of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), Bangalore, the Chairman of the Executive Committee -Apex body- of VITM was Prof S Sirajul Hasan, the then Director of IIA Bangalore. Prof Hasan was instrumental in advancing India's initiatives in space-based solar astronomy and fostering international collaborations for major telescope projects.

Dr Manali Kallat Vainu Bappu was instrumental in scouting and establishing the world-class optical observatory at Kavalur, Tamil Nadu. His ultimate dream was to design and construct a massive, entirely indigenous large-aperture stellar telescope. Though he passed away in Munich in August 1982 before its completion, the 2.3-metre instrument that he commissioned was operationalised posthumously and proudly named the Vainu Bappu Telescope (VBT) in his honour.

During the historic Total Solar Eclipse of February 16, 1980, Dr Bappu personally designed and oversaw the massive scientific expeditions in Karnataka, which I have described above. As the Director of IIA, he rallied domestic and international teams to establish the state-of-the-art mega-camp at Jawalagera (Raichur) to tap into the unique, brief window of total darkness. His colleagues recall that he used to walk the camp site grounds daily, fine-tuning the 68-foot high steel coelostat tower and multi-slit spectrographs to capture an unprecedented high-resolution data on the solar corona's temperatures and chemical compositions.

His strategic leadership during this 1980 TSE event transformed what could have been a localised viewing opportunity into an international collaborative triumph, cementing India’s capability to execute complex, global-standard field astronomy.

I will separately be writing another blog about my experience of witnessing live the TSE of 1995 and other subsequent eclipses during the course of my professional career. More importantly I will also be including the transformative TSE that reshaped our understanding of science, which occurred in India in the 19^th century. Until then happy live viewing of the TSE on many websites which are beaming today’s TSE Live.

Images: Courtesy Wikipedia 

 Jai Vigyan

Key words : #TotalSolarEclipse #IIA #1980TSE #Raichur # Totalsolareclipse2026 #VishnuBappu 

Guru Purnima

 

The Guru–Shishya Parampara: From Kailasa to Science Labs, the Moral Compass We Must Not Lose

Today, the full moon day (Purnima) of the Hindu lunar month of Aashaadha, we commemorate Guru Purnima —a sacred day woven into the very sociocultural and spiritual fabric of Indian Civilisation since time immemorial. Guru Purnima, occurring in the month of Aashaadha, is also referred to as the Vyasa Purnima, and it marks the birth anniversary of Maharishi Veda Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas and the author of the legendary timeless epic, Mahabharata. 

Long before modern observances like Teachers' Day came into being, in Bharat, our ancestors set aside a day and dedicated the auspicious full moon day (traditionally recognised as Vyasa Purnima, honouring Sage Ved Vyasa) to pay our humble obeisance and profound reverence to the Gurus, who shape our lives. Learning is one constant from cradle to coffin, in every one of our lives, and in this journey of life, we come across one or the other who shape and guide us and mentor us, who - in Indian age-old culture – should be considered as a Guru.

In the Indian cultural ethos, a "Guru" is not merely a professional instructor bound by a classroom wall or from the formal education system. Guru is the one who serves as a guiding light in our journey—starting from the mother, our very first Guru, to the father, family elders, academic mentors, and every individual whose path intersects with ours to teach us righteousness, ethics, and truth.

This spirit is timelessly captured in the profound verse from the Guru Gita, found within the Skanda Purana, presented as a dialogue on Mount Kailash between Bhagwan Shiva and Goddess Parvati: “Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurur Devo Maheshwara, Gurur Sakshat Param Brahma, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah.” Translated in English, the sloka states "The Guru is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Transformer. The Guru is the supreme reality made manifest. To that revered Guru, I bow in deep humility.

Science, Sacrifice, and the Ethos of Reverence.

In India, the Guru Shishya Parampara and the sacred duty of the Guru (Teacher)—and the profound reverence of the Shishya (disciple) for his Guru—did not end in ancient hermitages. It transcended seamlessly into modern India's scientific laboratories and academic corridors, as evidenced in the following classic examples concerning two of the great scientists from India – both Nobelists, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics – that remind us of the Guru-Shishya Parampara in Indian society.

1. Sir C.V. Raman: Duty of Guru Over Accolades.

In 1954, when the first Bharat Ratna awards were announced, Nobel laureate Professor Sir C.V. Raman received an official invitation from Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the nation’s highest civilian honour. Yet, Prof. Raman sent a polite letter of regret. As chronicled by our former scientist President, popularly called the People's President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Raman’s refusal was not due to ill health or international travel or such other commitments of personal importance. It was because the Bharat Ratna award ceremony coincided with the exact thesis submission deadline of one of his devoted Ph.D. students. For Raman, his sacred duty as a mentor (Guru) surpassed even the glory of receiving the Bharat Ratna. 

2. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: Dignity in the Face of Derision from Guru.

A Nobelist and a nephew of Prof CV Raman, Astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar also embodied this ethos through grace and humility. In 1935, when a young Chandrasekhar presented his groundbreaking work on the "Chandrasekhar Limit" at the Royal Astronomical Society, his senior contemporary Sir Arthur Eddington - whom S Chandrasekhar considered as his Guru, although there was no such teacher student relationship between the two - publicly ridiculed it as "stellar buffoonery."

Though this unfair critique derailed Chandra’s career in the U.K. and delayed his rightful Nobel Prize recognition by nearly five decades, Chandra never spoke a bitter word against Eddington. He continued to treat Eddington with utmost respect as a mentor—reflecting an inner dignity akin to Ekalavya's unwavering devotion to his Guru, Dhronacharya. 

Later, while at Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory, Chandrasekhar would drive over a hundred miles every week just to teach an advanced class of only two students: T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang. His selfless dedication as a virtue of a Guru, to his Shishyas (students) yielded dividend when both students went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1957 at young ages, decades before Chandra himself received his Nobel Prize in 1983.

3. Satish Dhawan: Quintessential Guru for APJ Abdul Kala

When India’s first SLV-3 mission failed in 1979 under mission director Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, ISRO Chairman Prof. Satish Dhawan faced the hostile press himself, shielding his shishya (subordinate) from blame and humiliation. A year later, when the mission succeeded, Dhawan stepped back and handed full credit to Kalam. Dhawan defined leadership not as authority, but as protective, nurturing mentorship. Dr Kalam has quoted this episode innumerable times, during his many lectures across the country and beyond.

The Modern NEET Exam Crisis: Standing Up for Rights Without Falling in Moral Decorum

Yet, as we look at our society today, and the tragic events that unfolded during the NEET exam student protest at Jantar Mantar, a painful contrast emerges.

During the Jantar Mantar student agitations organised by the CJP for the NEET paper leaks, which spread across the country, the nation witnessed a tragic and troubling breakdown in basic civil discourse. While demanding accountability, transparency, and justice for students is 100% justified, the nature of some protests crossed lines that ought to alarm us all. Hearing young students and agitating crowds resort to vulgarity, unrepeatable epithets, and aggressive gestures shows how far we are drifting from our foundational moral compass. While the tough-handedness of the police, which led to many students getting injured, can never be justified, but an honest introspection will also reveal a disturbing trend, divorced from our age-old traditions of respect for others.

In Indian culture, fighting against injustice (Adharma) has always been encouraged - the Mahabharata and Ramayana embody this spirit - but the means must match the nobility of the end. Expressing anger does not necessarily require sacrificing dignity, nor does standing up for rights justify mimicking, insulting, or using unspeakable epithets in words and actions, which were seen in the protest not just as a street outrage but stretched beyond this.

When we lose respect for elders, teachers, and society at large, we do not just lose a debate—we strip away the very values that have sustained our civilisation for millennia amidst centuries of foreign invasions and foreign rule and colonialism. Agitation for a righteous cause must itself remain righteous to earn a righteous and just result.

Some may say my generation is far divorced from modern society, enriched and empowered with AI, which the so-called Gen Z are a part of.  And for them, knowledge is all-pervasive and comes not necessarily from the so-called Guru, from their point of view, but from modern Guru the AI, the Internet, Search Engines and WWW.   

Therefore, one may ask whether we still need the Guru in the Age of AI?

The answer, in my opinion, remains an unequivocal Yes, in my opinion.

Algorithms can supply facts – which in itself is quite debatable when it comes to things political - but they cannot transmit wisdom, integrity, compassion, morals or character. A Guru is not a mere search engine for data nor an AI for answers; the Guru is a catalyst who destroys ego, refines raw intellect, and instils morals, values and ethics, besides enriching us with knowledge.

From Mount Kailash to modern research institutes—where mentors like Prof. M.M. Sharma inspired students like Mukesh Ambani and innumerable others, who later give back generously to their alma maters—the core truth remains constant: A Civilisation that honours its teachers, leaders, elders, and knows their moral boundaries honours its own future.

On this holy day of Guru Purnima, let us not only pay tribute to those who teach us, but also pledge to uphold the dignity, language, and moral conduct that our Gurus sacrificed so much to bequeath to us.

Tasmai Sri Guruve Namaḥ.

Key words #GuruPurnima #GuruShishyaParampara #IndianEthos #ValuesAndEthics #Education #Mentorship #CJPprotest #NEETprotest #Politicalclass

 #Raman #Nobel Prize #APJ Abdul Kalam

 

Birth Anniversary of Nelson Mandela: The Anti-Apartheid Struggle, and the Sporting Soul of India

Every year on the 18th of July, the world joins South Africa in celebrating the birth anniversary of Nelson Mandela—a man whose life became a masterclass in resilience, reconciliation, and the sheer power of human dignity. My career as a museum professional makes this day extra special, since it reminds me of the Cricket Connects: India South Africa, which I had the honour to co curated and design and develop and present the exhibition in South Africa. Hence Nelson Mandela’s birth anniversary deeply resonates with me.

 Back in 2018, during Madiba’s (Nelson Mandela’s) birth centenary, I had posted a tribute to Mandela on Facebook reflecting on my professional experience in co-curating the international exhibition “Cricket Connects: India-South Africa” alongside Suresh Menon and Prashant Kidambi.

 That exhibition, hosted at the iconic Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg and Kingsmead in Durban in 2014, was ostensibly about cricket and how it resonates with both India and South Africa. But as our extensive archival research revealed, it was actually about a much larger, beautiful canvas—the profound, unbreakable connection between India and South Africa. Today, as we honour Madiba once again, I am tempted recall nostalgically those archives used in the exhibition, to dive deeper into how the legacies of Mandela, the horrors of racial discrimination, and India’s unflinching support to South Africa to change the course of history.

The Inhumanity of Apartheid Sport: From Basil D’Oliveira to the "Pencil Test"

To fully appreciate the euphoria of South Africa’s return to international sports under Nelson Mandela, one must first look into the dark, painful depths of the system that preceded it. Under the white-minority apartheid regime, sport, cricket in particular, was weaponised as a tool of absolute racial segregation. Non-white players, regardless of their genius, were barred from representing their country - South Africa.

The global turning point came with Basil D’Oliveira, a brilliantly talented Coloured cricketer of Indian and Portuguese descent. Blocked from playing first-class cricket in his homeland - South Africa - due to his skin color, D'Oliveira fled to England. His talent was undeniable, and he was eventually selected to play for the England national team.

The crisis exploded in 1968 when England was scheduled to tour South Africa. When the English selectors named D'Oliveira to the squad, the South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster banned the team from entering the country, refusing to let a non-white man take the field against white South Africans.

The “D’Oliveira Affair" shocked the international community, becoming a global symbol of racial discrimination and triggering the formal isolation of South Africa from the ICC and the broader sporting world.

Behind this sporting ban lay daily, systemic humiliations that non whites faced in South Africa. Among the most dehumanizing bureaucratic tools used by the white regime was the infamous “Pencil Test." Used to classify individuals under the Population Registration Act, white officials would push a pencil into a person's hair. If the person shook their head and the pencil slid out, they were deemed to have passed (classified as white or coloured); if the pencil remained stuck in the curls, they "failed" and were classified as Black, stripping them of fundamental rights, fracturing families, and crushing sporting dreams.

India’s Sacrifice in the Davis Cup

India’s opposition to this institutionalised racism was fierce and uncompromising. Decades before it became globally fashionable, India had severed diplomatic and trade ties with the apartheid state. Nowhere was India’s moral conviction more powerfully demonstrated than on the tennis courts of 1974.

That year, a golden generation of Indian tennis—led by the brilliant Amritraj brothers, Vijay and Anand, alongside Jasjit Singh—pulled off a fairy tale run. They defeated heavyweights like Australia and the Soviet Union to reach the Davis Cup Final. Their opponent was South Africa. India was on the cusp of its first-ever World Title in tennis. Yet, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government made a historic decision: India would forfeit the final.

South African authorities tried to compromise, even offering to treat the Indian players as "honorary whites" so they could play under their segregation laws. India flatly refused to validate such an absurdity. By giving a walkover, India sacrificed a guaranteed shot at global sporting glory to send an unmistakable message to the world: Human dignity is non-negotiable. As Vijay Amritraj later reflected: “As a sportsman, I was disappointed, but as an individual, I took pride in the fact that my government made the right call."

Gandhi, Mandela, and Non-Violent Defiance.

India’s unwavering support to South Africa was rooted in a shared philosophical lineage. It is one of history’s greatest ironies that India sent Mohandas Gandhi to South Africa as a young lawyer, and South Africa sent him back to India as a Mahatma. Mandela viewed Gandhi as a local revolutionary ancestor. In his early political years with the African National Congress (ANC), Mandela actively employed classic Gandhian tactics of non-cooperation and civil disobedience. The “Defiance Campaign of 1952” was essentially a massive South African Satyagraha, where Mandela led thousands of volunteers to deliberately and peacefully break apartheid laws, filling the prisons to stretch the regime's infrastructure to its breaking point.

While the sheer brutality of the apartheid state later forced the ANC to adopt armed struggle, Mandela never abandoned the ultimate Gandhian objective: Reconciliation. When Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison without any malice, embracing his former captors to build a "Rainbow Nation," he was channelling the very highest form of Gandhian soul-force.

The Redemption: Kolkata, 1991

Because India had stood so firmly at the vanguard of the anti-apartheid boycott, it was only poetic justice that India became the bridge for South Africa's re-entry into the civilized world in the Cricketing world. When the apartheid regime fell and Mandela was elected President, the sporting isolation finally ended. In November 1991, within just four months of South Africa re-joining the ICC, a historic moment unfolded. India became the very first country to host South Africa for an international cricket series.

When Clive Rice’s South African team landed in Kolkata for a three-match ODI series, the city erupted. A simple bus journey from the airport to the team hotel—which should have taken thirty minutes—spanned over four hours. Tens of thousands of Indians lined the streets simply to shout, *"Welcome back to the world."* Banners reading *"Long live India-South Africa Friendship"* waved through the crowds. A young Allan Donald wrote in amazement about the thousands gathered outside their hotel windows just to catch a glimpse of the team.

The following year, in 1992, India returned the gesture, embarking on the historic "Friendship Tour" to South Africa—the first official tour by a non-White team to that country, met with matching, unforgettable euphoria on the streets of Durban.

 A Lasting Heritage

Curating the Cricket Connects exhibition—which later travelled to Australia in 2016 and England in 2017—was an exercise in preserving these exact histories. Sifting through archival images of Mandela smiling alongside Indian leaders, studying the newspaper clippings of the 1974 Davis Cup sacrifice, and documenting the emotional 1991 Kolkata tour remains one of the greatest highlights of my professional journey.

Today, as we look at a world still fractured by divisions, Madiba’s life reminds us that walls do eventually fall, that sports can heal what politics breaks, and that the ties that bind India and South Africa are anchored not just in geography, but in the eternal human pursuit of freedom.

Long live Madiba.

Images : Courtesy Nehru Science Centre

Key Words : Nelson Mandela,  Cricket, Birth anniversary of Nelson Mandela, Racial Discrimination, Mahatma Gandhi 

From Mohenjo-daro to CERN: The Bronze Thread of Indian Civilization.

 

Authors Note: This piece has been accepted for publication by the Firstpost, a prestigious online media. Unfortunately, due to scheduling delays, it is being published here - on my blog (Authors bog) - first to maintain the timeliness of the ongoing discourse on heritage and education. 

From Mohenjo-daro to CERN: The Bronze Thread of Indian Civilization.

The Journey from Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro to the Nataraja of CERN is not merely an art-historical journey; it is the story of India’s long engagement with material science, metallurgy, art, aesthetics and the philosophical search for understanding of the cosmos.

There is an old proverb about "missing the forest for the trees." The recent debate surrounding the image of the Harappan Dancing Girl in an NCERT textbook brought intense attention to questions of representation, propriety and pedagogy. Yet, amid the noise, an extraordinary larger story risked being overlooked.

The tiny bronze figure from Mohenjo-daro is not merely an archaeological artefact or a textbook illustration. It is among the earliest surviving testimonies to India's metallurgical genius, a legacy of craftsmanship and scientific knowledge that stretches across millennia. From the bronze-casters of the Indus Valley Civilization to the master sculptors of the Chola age, and ultimately to the installation of Nataraja at CERN in Geneva on June 18, 2004, one can trace a remarkable metallurgical civilisational continuum, which evidentially stands tall even today at the national capital, Delhi as the rust less wonder, the Delhi Iron Pillar.

Therefore, the real significance of the Dancing Girl, the earliest surviving testimonies to India's mastery of metallurgy, craftsmanship and artistic imagination, must transcend beyond the controversies of its representation in text books to the enduring story she tells about India's ability to imagine, innovate and create.

The bronze figurine, Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro, barely eleven centimetres tall, has captivated scholars and laypersons alike since her discovery over a century ago. Standing with one hand on her hip and radiating confidence across four millennia, she remains one of the most iconic images of the ancient world.

What is often forgotten is that this small bronze figure represents the beginning of a civilisational journey that would eventually produce some of the finest metal sculptures ever crafted by human hands — the Chola bronzes of South India. In a remarkable twist of history, the installation of a majestic Chola Bronze Nataraja at CERN in Geneva, the world's premier laboratory for frontiers of fundamental research in particle physics has brought a full circle to the remarkable story of the metallurgical heritage of India. 

The story of Indian bronze is therefore is not merely an art historical narrative. It is also a story of science, technology, philosophy and continuity.

The bronze-casters of the Indus Valley Civilization possessed sophisticated knowledge of metalworking. The lost-wax casting process used in creating the Dancing Girl was a highly advanced technique requiring precise control over materials and temperatures. It demanded not only artistic skill but also a practical understanding of materials and metallurgy. Long before modern laboratories emerged, ancient artisans had mastered complex processes through observation, experimentation and accumulated knowledge.

The significance of this achievement becomes even clearer when viewed across the longue durée of Indian history and through the collections of India's great museums. Visitors to the Bronze Gallery of the National Museum in New Delhi, the celebrated Chola Bronze Gallery of the Government Museum in Chennai, or the Decorative Arts Gallery at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, encounter remarkable examples of a metallurgical and artistic tradition that evolved over millennia. At CSMVS, a majestic Nataraja and a replica of the iconic Dancing Girl—currently welcoming visitors to the exhibition “Networks of the Past: A study gallery of India & the Ancient World” (https://networksofthepast.csmvs.in/) symbolically frame this extraordinary journey. Civilisations rise and fall; artistic traditions often disappear. Yet India presents a remarkable example of continuity. Across centuries and changing dynasties, knowledge systems evolved, adapted and flourished, leaving behind a bronze legacy that continues to inspire admiration across the world.

By the ninth century, under the Cholas, bronze casting had reached extraordinary levels of refinement. The Chola sculptors transformed metal into art, aesthetic and poetry. Their bronzes were not static images but embodiments of movement, grace and spiritual energy. Among them, the image of Shiva as Nataraja emerged as one of humanity's greatest artistic achievements.

The Dancing Nataraja is a sculpture, philosophy and cosmology combined.

In the circle of flames surrounding the dancing figure, one encounters the rhythm of the universe itself. Shiva dances creation into being, sustains existence and dissolves it, only for the cycle to begin anew. Every gesture carries meaning. Every movement speaks of cosmic order amidst apparent chaos.

What makes the Nataraja especially remarkable is that it emerged from a civilisation that did not see art and science as separate domains. The same culture that developed sophisticated metallurgical techniques also contemplated profound questions about time, matter, energy and existence.

It is perhaps for this reason that the image found an unexpected home in the twenty-first century at CERN, an international premier scientific institution.

On 18 June 2004, a bronze Nataraja, gifted by the Government of India, was installed at CERN in Geneva. To many observers, the installation appeared surprising. How could an ancient Hindu deity find a place at the world's leading centre for research in particle physics?

Perhaps, apparently, for its symbolism. Modern physics reveals a universe that is dynamic rather than static. At the subatomic level, particles constantly interact, transform and disappear. Matter and energy engage in ceaseless movement. The universe is not a fixed machine but a dance of relationships and transformations.

The Nataraja at CERN is often explained as a metaphor for the dance of subatomic particles, an interpretation popularised by physicist Fritjof Capra and acknowledged on the plaque accompanying the sculpture. That explanation tells only part of the story.

For decades, scientists and thinkers have been intrigued by the parallels — metaphorical rather than literal — between this scientific understanding and the imagery of Nataraja. The statue at CERN does not imply that ancient India anticipated particle physics. Such claims neither serve history nor science. Rather, it acknowledges that different cultures have sought, in their own ways, to comprehend the underlying rhythms of existence.

The Nataraja statue at CERN represents one of humanity's most enduring traditions of metallurgical excellence. It belongs to a tradition whose roots extend back thousands of years.

Between the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro and the Nataraja of CERN lies an unbroken chain of knowledge, skill and creativity. The furnaces may have changed. The patrons may have changed. The contexts certainly changed. Yet the underlying capacity to imagine, innovate and create endured.

This continuity acquires special significance today as India witnesses the return of numerous stolen antiquities from abroad.

Many of the recovered objects are Chola bronzes that had been illicitly removed from temples and communities over decades. Their repatriation represents more than the recovery of valuable artworks. It is the restoration of cultural memory.

For too long, discussions about heritage were often confined to museums, specialists and collectors. Increasingly, however, Indians are beginning to view cultural heritage as an integral component of national identity and confidence. The return of a stolen bronze is not merely a legal or diplomatic achievement. It is a reaffirmation that the creations of previous generations continue to matter.

This renewed appreciation of heritage coincides with a broader national conversation about development. Too often, societies are encouraged to choose between pride in the past and aspirations for the future. One is portrayed as nostalgic, the other as progressive.

India's experience suggests that this is a dishonest choice.

The phrase "Virasat and Viksit Bharat" captures a more balanced vision. A nation does not become modern by forgetting its past. Nor does it honour its heritage by remaining trapped within it. Progress emerges when a society draws strength from its civilisational foundations while engaging confidently with contemporary challenges.

The Nataraja at CERN embodies precisely this synthesis.

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro, the Chola bronze masters and the physicists of CERN all belong, in different ways, to this larger human story.

Perhaps that is the deeper lesson hidden beneath recent controversies. The significance of the Dancing Girl does not lie merely in how she is depicted in a textbook. Her true importance lies in what she represents: a civilisation capable of transforming metal into art, technique into beauty and knowledge into enduring cultural achievement.

When we look beyond the immediate debates, the forest comes into view.

From the ancient bronze traditions of the Indus Valley to the Chola Bronzes; from the recovery of stolen antiquities to the frontiers of modern physics in Geneva; from Virasat to Viksit Bharat — a single bronze thread runs through the story.

It is a thread woven from creativity, craftsmanship, scientific curiosity and cultural confidence.

And it continues to connect India's past with its future.

Key Words : Dancing Girl, NCERT Text Book, Chola Bronze, Nataraja at CERN, Philosophy, Metallurgical Heritage, Nataraja Bronze

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