Superbugs Exhibition and the Saga of raise and fall of Antibiotics.

The story of the ‘accidental’ discovery of penicillin has been frequently told and this story has transcended across countries. Even in India, most of us, including the school children, are familiar with the story of Alexander Fleming and his serendipitous discovery of penicillin. The accidental discovery of Penicillin won Fleming and two other scientists, Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Howard Walter Florey, the coveted Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the year 1945,  "for their discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases."  Our understanding that infectious diseases are caused by microbes - bacteria and other microorganisms - came about thanks to the research work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, who explained the nature of the infectious diseases and the connection that exist between them and the disease causing bacteria and other microorganisms. This profound understanding opened research opportunities for scientists to advance medicine, which could help in prevention and treatment of important group of diseases that are caused by bacteria and other microorganisms.

Penicillin and other antibiotics and vaccines developed over the past few decades, which have saved millions of lives, owe their genesis to the fundamental understanding of the nature of the microbial diseases. The story of the accidental discovery of the penicillin (antibiotics) and its benefits for humankind is now pervasive. But then the saga of antibiotics including how scientists and engineers toiled hard to mass produce this wonder discovery - penicillin - is less known. What is even lesser known part of the antibiotics story is that, Alexander Fleming had also predicted the rise of Superbugs - microbes, which will, over time, become immune to antibiotics and may lead to fall of the wonder drug, penicillin (antibiotics). In a talk recorded by the BBC in 1945, Fleming himself had highlighted the dangers of improper use of penicillin. He had said, ‘If the dose is too small, the microbes will not be killed and there is a danger that they will be educated to resist penicillin’. He added, ‘we might then have someone who has a simple sore throat treating himself inadequately with penicillin and educating his microbes to resist the drug. These educated microbes could then be passed on to his best friend who might get pneumonia, for which…penicillin would do no good’. Fleming added, in this case, ‘the first man through thoughtless use of penicillin would be morally responsible for the death of his best friend’. Fleming’s prophetic statement is turning out to be true in modern days.

Fleming’s  statement summarizes the significance of what has now become a global health menace - The Antimicrobial and Antibacterial Resistance - AMR and ABR - which may eventually lead to disastrous consequences and make penicillin - the life saving drug - completely ineffective and helpless. It is therefore time for all of us, the global community, to stand unitedly in addressing this global menace and for this, the first step is to create a much needed awareness among the general public about this problem. It is in recognition of this necessity that an exhibition ‘Superbugs: The End of Antibiotics?’ has been curated and developed jointly by the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), Ministry of Culture, Government of India, the Science Museum, Group, London, with support from the Wellcome Trust (UK) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This exhibition was opened by two distinguished scientists Padma Vibhushan, Prof Man Mohan Sharma, Emeritus Professor,  Institute of Chemical Technology ( formerly UDCT) and eminent Physician, Padma Bhushan, Dr Farukh Udwadia in the presence of Mr. Crispin Simon, British Deputy High Commissioner for Western India and Ms. Helen Jones, Director, Global Engagement & Strategy, Science Museum Group, UK and several other dignitaries both from India and UK including a large number of students,  on the 18th of December at the Nehru Science Centre. One of the important features of the exhibition is that it has several original historical objects, which narrate the story of the raise and fall of penicillin and these objects have been beautifully blended in the thoughtfully curated exhibition. The exhibition also contains large number of models, which are interactive and completely engaging. Artistically created giant model of a Superbug - made of large number of of hyper sized medicine pills - antibiotics, injectables, microbes etc. welcomes the visitors to foretell what the consequences of superbugs could be for humankind, if timely interventions are not made. An antique looking telephone ear piece, belonging to Fleming’s era, when picked from its cradle, plays out the original voice of Alexander Fleming, where he prophetically talks of the problems of antibiotic resistance.

The Superbugs exhibition has been divided into three sections: Microscopic, Human and Global. Microscopic Section explores the hidden world of bacteria. Be it their size or characteristics, evolution of superbugs or history of antibiotics; the exhibits of this section will take you on a journey in which the visitor can zoom into the world of microbes, explore the touchscreen multimedia to understand how bacteria evolve into superbugs or flip a digital e-book to know the brief history of antibiotics. 

The Human Section showcases several stories, specifically from India, of how different stakeholders of Indian society are reaching out to combat the challenge of antibacterial resistance. When antibiotics stop working, lives are put at risk. People catch infections that can’t be treated. Hospitals find it difficult to keep the spread of bacteria under control. Farmers can’t treat their animals when they become ill. Our environment poses several risks of spreading ABR in human and animals. This section highlights how Doctors, Patients, Scientists, Researchers, Nurses, Campaigners, Pharmacist, Farmers all need to work in tandem to cope up with this problem.

Bacteria are without borders and can travel further and faster around the world than we do. Moving through our bodies, food and water systems, Superbugs on a farm in one country can spread to hospitals on the other side of the planet. The Global Section explores the global initiatives in search of new antibiotics or alternate ways to combat the menace and the initiatives to create awareness on the issue. This travelling exhibition, a joint Indo-UK initiative, expressly designed and developed for the purpose of creating awareness on AMR, was first presented at the National Science Centre, Delhi, from where it has now travelled to  our Centre. It will be on display for a period of two months at the Nehru Science Centre and will conclude on the 16th, February 2020.  From here it will travel to  Visvesvaraya Museum, Bangalore and then to Birla Industrial and Technological Museum, Kolkata.

Superbugs are those evolved microbes, which have become immune and resistant to most of the antibiotics and other medical intervention resulting in major global health crisis. The superbugs mostly fall under AMR. The gravity of the AMR menace is a cause for concern for everyone of us and it needs collective global efforts to address this problem. AMR is an ability of microorganisms (bacteria, virus, fungi, parasites) to overcome the effects of antimicrobials (antibiotics, antivirals, antifungal, ant parasitic agents). Antibacterial Resistance (ABR) is of equal global concern that refers to the ability of bacteria to overcome the effect of antibiotics and continue to grow rapidly. While all types of AMR are concerning, ABR is currently posing the most serious health threat, particularly for India, with serious political and economic implications. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that AMR is a global public health security concern, which needs to be urgently addressed. This issue has been reiterated by the WHO in numerous World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions. 

India is one of the countries which faces the highest burden of microbial (bacterial) infections. As per the ICMR estimates, an estimated 410,000 children aged five years or less die from pneumonia in India annually; with pneumonia alone accounting for almost 25% of all child deaths. ICMR further estimates that crude mortality from infectious diseases in India today is 417 per 100,000 persons. Therefore, the impact of AMR is likely to be higher in the Indian setting and one way to try and address this issue is to create awareness and understanding on the issue of AMR. It is hoped that the Superbugs exhibition, helps in taking the message of AMR to all the stakeholders, particularly the students who visit our science centre in large numbers.

India carries one of the largest burdens of drug-resistant pathogens worldwide and therefore the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) has identified AMR as one of the top ten priorities for the ministry’s collaborative work with the WHO. The AMR is also prioritized under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), in which India is one of the contributing countries. The Indian National Health Policy, 2017, identifies antimicrobial resistance as a problem and calls for effective action to address this menace. It calls for a rapid standardization of guidelines regarding antibiotic use, limiting the use of antibiotics as over-the-counter medications, banning or restricting the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal livestock, and pharmacology vigilance  including auditing prescription and antibiotic usage in the hospital and community. The emergence of AMR  is not only limited to the older and more frequently used classes of drugs ( antibiotics) but there has also been a rapid increase in resistance to the newer and more expensive drugs. The ICMR finding shows that there is an increased rates of AMR, across multiple pathogens of clinical importance at the national scale. For example, according to ICMR, in 2008, based on the available data about 29% of isolates of Staphylococcus aureus were methicillin resistant, and by 2014, this had risen to 47%. Therefore the AMR issue has emerged as a major challenge in hospitalized patients as well as in the community. In contrast, in countries which have established effective antibiotic measures and infection prevention and control programs, the proportion of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates have been decreasing. India was the largest consumer of antibiotics for human health. However the per capita consumption of antibiotics in India (10.7 units per capita) is lower than that seen in many other countries (22 units per capita in USA).

Penicillin and other antibiotics have saved millions of lives and have been considered as the greatest of boon the humankind could get from scientific research. The saga of antibiotics- Penicillin - is an extraordinary episode of scientific history that heralded unprecedented international cooperation and collaboration among scientists, engineers and pharmaceutical companies, particularly between England and the United States.  It all began on that eventful morning of Sept. 28, 1928, when Professor of bacteriology, Alexander Fleming, had cut short his vacation and returned back to London, hoping to help his colleague. Fleming was already working on Staphylococcus bacteria and had left behind some of his Staphylococcus samples, which he had cultured in some Petri dishes, before going on vacation. On his return to England he used some spare time in his laboratory sorting out petri dishes bearing cultures of Staphylococcus. It was when Professor Merlin Pryce dropped in to his lab to speak to Fleming. One of the Petri dishes, where Staphylococcus bacteria were being cultured by Fleming, caught their attention. A large colony of greenish mold had grown in the Petri dish and around this area no bacteria were found. It was a fascinating serendipity about which Fleming wrote that the bacterial colonies around the mold colony had “dissolved away.” The greenish colour fungus, which had inhibited the growth of staphylococcus bacteria, turned out to be ‘Penicillium notatum’, which was destined to herald a path breaking future in the history of medicine.  

Although Fleming had identified that the strain of Penicillium, which he had accidentally discovered, had killed a host of Gram- positive bacteria, including those that caused scarlet fever, pneumonia, gonorrhea, meningitis, and diphtheria, yet he was uncertain that penicillin could actually be cultivated for medical use.  Cultivating penicillin indeed was a very difficult challenge and the small quantities that could be produced were mostly unstable and therefore Fleming was more or less convinced that penicillin would never be an important drug, for treatment of any of the bacterial infections. The penicillin therefore remained a laboratory curiosity for the next decade, until Sir Howard Walter Florey, Ernst Boris Chain and a team of researchers at Oxford University demonstrated the potential life-saving properties of penicillin.  Unfortunately by then the World War II had begun and England too was at war. War times made it difficult for the mass production of the Penicillin, since the priorities of the nation were completely different. But then with more and more soldiers dying of infections, which perhaps could have been avoided had there been a very large quantity of Penicillin, people started to think seriously on producing penicillin on a large scale. This was an Herculean task. The saga of mass production of penicillin is an extraordinary story of cooperation between nations (primarily UK and USA) and undying spirit of collaboration between scientists and engineers, who took up this challenge. With several triumphs and tribulations, the combined efforts of scientists and engineers finally yielded the desired results, which led to the mass production of penicillin antibiotics by companies like Pfizer in USA, who continue to be the leaders in this industry even today. Many of those who were behind this success story are unsung heroes, whose names have been confined to anonymity in the annals of history. This article makes an attempt to bring to light the roles of some of those unsung heroes - scientists and engineers - whose works made this possible. 

The term Antibiotics was first coined by an US meteorologist, Matthew F. Maury, in 1855 in his book entitled ‘Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology’. The reference of Maury to the term antibiotics however had nothing to do with the antibiotics that we now universally recognise. Maury was an enthusiastic observer of the sky and was keen in trying to understand the possibilities of existence of life in outer space. After serious observations, he was convinced that there is no possibility of life in outer space. But then he used an interesting phrase to express how he arrived at this conclusion that life does not exist in outer space. He wrote “I incline to the antibiotic hypothesis”, there was no alien life out there in space. The first medical recognition of the role of Penicillium (antibiotics) dates back to London in 1871, when Sir John Burdon Sanderson noted that thick bacterial growths quickly formed, if broth were exposed to air. But, if a mold like Penicillium grew on the surface of the broth then the bacteria would die. The current modern meaning of the term antibiotics gained momentum courtesy a French microbiologist, Pierre Vuillemin, who in 1890 defined an “antibiotic” as any substance that was “injurious to or destructive of living matter, especially microorganisms.” Sir Sanderson’s crucial observations were confirmed by another English Surgeon of eminence, Joseph Lister, who introduced carbolic acid as an antiseptic for use in operating rooms. Lister’s objective was to ensure that post surgery bacteria must never gain entry to an operation wound, which continues to be the main cause of concern even this day. Lister recorded that samples of urine contaminated with the mold would not support the growth of bacteria. Two other French scientists, Louis Pasteur and Jules Francois Joubert,  also observed the inhibition of growth in a culture of anthrax bacteria when contaminated by Penicillium. This phenomenon was named as ‘ antibiosis’ by Pasteur and Robert Koch.  

The first person to come very close to discovering the antibiotics- penicillin - as we know today for its curative reasons, was a French medical student, Ernest Duchesne, who was probably born in Paris in 1874. He became fascinated with microbes in medical school, which he joined at a very young age and legend has it that Pasteur Institute rejected Duchesne’s thesis on the grounds that he was too young (23) for his medical thesis. He was however able to get another guide with whose guidance he worked and completed his thesis on microbial antagonism in 1897. His thesis suggested that application of penicillin fungi could alter the virulence of the microbes. Duchesne was able to concentrate his antibiotics in broth, which he used to show that it could be used to treat animals infected with bacteria. He was also successful in experimenting and growing Penicillin Glacum. But then before he could attempt any further work, fate had its own wish and Duchesne died of pulmonary infection at a very young age (37) afflicted with TB. Most unfortunately the young doctors work of developing an effective penicillin antibiotics remained unfulfilled. Had Duchesne lived longer  may be the course of antibiotics history may have been different. There were other investigators who are believed to have noticed the effects of penicillin before Fleming, but then it was only Fleming who could finally manage to discover what we now call penicillin the antibiotics.

Fleming, even before his serendipitous discovery of the staphylococcal colonies on his Petri dish, had been working for years on bacterial infections and in 1921, he had observed that nasal mucus and tears could prevent the growth of bacteria. He also discovered that nasal mucus and tears contained an active agent, which  he named lysosome, an enzyme that dissolves bacterial colonies. It is perhaps this experience of Fleming, which helped him with that accidental discovery of penicillin on that historic day in September, 1928. But then from where did the Penicillium colony come from, which had inhibited the growth of his microbes the staphylococcus? When Fleming tested all their cultures for antibiotic-producing strains, he was able to find only one strain, which was identical to the fungus that had already contaminated his petri dish. Fleming identified the contaminant as a strain of Penicillium and he found that it killed a host of Gram- positive bacteria, including those that caused scarlet fever, pneumonia, gonorrhea, meningitis, and diphtheria. Fleming with the help of his colleagues tried to isolate pure penicillin from the mold. But then he observed that the pure penicillin is an unstable compound and therefore extremely difficult to cultivate and purify penicillin. Even those small quantities, which they could cultivate were unstable. All of these experiments convinced Fleming that penicillin would never be an important antibiotic for treatment of bacterial infections. Therefore for the next decade, there was not much progress in harvesting the antibacterial properties of penicillin and it remained only a laboratory curiosity, until an Australian British, Sir Howard Florey and a team of researchers at Oxford University demonstrated its potential life-saving properties. By then the WWII had begun and the British were a part of this bloody war.

As the war progressed the fatalities of soldiers increased substantially and a large number of deaths happened because of infections suffered due to battle injuries. By then the therapeutic effects of the new found penicillin against bacterial infections were known but the quantity of the penicillin produced during this time was not even sufficient to cure one single adult patient. This compelled the British Government in 1941, to seek the help of their war ally the US in solving the problem of mass producing penicillin. In response to the calls made by the British government four chemical and pharmaceutical companies in US, including Pfizer, who were eventual winners in the race, responded to the British call thus plunging into race different companies to mass produce the world’s first antibiotics drug. One of the pioneers who made mass production of penicillin possible was a lady American Chemical Engineer  Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau.

Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau was an innovative chemical engineer who is credited to have designed the first commercial penicillin plant using a process called the Deep Tank Fermentation process. This new process enabled scientists to produce large quantities of the life-saving drug. She is also credited with other accomplishments, which include developing high-octane gasoline. She is also the first woman to join the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Margaret Hutchinson, while working at E.B. Badger company, was involved in designing production plants, such as those used to generate synthetic rubber. It was here that she met here future husband Mr Rousseau. Margaret Hutchinson’s modified deep tank fermentation process helped scientists to produce penicillin on a large scale. As a result, she created the first commercial penicillin plant, the use of which helped people gain access to this much-needed drug. Around the same time, a group of researchers including Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin discovered the structure of penicillin, which accentuated the manufacturing process of penicillin. Thanks in part to Ms. Rousseau’s work, the advancements made in penicillin production saved many lives, both in the 1940s and today. 

The Pfizer company was one of those who decided to take the gamble of using the new deep tank fermentation process. In September 1943, they purchased one of the old Ice Plant in a nearby building and rebuilt this facility into the world’s first large-scale penicillin factory. On March 1, 1944 Pfizer’s penicillin plant opened. It contained fourteen 7,500- gallon tanks. Very soon Pfizer started producing five times more penicillin then originally estimated, making Pfizer the leading supplier of the drug. This was the war time and most of the penicillin that was produced by Pfizer plant on Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn, was transported in service of the Allied forces. 

The success of the mass production of the penicillin goes to the marvel of chemical engineering which was practiced at Pfizer and other chemical companies in US.  The production of penicillin began with a sterile culture of the penicillin mold, which was then propagated in stages from litre flasks to leading up to larger tanks of 200 gallons  “seed” tanks. From this stage the culture was transferred to huge fermenter tanks containing microbe fodder, chiefly corn steep liquor, milk sugar, salts, and minerals. The mold was allowed to grow for two to four days. The next and trickiest part of the process was extracting penicillin from the broth, since penicillin constituted a small fragment of just four parts drug per 10,000 parts broth. The extracted material was then purified and bottled in sterile rooms as extreme care had to be taken in these last steps to avoid contamination. After the bottles were filled, the penicillin moved through a freezing apparatus and then into a vacuum drier which dehydrated the drug. The final product helped the allied forces to decisively win World War II.

Alexander Fleming and the his co-discoverers - Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Howard Walter Florey -  truly deserve the credit for their discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics. But their monumental discovery would have remained only in the laboratory shelf if not for the extraordinary contributions by other scientists and chemical engineers who helped translate their lab discovery in to the development of deep tank fermentation which eventually turned out to be a game changer. Unfortunately after serving humankind for several decades and saving millions of lives, this very wonder drug penicillin and antibiotics have now lost their potency largely due to human neglect and misuse. It is therefore time that we rethink on what has led us to this stage of helplessness and it is hoped that the Superbugs exhibition will help in creating that much needed awareness on the proper use of the antibiotics and hope that the global community comes together once again to address this issue of Superbugs. It was science that saved millions and it is hoped that science clubbed with society will once again help the wonder drug antibiotics to claim that pinnacle position that it once had climbed.

Jai Vigyan. 

Nobel Prize Award Ceremony

10th December: The Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies and Banquets

Every year the 10th of December, the day when the prestigious Nobel Prizes are awarded in a glittering ceremony in Stockholm, marks a significant day in the lives of the Swedish people, who commemorate the day -  the death anniversary of their fellow countryman, Alfred Nobel - with as much spectacle and bling as the festivities of Diwali are celebrated by Indians in India. Over the years the Nobel Award ceremony is drawing more and more eye balls across the world. This year the Nobel Prize award ceremony was special to India. Indian born Abhijit Banerjee was one of the recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize (The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) in Economics. What was more pleasing the Indian audience was that Dr Banerjee chose to wear traditional Indian attire - a black bandh gala paired with an off-white gold bordered quint essential Indian Dhoti – for receiving his coveted Nobel Prize. Icing on the cake for the Indians was Banerjee shared his Nobel Prize with his French American wife Esther Duflo and their colleague Michael Kerner. Esther Duflo too sported Indian attire for the prestigious Nobel Award ceremony and chose to wear a blue Saree and a red blouse and sported on her forehead, traditional Indian Red Bindi. 

The week before the award ceremony day, all the Nobel Prize winners of 2019 - the newest members of the most elite club of Nobelists -  travel to Stockholm to receive their coveted Nobel Prize (A Diploma and a Medal) at the hands of the King of Sweden. The laureates are treated with nobility all through their stay in Stockholm, where they are accommodated at the historic Stockholm's Grand Hotel, a 145-year-old luxe waterfront accommodation in the city's Old Town. From the time of their arrival in Stockholm, the laureates are treated with great respect and participate in several public functions and a wide ranging programs and schedule that include press conferences, champagne receptions, lectures, a concert, school visits, Nobel Museum visit, and a trip to the Swedish Riksdag (parliament), all leading up to the grand finale - the Award ceremony - which was held on the 10th of December at the majestic Stockholm Concert Hall.

The Nobel Prizes have come to be recognised as the most prestigious awards in the world, which are awarded to those who ‘during the preceding years, have conferred the greatest of benefit to humankind’ in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Peace and Literature. These Prizes, which are an outcome of that extraordinary will of Alfred Nobel - a Swedish born businessman, chemist, engineer, and inventor known for the discovery of dynamite - have been in existence since 1901. The Nobel prizes for Physics and Chemistry are selected by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; and that for Physiological or Medicine by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The literature Nobel Prize is selected by the Academy in Stockholm; and the Peace Nobel Prize is selected by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Starting. All the Nobel Prizes except the Peace prize are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, while the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.

The Nobel Laureates are a select exclusive club of people, who enjoy an elite status and goodwill in society. Ever since the beginning of the Nobel Prizes till date a mere 919 individuals and 27 organizations have been awarded the coveted Nobel Prize during the period 1901 and 2019, which also includes 84 Laureates in Economic Sciences. Four of the Nobel Laureates have been awarded two Nobel Prizes each.

The legendary Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who shared the award with them. She was awarded her second Nobel Prize in the year this time in Chemistry in the year 1911, in recognition of her work on radioactivity. Linus Pauling is the only Nobel Laureate, who has won two Nobel Prizes without the award being shared with others. He won his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances. He won his second Nobel prize for Peace in the year 1962. He however received the Peace Nobel Prize in 1963. Theoretical physicist, John Bardeen won his first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956, for his work as a co-inventor of the transistor. He shared his Nobel Prize with William Shockley and Walter Brattain. Bardeen got his second Nobel Prize again for Physics in the year 1972 for developing a theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory. He shared his second Nobel Prize with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer. Frederic Sanger was awarded two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. He was awarded his first Nobel Prize in 1958, for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin. He was awarded his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 1980, which he shared with Walter Gilbert. They were awarded the prize for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids.

For the past three years, I have been writing about the science Nobel Prizes on my FB posts, immediately after these prizes are announced in early October. This year too I wrote about all the three Science Nobel Prizes, Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine and posted them on my FB post in October. Subsequent to creating my Blog, I have posted my articles on this year’s Nobel Prize in Sciences on my blogpost. For those who have missed my FB posts earlier, may like to see my articles on the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine in the links given below;

Physics

https://khened.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-look-into-past-of-our-universe-wins.html

Chemistry

https://khened.blogspot.com/2019/10/lithium-ion-battery-driver-of.html

Physiology or Medicine

https://khened.blogspot.com/2019/10/oxygen-sensing-cell-mechanism-wins-2019.html

The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony is the most spectacular ceremony in Sweden, which has now become an integral part of the popular culture of that country. This international spectacle provides the science Nobel laureates - who are normally more accustomed to their respective sombre, research ambience in their university and research lab corridors - to witness a rare glimpse of the royalty, organised in one of the best celebrity lifestyle functions in the world, that is graced by His Majesty the King of Sweden. Ever since the beginning of the coveted Prizes in 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been presented to the Laureates at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. This was stipulated in the will of Swedish-born Alfred Nobel, by which he bequeathed major portions of his wealth for the Nobel Prizes. His will was opened after his death in 1896. The Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, while the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway. Since 1969 an additional prize has been awarded at the ceremony in Stockholm, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which was established in 1968 on the occasion of the Riksbank’s 300th anniversary. The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm has almost always taken place at the historic Stockholm Concert Hall. 

The very first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was held on 10th December in 1901 with a banquet at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. The Nobel Prizes are now in their 119th year and over the years’ global awareness of these coveted prizes and so also the Nobel Banquet, has become an international affair, which is followed globally with great interest. The event gets a major coverage across the world and almost every country has a large number of people who follow this event very closely and watch the event live from their television sets at home, reading about it in the print and electronic media. The Nobel Prize Award ceremony includes presentation speeches, which extoll the Laureates and their discovery or work, after which His Majesty the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, hands each Laureate their Diploma and a Medal. This is followed by a banquet at the Stockholm City Hall. This year an estimated 1300 people, including 250 students attended the Nobel Spectacle in the City Hall. 

Interestingly enough the very Majesty, the King of Sweden, Carl XIV Gustaf, who presides this unmatched spectacle of opulence, showed the other side of the Majesty - simplicity exemplified - when he recently visited India with his wife - Queen Silvia recently.  King Carl XVI made headlines in India and won the hearts of millions of Indians after he was spotted carrying his own briefcase at the airport during his recent five days, official visit. The Twitter was abuzz with this news which soon went viral. For all Indians, who are tired of seeing the VIP culture practiced by all and sundry - specially in corridors of power -  the King carrying his own bag was more than a miracle for Indians. His Majesty, Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus, King of Sweden and Her Majesty Silvia Renate Sommerlath travelled by Air India AI 168 from Stockholm to Delhi. They had to travel by Air India since their aircraft developed some technical snag in the last minute. While getting down at Delhi from the Air Craft The King was spotted carrying his own suit case. Their stay in India included their visit to Delhi, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra including our city Mumbai.

I was one of those millions who were overwhelmed by the simplicity of the King, who had no hesitation in carrying his own suit case. I earnestly hope that the hype created by the media over the simplicity of His Majesty the King of Sweden, who was the key figure at the Nobel Award Ceremony, where he handed over the Nobel Prizes to this year’s laureates will motivate those so called VIPs of India to learn from the Kind but will also help in reducing the so called VIP culture in our country. I also hope that it will send out the right signal to the people and will motivate hundreds of thousands of young students to aspire to receive the Nobel Prize at the hands of the simple King of Sweden and bring glory to this nation.

In remembrance of Prof R Balasubramaniam (Bala) : A Decennial Tribute to a beloved friend.

In remembrance of Prof R Balasubramaniam (Bala) : A Decennial Tribute to a beloved friend.

A decade ago, on Wednesday, the 9th of December 2009, in the wee hours (2.20 AM) of that fateful early morning, the uncertainty of life played out its role from the hands of the sutradhar of human destiny, resulting in the almighty taking into her fold - the heavenly abode - one of the finest of scientists, academician and an extraordinary archeo-metallurgist - Professor R Balasubramaniam. Around 9 AM in the morning of that fateful day - 9th December, 2009 - I received a forwarded email from Prof Sharada Srinivasan, which she had received from Prof Bikramjit Basu, then Associate Professor and P K Kelkar Research Fellow at the Metallurgical department at IIT Kanpur, confirming the inevitable passing away of our beloved Bala, who had been ailing for quite some time suffering from jaw cancer. He was constantly suffering from breathlessness for more than a week and the end came due to hypoxia. Prof Bala was cremated at the Bhairon Ghat in Varanasi, and his ashes were confined to the holy Ganga on Friday the 11th of December. 

With his untimely demise, at an young age of 47 years and 8 months, Prof Balasubramaniam (known simply as Bala) has left behind a legacy of outstanding achievements, which will ever be remembered not just by his well-wishers,   friends, relatives, students and colleagues spread across India and abroad, but also by the entire nation, whose metallurgical Heritage he researched and documented for posterity. At the time of his untimely death, Prof R Bala was serving as an illustrious faculty (Professor) at IIT Kanpur. Prof Bala’s contributions in the field of archeo-metallurgy are now legendary, which  are evidenced from his innumerable research papers, books and publications, monumental findings and new insights into the Delhi Iron Pillar and so also his extraordinary Saga of Indian Cannons.  I have extensively referred to these and several of his other papers published in the Indian Journal of History of Science (an INSA publication), while curating exhibitions on Our Science and Technology Heritage, which are now on display at the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai, National Science Centre, Delhi and Regional Science Centre Dharwad, a glimpse of which are included in the images accompanying this tributary eulogy for Prof Bala on the tenth anniversary of his journey to the heavenly abode. His comprehensive research findings on the mystery of the ‘Rustless Wonder’ - The Delhi Iron Pillar -, which had eluded the scientific community researching the study of early metallurgy in India, will eternally remain etched in the annals of history of Indian science.  Prof Bala continued to be active researching and promulgating the metallurgical heritage of India, until his last. 

I was one of those professionals from the field of museums, who was constantly in touch with Prof Bala for his advice and support. His overwhelming support in the curation and development of Our Science and Technology Heritage galleries at Mumbai and Delhi and Dharwad, are there for everyone to see. Prof Bala was the darling of the art, history, archeology and museum professionals. He was always there to provide scientific studies and understanding on the metallurgical art and antiquity objects, which are in proud possession of most museums across India. Most unfortunately museum professionals and scientists in India are not known for cooperating and almost always work in their respective silos and there is very limited interaction between the two of them. Prof Bala was however an exception. He worked very freely with the art, archeology and museum professionals and students and derived as much pleasure working with them as he derived working with his tribes - the scientists and academicians. He collaborated with several of the art, archeology and museum professionals and helped them study their metallurgical antiquity objects in the best possible scientific manner. Prof Bala made major contributions in the research and study of some of the monumental metallurgical edifices in India. His laboratory in IIT Kanpur, almost always had a couple of antiquity objects from different museums for study. 

Prof. Balasubramaniam, born in Salem, Tamil Nadu, on 15th April, 1961, (the very year I was born, just 35 days later) completed his matriculation from the Holy Cross Matriculation School. He was selected by the prestigious Banaras Hindu University (Institute of Technology) for pursuing his engineering bachelors degree in Metallurgy. Bala was a brilliant student and completed his metallurgical engineering degree in 1984 winning the Gold medal. In recognition of his all round performance as an undergraduate student, Bala was awarded the Gandhy Gold medal from Department of Metallurgical Engineering, BHU as well as Vishwa Bharathi Award from the Indian Institute of Metals. It was in this very Institute that the doyen of Indian metallurgy, Prof Anantharaman - who was called Guru ji by Prof Bala - taught metallurgy and therefore it is no wonder that the legendary works of Anantharaman, in fields of ancient metallurgy of India, rubbed onto Bala in the early phase of his professional career, which he carried forward all through his career and took it to newer heights. Post his graduation at the BHU, Bala went to the United Staes for his higher studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York, from where he received his doctorate in Materials Engineering in 1990. For a brief period he worked at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before deciding to head back to his mother land. 

On his return to India he was appointed as the Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, which he joined in July 1990. There was no looking back from this institute for Prof Bala. He continued to serve at IIT Kanpur until his last breath. He became an associate professor in 1997 and subsequently professor in December 2001. Just three months before his untimely demise, Prof Bala was appointed to the newly established B B Lal Chair in September 2009. Professor Bala was conferred with many awards and fellowships primary among them include;  election as a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Kolkata in 2002, the Young Scientist award from the Indian National Science Academy in 1993, the Material Research Society of India medal and Metallurgist of the year award from the Indian Institute of Metals, in 1999, the Shershtha prize in history from the Marathi Sahitya Parishad in 2008, which was awarded to him in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the study of metallurgical past. He also received the Distinguished Educator award from the Indian Institute of Metals in 2009, the year he bid good bye to this world. Prof Balasubramaniam also  served on the editorial board of a number of national and international academic journals and periodicals. He also was on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of History of Science since 2004.

My first acquaintance with Prof Bala came in the beginning of this millennium. I was assigned a task of curating a new exhibition “Our Technology Heritage” at NSC Mumbai. During the course of my initial study on the subject, I read several of the publications of Prof Balasubramaniam and decided to seek his advice and guidance in the development of this exhibition. I had several email and telephone discussions with him on the subject. Courtesy his guidance, I was also able to reach and contact several other subject experts in this field, who not only guided and supported me for the exhibitions but most of whom have continued to be my friends even today primary among them include Prof Ranganathan, Sharada Srinivasan, Vibha Tripathi, Paul Craddock, Michel Danino, R S Bisht, Mark Kenoyer,  V S Shinde, Alok Kanungo and others. 

Some time in the year 2004, Prof Bala came to our centre in Mumbai for discussion on the exhibition and we used this opportunity to arrange his lecture for school students. This is one moment that has remained etched in the memory of most of us at this centre. On the day of lecture, I observed that Prof Bala’s trouser pockets were bulging with some thing inside. I overlooked it and walked him straight to the auditorium, which was jam packed with almost 300 students in attendance, which far exceeded our capacity. After the customary introduction Prof Bala started his lecture on the Delhi Iron Pillar. His inimitable ebullience with which he started his lecture drew rapt attention of the students that is some thing that most of my colleagues continue to remember even today. To keep his lecture lively and interactive, he was constantly interacting with students and whoever responded to his questions, irrespective of their answers being right or wrong, received special gifts, chocolates which he had stacked in his pockets. Chocolates came flying from his pocket left right and centre all through the lecture with students enjoying every moment of his outstanding lecture. By the time he hesitatingly ended his lecture which stretched to 90 minutes,  far beyond the scheduled 45 minutes initially planned, he must have thrown not less than 60 cadbury eclairs chocolates to an extraordinary bemusement of the students.

There was a thunderous applause from students, which made Prof Bala quite emotional. He said, he was not sure if he could keep his school student audience  engaged in a metallurgical subject, which he thought may not interest them. But then he was proved wrong and he was overwhelmingly happy to see standing ovation that he got from his young audience. Prof Bala also delivered lectures at the Regional Science Centre, Lucknow and National Science Centre, Delhi entertaining and educating his young audience in his inimitable style with chocolate missiles thrown at regular intervals to an extraordinary amusement for students. Prof Bala was also one of the speakers during “Our S&T Heritage Lecture Series”, which I had organised at the National Science Centre, Delhi immediately after our exhibition was opened in early 2009. The other speakers in this Heritage lecture series included Prof Mark Kenoyer (USA) Dr Bisht, Dr Paul Craddock (UK), Prof Dinesh Singh, Prof Irfan Habib. It was Bala who helped me in convincing Mark Kenoyer and Paul Craddock to be part of this lecture series, travelling to India on some other engagements and not charging us for their travel. The Heritage lecture series were highly appreciated and it is events and programs like the Heritage Lecture series that helped the National Science Centre, Delhi  to scale new heights, which it continues to do even today under the leadership my friend and colleague Director Ram Sarma and his dedicated team. 

One India One People (OIOP) is a unique, informative, well-researched, monthly magazine, published from Mumbai. The magazine documents and highlights the cultural legacy of India and the USP of the magazine are its two popular sections Know India Better and Great Indians. Know India Better takes readers on a discovery of India. It covers Indian places of interests, people, cultures, etc., in-depth to showcase the hidden treasures of our country. I had published an article  in this magazine and in one of my interactions with the editor, I had briefed him about the monumental works done by Prof Bala on the Delhi Iron Pillar and had asked them to write to Bala to contribute an article on the DIP for their Know India Better section. They were so overwhelmingly happy to write to Prof Bala. I also spoke to Bala and requested him to spare his time to write for the magazine knowing well it’s vast reach. Bala asked for back issues of the magazine before deciding to consider their request and seeing the quality of the magazine and its reach he agreed to write for them. In his research style Prof Bala sent an article to them and the editors wrote back requesting him to please make it readable to the general audience and not research scholars. Bala was then tied up with an international conference that he was to organise and did not have time to relook into his article. But then the editors of the OIOP were insistent that I some how convince Bala to redraft the article. Since he was very busy with the conference and his other research he could not spare time for this. I therefore suggested to him that I will redraft his article to suit the general readers and send it to him for his final approval. He agreed and I redrafted the article to suit the general readers and sent the draft to Bala. He was overwhelmingly happy to see his, kind of a research, article redrafted to appeal to general audience, which he immediately approved and sent it to the editor of OIOP. 

But then the story does not end here. In his most gracious and inimitable style, Bala included my name as the coauthor and sent his article to the OIOP editor. All I had done was a mere redrafting of his article and for this most menial job, Bala the extraordinary was so very gracious and extraordinarily kind to include my name as a coauthor. This is one article, which I continue to treasure the most. There was more surprise for me. The OIOP has a policy to pay fairly decent honorarium for the authors who contribute to the Know India Better series and accordingly sent a Cheque for Rs. 6000 to Prof Bala, with an intimation to me. There was more kindness from Bala which followed. He wrote out a cheque for Rs 3000 and sent it to me. Despite my insistence that I have only redrafted his article to suit to the general readers he insisted that my contribution to the article is equal and that I deserve 50% of the honorarium. I could not argue further but then I did not deposit the cheque which he wrote for me and this signed uncashed cheque of Bala is my treasure. Bala’s kind gesture of using my name as a coauthor shows his extraordinary selfless spirit of fraternity and brotherhood so hard to find by in modern society. 

The article was published in May 2006 issue of OIOP, but then Prof Bala was very livid with the editors. They had changed the title of the article and made it ‘Rustless Wonder’, the title which is associated with Prof Anantharaman. Bala wrote; ‘I am terribly unhappy with the title “RUSTLESS WONDER” because this is the title of the book by my respected guruji Professor T.R. Anantharaman, who has also written a book on the Iron Pillar with a similar title. Therefore, kindly

let me have it in writing that I did not suggest this title and that this

was provided by your team without my prior consent’. Such was his impeccable honesty. He could have easily overlooked this episode but then he ensured that the editors wrote a personal apology letter to him and also issued a disclaimer that the title of the article is theirs. 

Prof Bala was working on his monumental book ‘The Saga of Indian Cannons’ and he was very particular of the high resolution images which we anted to use for his book. One day I received a mail from Bala reminding me of my north Karnataka roots and asked me if I can be of help to him in getting photographs (very high resolution) of the Cannons from Gulbarga, Bijapur and Bidar. It indeed was my pleasure to be of some assistance to him since it was mostly he who had helped me and there was nothing that I had done for him. Fortunately I had good friends in all these three places who could help me photograph these Cannons. But then the perfectionist that Bala is, he sent me the directions on how to photograph these Cannons, which I could manage courtesy my friends from these three cities. For this smallest of the assistance that I rendered to Prof Bala, he has credited me in the preface to the The Saga of Indian Cannons book, which further exemplifies his selfless spirit of fraternity and brotherhood.

It is very well known that Professor Balasubramaniam was a prolific researcher and that he has to his credit more than 250 research papers in refereed journals of repute and 10 books including the two famous ones, “The Saga of Indian Cannons" and 'Story of Delhi Iron Pillar". His research on the corrosion resistance of Delhi’s iron pillar has attracted worldwide attention. His academics apart, Bala was also an excellent drummer, western classical guitarist and an enthusiastic sportsman and die hard cricket fan. During the course of our long friendship, academics apart, we have had several discussions on his passion for cricket, which he not only avidly followed but also played a lot of it as a wicket keeper, middle order batsman and also an opening bowler. While mantling an additional responsibility of Director of NGMA, Mumbai, I was tasked to develop a Cricket exhibition (India - South Africa) for the Festival of India in South Africa in the year 2014. I was helped by two experts in this exhibition, which went on to be highly appreciated. The result was that I was branded a cricket man and the Ministry tasked me with two more cricket exhibitions one for Australia and other for England, which I independently curated and presented in the respective countries in 2016 and 2017. While curating these exhibitions, I was constantly reminded of Bala’s passion for this game and I am sure he would have loved to read my exhibition catalogue, which are available for free download on our website. Speaking of cricket, the greatest of umpires who govern our lives - the almighty - gave his decision and declared our beloved Bala out, without any one appealing for it, what a harsh decision it has been. But then the heavenly abode was feeling incomplete without his early presence and so be it.

Millions of men and women come and go but only few people leave their impression behind and among those few Bala is one who has left his indelible mark and an impression as a par excellence metallurgist who has made profound contributions to archaeometallurgy in India. While we mourn the tenth year of the passing away of our dear Bala, I am certain that there has been a great rejoicing in the heavenly abode, which is now home to him for the past ten years.

Rest in Peace my dear Bala

Delhi Iron Pillar - A Metallurgical marvel.

Delhi Iron Pillar – A Metallurgical Marvel. 

Image Credits : Wiki Commons.

Image Credits : Regional Science Centre, Dharwad and National Science Centre, Delhi

Delhi, the nations capital, was once again in the news for its infamous air pollution, which was so alarmingly dangerous that the government was  forced to close schools. Even the odd even measures seem not to have helped in improving air pollution, which was choking the health of Delhiites. Amidst such adverse environmental conditions, the Delhi Iron Pillar - aptly classified ‘The Rustless Wonder’ by the doyen of metallurgy, Dr T R Anathraman - has been majestically standing tall without any rusting for more than 1600 years. The credit for this monumental metallurgy craftsmanship must go to those Indian iron smiths of yesteryear’s, whose metallurgical knowledge has ensured that the Delhi Iron Pillar has remained corrosion less. Scholars like Dr T R Anathraman, Prof R Balasubramaniam (Bala) have extensively researched on the Delhi Iron Pillar to shed new light into the reasons for DIP to remain rustles for centuries. During the course of my curating of ‘Our Technology Heritage’ exhibition, I was privileged to work with Prof Balasubramaniam and also had the honour to publish a popular article on the Delhi Iron Pillar (DIP) in one of the leading monthly magazine - One India One People -  in 2005. Prof R Balasubramaniam, former Professor at the IIT Kanpur has extensively researched and published on the DIP and his book ‘New Insights into the Delhi Iron Pillar’, a publications of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla is an outstanding book on the DIP. Professor Balasubramaniam's illustrious career was most tragically cut short by his untimely demise on December 9, 2009. I am writing this blogpost on the DIP as a tribute to Prof Bala and have extensively relied on the joint article that I published with Prof Bala.

Delhi, India’s capital city, has a long and rich heritage. The city has ancient ruins, monuments and contemporary buildings that stand side by side, providing a glimpse of its glorious past and tumultuous history. Of all the ancient monuments in the city of Delhi, the Qutab Complex (where the Qutub Minar is located) houses a metallurgical wonder and India’s unique technological marvel - the Delhi Iron Pillar. Its uniqueness in remaining without significant signs of corrosion for more than 1600 years has baffled modern scientists and metallurgists from across the world. The DIP embodies the rich technological achievements of ancient Indian blacksmiths. The sight of the DIP standing in the courtyard of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, adjacent to the Qutub Minar, is breath-taking and cannot be missed by any visitor. It is testimony to the marvelous metallurgical knowledge that existed in ancient India, which should rightfully considered as one of the metallurgical wonders of the world.

Ancient Indian Iron

The use of metals and knowledge of metallurgy is inextricably linked to the history of civilization. Material progress of any country, apart from other things, depends upon mining, metallurgy and metal industries. The credit of providing impetus to material progress, in modern times, no doubt, goes to scientific technology. Even the cursory survey of history of mankind reveals fairly well that people all over the world, specially in India, and much before the dawn of modern scientific age, have been exploring the possibilities conducive to their material progress. Modern metallurgy has witnessed unprecedented growth beginning with the Industrial Revolution. However, many modern concepts in metallurgy owe their genesis to ancient practices that pre-date the Industrial Revolution. Artifacts, tools, objects, etc. made of metals for both artistic and utilitarian purposes have been in vogue ever since antiquity. The commonly used metals, from a historical standpoint, include gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc and mercury.

Iron, however, has its own unique place amongst all the metals. Iron stands for power and strength as evidenced from the title given to Sardar Patel, one of the architects of freedom movement in India, who was called the Loha Purush - the Iron Man of India. The significance of iron for human kind can best be described in the words of Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), the Roman naturalist and writer who wrote about iron: "Iron mines bring man a most splendid and most harmful tool. It is by means of this tool that we cut into the ground, plant bushes, cultivate flourishing orchards and make grape vines with grapes. By this same tool we build houses, break stones and use iron for all such purposes. But it is also with the help of iron that we fight and battle and rob. And we do it not only at close quarters, but giving it wings, we hurl it far into the distance, now from embracers, now from powerful human hands, now from bows in the form feathered darts. This, I think, is the most infamous invention of the human brain. For in order to enable death to catch up with man faster, it has given it wings and armed iron with feathers. For that many the blame rests with man and not with the nature."

One of the civilizations that invented iron and refined the technique for extraction from iron ore, was India. The earliest date for iron in the Indian subcontinent is about 1600 BC, which is being pushed further back by many scholars. Indians discovered the beneficial aspects of intentionally alloying carbon into iron, thereby producing stronger and tougher steel. Technically, steel is defined as an alloy of carbon in iron. This steeling of iron, which was discovered in the Indian sub-continent sometime in 800 BC, resulted in clearing of dense forests leading to the subsequent second urbanization of India along the banks of the Ganga and Yamuna. The first urbanization of India was the establishment of planned settlements along the once-mighty Saraswati river during the  Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization which dates back to 3000 BC. The shifting of feeding river channels away from the Saraswati river (due to tectonic motions), and its subsequent drying up, resulted in the disbursement of the inhabitants of these settlements to other corners of India, by about 1500 BC thus ending the Harappan era.

It may interest reader that with the advent of carburization of iron, a special type of high carbon steel was produced in India from as early as the 4th century BC. This steel was known as ‘wootz steel’ and it was much prized by warriors due to tough swords that could be wrought from wootz steel. This wonder material of the Orient was held in great esteem by the medieval warriors and European scientists in the 19th century. Studies conducted by eminent scientists like Michael Faraday for understanding the mystery of wootz steel laid the foundation of modern metallurgy. The story of wootz steel, however will not be touched in this article. 

Given this rich metallurgical tradition in iron and steel making, it was but natural that the Indian sub-continent was home to the creation of marvelous iron objects. It must be mentioned here that ancient Indian iron was extracted in small furnaces by solid state reduction of the ore. The end product was an iron lump which was later forged together in white heat to produce different shaped objects. This method of working with iron was practiced for a long time in Indian history, all the way up to the British period. One marvelous example of a wrought iron product is a gilded wrought iron image of Buddha, now in the Lucknow State Museum. This 18 cm high image was discovered from Azamgarh and dated to the Gupta period (320-600 AD). Let us now turn our attention to the real metallurgical marvel of the Gupta period – the Delhi Iron Pillar.

Early Studies of the Delhi Iron Pillar

The Delhi Iron Pillar is singularly featured on the emblems of several Indian institutions (for example, the National Metallurgical Laboratory at Jamshedpur), thereby signifying its prime identity as the country’s metallurgical pride and heritage. The first detailed scientific study of the Pillar was carried out by an eminent British metallurgist, Hadfield, in the year 1912. Ever since, there have been a growing number of studies in which several “mysteries” of the Pillar have been unraveled. The Archaeological Survey of India studied the Pillar with the co-operation of the National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML) in 1961. The results of these scientific studies were summarized in a special issue of the NML Technical Journal (Volume 5, 1963). A review of the pillar’s corrosion resistance appeared in 1970. Professor Anantharaman, one of the doyens of modern metallurgy in India, has published known scientific facts about the Pillar in a book titled The Rustless Wonder – A Study of the Iron Pillar at Delhi in 1996. Several new insights on the historical, scientific and technical aspects of the Pillar have been researched by Prof R Balasubramaniam and have been published in National and international journals. In addition, the research findings of Prof R BAla have been compiled in two books titled Delhi Iron Pillar – New Insights (2002) and Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar (2005). This blogpost provides a brief summary of all aspects related to the Delhi Iron Pillar.

Pillar’s History

Among the several inscriptions on the pillar, the oldest (and also the largest) is a three-stanza six-line Sanskrit-Brahmi inscription, at a level of about 7 feet from the stone platform. This inscription records that the pillar was set up by Chandra as a standard of Vishnu at Vishnupadagiri. The monarch’s conquests have also been poetically described in the inscription. Based on the nature of the characters, the inscription can be dated to the period between 400 to 450 AD. This inscription appears to have been embedded using specially prepared dies (i.e. by die-striking operations). One close-up view of the inscription provides some details. Specific die shapes were used for making the inscription. The monarch Chandra has been identified unambiguously with Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (375 AD-414 AD), based on careful analysis of archer type Gupta gold coins. A possible image of how Chandragupta II Vikramaditya would have looked like can be hypothesized. The Ajanta cave paintings are believed to have been executed during the Gupta period. In one of the Ajanta paintings, the king is seen having his royal bath and this shows the appearance of a monarch of this period.

The original location of the pillar, Vishnupadagiri (meaning “Vishnu-footprint-hill”) has been identified as modern Udayagiri, situated in the close vicinity of Besnagar, Vidisha and Sanchi. These towns are located about 50 km east of Bhopal, in central India. There are several aspects to the original erection site of the Pillar at Udayagiri, which cannot discussed in detail here. However, it must be worth noting that Vishnupadagiri is located on the Tropic of Cancer and therefore was a centre of astronomical studies during the Gupta period. The Iron Pillar served an important astronomical function, when it was originally at Vishnupadagiri. The early morning shadow of the Iron Pillar fell in the direction of the foot of Anantasayain Vishnu (in one of the panels at Udayagiri) only in the time around summer solstice (21 June). The creation and development of the Udayagiri site appears to have been clearly guided by a highly developed astronomical knowledge. Therefore, the Udayagiri site, in general, and the Iron Pillar location in particular, provide firm evidence for the astronomical knowledge that existed in ancient India, around 400AD. The flowering of astronomical knowledge under prominent astronomers like Aryabhata, Varahamihira and Brahmagupta during the Gupta period is well known.

Why is the Pillar now located at Delhi? Who moved it here and When was it moved? Based on careful study of history of the Qutub Complex, it can be reasonably concluded that the Pillar was erected at its current location in the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque by Iltutmish (1210-1235 AD). Iltutmish was the first Delhi Sultan to invade Malwa in 1233 AD. After his capture of Vishnupadagiri, several objects were carried to Delhi and the Pillar was one such object. In fact, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque was completed by Iltutmish and it is certain that he planted the wonderful Iron Pillar in the centre of the mosque courtyard. Ever since, the Pillar has remained at this location.

Engineering Design

Let us explore some engineering aspects of the DIP. It is now certain that the current burial level of the DIP  was not the original burial level of the pillar, when it was located at Udayagiri. The rough portion of the pillar was originally buried in the courtyard of the temple and later left exposed outside when the iron pillar was displaced from its original position. A closer look at the DIP, one can see the hammer-marked cavities, which are visible on the surface of the pillar in the rough region just below the smooth surface-finish region. This rough surface is the original manufactured condition of the pillar. It was left rough in order to aid gripping of the pillar to the buried underground region in Udayagiri.

There is a stone platform currently seen surrounding the pillar base, which was set by Beglar in 1861. Early sketches and published photographs of the pillar, before the construction of the stone platform, attest to the absence of the stone platform before Beglar’s excavations. One example is the free hand sketch of the pillar by an artist named Mirza Shah Rukh Beg, commissioned for publication in Syed Ahmed Khan's Urdu work Athar'al-Sanadid in 1846. A critical analysis of the dimensions of the main body of the pillar provides conclusive evidence for the original burial level of the pillar and also an appreciation of the pillar's symmetrical design. Considering the basic unit as U, the rough surface occupies one-fourth (60U) and the smooth surface three-fourths (180U) of the pillar’s main body length, excluding the decorative top. The burial of the pillar body to one-fourth of its height would have provided the necessary stability to the structure. The unit U is equal to 1 modern inch. The angulam, the ancient Indian unit of measurement, equals 0.75 of the modern one inch.

The buried underground region was excavated in 1961. The base of the pillar was flat. Eight small projections were seen at equal intervals. These projections appeared from the sheet of almost pure lead, placed at the bottom of the pillar. A heavy slab of stone was found placed horizontally on the original upper layer of the temple floor on which the lead sheet rested. It appears that the two iron rods were placed parallel to each other and another two iron rods were placed above these, such that they were perpendicular to the initial rods. This provided a grid-like structure. The iron pillar base was then fixed atop this iron grid structure thereby providing necessary support at the bottom. Why was the lead plate provided at this location? The lead sheet would have acted like a cushion in case of seismic disturbances. However, the main purpose of the lead sheet appears to be to grip the pillar to the supporting stone underneath.

A coating of lead was present when the underground regions were excavated. In 1961, the year I was born, the surface was cleaned and the cracks were consolidated. A new lead coating was provided on the pillar in the buried underground region and the pillar again buried under the ground.

Iron of Delhi Pillar

The underlying metal of the pillar would be discussed briefly in order to elucidate its characteristic features. Incidentally, these features are also characteristic of ancient Indian irons. Several composition analysis of the iron of Delhi Pillar is available. the average composition of the pillar iron is 0.15%C, 0.25%P, 0.005% S, 0.05%Si, 0.02% N, 0.05% Mn, 0.03% Cu, 0.05% Ni and balance Fe. The high P content of the pillar iron must be particularly noted. Careful compositional analysis near surface regions proved that there was no surface coating provided specifically for enhancing the corrosion resistance of the pillar. The pillar is a solid body with good mechanical strength. In fact, a cannon ball fired at the Delhi iron pillar in the 18th century (either by Nadir Shah in 1739 AD or Ghulam Quadir in 1787) failed to break the pillar. The marks of this cannon ball shot can be seen in the southern face of the pillar half way up the height of the pillar.

The presence of phosphorus (P) is crucial to the corrosion resistance of Iron Pillar. In ancient iron making practice, limestone was not added. The absence of lime resulted in a higher amount of phosphorus in the metal. It must also be noted that there are indications that Phosphorus addition may also have been intentional. We have some evidence for this based on observations recorded during the detailed travels of an early British explorer - Francis Buchanan. In his detailed description of steel making at Devaraya Durga in Karnataka in the 18th century, Buchanan describes an Indian wootz steel making furnace. According to Buchanan, conical clay crucibles were filled with a specific amount of wood, from the barks of a plant cassia auriculata, pieces of wrought iron, then sealed and fired. Interestingly, the bark of this plant contains a high content of P, extracted by osmosis from the ground.

Manufacturing Methodology.

The Iron Pillar weighs almost 6 tonnes. Even in modern times it is It is a real challenge to manufacture such a large object. Therefore, given the time period of manufacture of the Iron Pillar, its construction must be considered a real engineering marvel. Based on careful analysis of several aspects of manufacturing methodology, gleaned from careful observation of the surface of the pillar, the following conclusions can be reached.

The starting material for the forging of the Pillar was iron lumps, obtained from bloomery furnaces. They weighed between 20 to 40 kilograms. They were joined together by forge welding. This was the method used in ancient and medieval India to manufacture large iron objects. Forge welding is an operation in which iron lumps are joined together by forging them in the hot state (high temperature of about 700 to 900 degree Centigrade, so that they fuse together. This process initially involves heating of the lumps to a relatively high temperature in a bed of charcoal, in order to make them soft and amenable for deformation. One iron lump is then placed on top of another and force is applied in order to weld them in the solid state. As the force is dynamic in nature, it is called forge welding.

For manufacturing the Pillar, the heated iron lumps were placed on the side surface of the pillar and hammered on to the same by the use of hand-held hammers. The addition of metal was sideways with the pillar placed in the horizontal direction. The pillar's vertical and horizontal movements would have been aided by handling clamps provided on the surface of the pillar, the protruding portion of which must have been chiseled away during the surface finishing operations. Visual proof for the presence of these clamps is available at two locations on the pillar. Finally, the surface of the pillar (that was supposed to be exposed) must have been smoothened by chiseling and burnishing the surface of the pillar, thereby providing it a smooth tapered cylindrical appearance. Finally, the Sanskrit inscriptions might have been inscribed on to the surface of the pillar. Cold dies must have been used for inscribing the inscriptions with the metal surface being inscribed possibly being locally heated before inscribing. The decorative bell capital must have been finally fit on to the top portion of the Delhi Iron Pillar before its erection, possibly in the royal presence of Chandra.

Decorative Bell Capital

The top decorative capital of the Iron Pillar is a wonderful engineered structure. The decorative bell capital consists of seven distinct parts. The bottom-most part is the reeded bell structure which has been manufactured by utilizing iron rods of uniform diameter. Atop this comes the slanted rod structure. The presence of a black filling in between the joints can be seen in the bell capital. This filling has been identified as a lead-based solder. The next three members are rounded structures, with the top one being only half rounded, because when the pillar is viewed from the bottom, this part would appear curved when viewed in perspective from the bottom. A round disc comes above this and finally the box pedestal is placed on the top of the capital. The box capital contains holes that are empty at the four corners and these could have been originally utilized for holding different animal figures, depending upon the season of the year. The top of the pillar presently contains a hollow slot in which a chakra (discus) image must have been originally fitted.  Interestingly, the image of the Delhi Iron Pillar capital’s box pedestal along with the chakra image is depicted in one of the Vishnu panels in cave 6 at Udayagiri itself and this is the most forceful argument for the chakra image atop the Delhi Iron Pillar, capital. The circular disc is also in tune with the cut that is seen on the top surface of the capital.

Corrosion Resistance

The real fascination of the Delhi Iron Pillar is its remarkable characteristics of corrosion resistance in the atmospheric environment. We know that the pillar is at least 1600 years old based on the identification of Chandra of the Gupta-Brahmi inscription on the Iron Pillar with Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (375-414 AD). Corrosion is a common menace, which eats away and eventually destroys metals and alloys by a electrochemical attack. The rusting of ordinary iron and steel is the most common form of corrosion. Rusting takes place in moist air, when the iron combines with oxygen and water to form a coating of brown-orange deposit, which in common parlance is termed as rust (hydrated iron oxide). The rate of corrosion increases where the atmosphere is polluted with sulphur dioxide. We come across the menace of rust in our day to day lives. Even modern cars and other gadgets are not spared from this menace. Salty road and air conditions accelerate the rusting of car bodies. It may be noted here that because of oxidation the extant articles made of iron in antiquity are extremely rare. We tend to live with rust even in modern times and take rusting for granted as a natural phenomenon. However it is baffling to note that the Iron Pillar has largely remained rustless for all of 1600 plus years. Several theories have been proposed to explain the pillar’s excellent corrosion resistance. They can be broadly classified into two categories: environmental and material theories.

The proponents of the environment theory state that the mild climate of Delhi is responsible for the corrosion resistance. It is known that atmospheric rusting of iron is not significant for humidity levels less than 70%. That the environmental theory may not be important, is attested by the presence of ancient massive iron objects located in areas where the relative humidity is high all round the year. Good examples for this case are the iron beams in the Jagannath temple at Puri, the Sun temple at Konarak and the iron pillar at Adi-Mookambika temple at the Kodachadri Hills. Puri and Konarak are situated on the western coast of India while Kodachadri is on the eastern coast. The distance from the location of these massive iron objects to the actual seacoast is less than 20 kilometers, thereby implying that these iron objects are constantly subjected to a saline environment due to proximity to the seacoast. There are other examples of massive iron objects in several other parts of the Indian sub-continent that have successfully withstood atmospheric corrosion. These include the iron pillar at Dhar and the numerous large forge-welded iron cannons scattered all over the Indian sub-continent. Two examples are the 22-ton Rajagopala cannon at Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu and the 20-ton Dalmardan cannon at Bishnupur in West Bengal.

Advocates of the materials theory stress the construction material’s role in determining corrosion resistance. The ideas proposed in this regard are the relatively pure composition of the iron used, presence of phosphorus, and absence of sulfur and manganese in the iron, its slag particles and formation of a protective passive film. The passive film component of the theory stems from Prof Bala’s research.

The literature does feature other, less-widely held theories about the pillar’s corrosion resistance. These suppositions include: the mass metal effect, initial exposure to an alkaline and ammoniacal environment; residual stresses resulting from the surface finishing (hammering) operation; freedom from sulfur contamination both in the metal and in the air; the “cinder theory,” which holds that layers of cinder in the metal stop corrosion from advancing; and that surface treatments of steam, and slag and coatings of clarified butter were applied to the pillar after manufacture and during use, respectively. The use of surface coatings is readily discounted because a freshly-exposed surface attains the color of the rest of the pillar in about three years time.

Scientific research by Pro Bala has revealed that the excellent atmospheric corrosion resistance of the Delhi Iron Pillar is due to the formation of a protective passive film on the surface of the pillar. In other words, the Iron Pillar does rust, but the passive rust is protective and thin such that significant rusting is not realized. Philosophically, this is very akin to the protective clothing that one wears in the cold season. The jacket or sweater, that one wears when the mercury dips down, “prevents” the body heat from being dissipated and therefore keeps the person warm. In a similar manner, the protective passive film on the surface of the Pillar does not allow corrosion of the underlying metal of the iron pillar, by preventing. moisture from contacting the bare metal surface. The relatively high phosphorus content of the Delhi Pillar iron plays a major role in aiding the formation of the protective passive film.

When viewed from a nonscientific standpoint, the Delhi Iron Pillar’s ability to resist corrosion has often been called a “mystery.” This notion must be dismissed. There is nothing mysterious about the Iron Pillar. The remarkable corrosion resistance can be understood by applying the basic principles of corrosion research. The direct reduction technique used to produce the iron is no mystery, either. The established scientific facts notwithstanding, there is one aspect that is not well-understood and this may be called a mystery, in one sense. This is the method by which the iron lumps were forge-welded to produce the massive 6-tonne structure.

On to the Future

India is again on the forefront of steel making as very much evident by the stellar rise of the Indian steel magnate - Mr Mittal. It is time that we also paid more careful attention to the Delhi Iron Pillar, which serves as a guidepost for metallurgists in the 21st century and beyond. It is hoped that research on the Iron Pillar will motivate others to explore the potential uses of phosphorus-containing iron. There are so many wonderful options available with phosphoric irons. The Iron-Phosphorus alloys deserve as much attention as the more popular Iron-Carbon alloys (i.e. steels). There is an exciting future in developing phosphoric irons, particularly for corrosion scientists and engineers. 

The beacon of light showing the way to the future is the Delhi Iron Pillar, with its tested proof of corrosion resistance. Long live the Delhi Iron Pillar and Prof R Balasubramaniam, who spent years and years researching the Delhi Iron Pillar to shed new insights into this metallurgical marvel of yesteryear’s.