Centenary Tribute to Padma Bhushan Dr. H. Narasimhaiah (6 June 1920 — 31 January 2005) : An Embodiment of Scientific Temper.

6, June 2020, has an extraordinary significance for practitioners of science, science communicators and rationalists in India. It happens to be the birth centenary of Dr H Narasimhaiah, a preeminent educationist, rationalist and an epitome for creating scientific temper and  a culture of science in India. Gandhian Narasimhaiah, led a life long crusade against blind beliefs, superstition, obscurantism, which plagued Indian society and in the process often times he had to take on high and mighty self styled god men to disprove their, so called, god given or divine magical powers for dispelling rampantly prevalent blind beliefs. In short, he was an embodiment for propagating the much needed scientific temper in Indian society, which is one of the major objectives of our Science Centres that function under the aegis of the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) that has been tasked to create scientific temper in society and promote culture of science. Inculcation of scientific temper among the citizens of our country was an outstanding vision that our founding fathers envisaged. Accordingly, the term scientific temper has been enshrined in the Indian Constitution under the fundamental duties in Article 51 A (h) of our Constitution, which states “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”.

Asking questions; why, what, how etc. and searching answers to these questions is one of the important tenets that is central to creating culture of science & scientific temper in society. Padma Bhushan, Dr H Narasimhaiah, fondly referred to as HN, was a pioneering advocate of this philosophy, all through his life. A red colour printed message, on the wall of his office at the National College, Bangalore, with which he was associated for seven decades, describes what HN preached and practiced all his life - Scientific temper. And the message says in Kannada, his mother tongue,  ಪ್ರಶ್ನಿಸದೇ ವೊಪ್ಪಬೇಡಿ (Prashnisade Oppabedi  - Do not agree without questioning). HN also advocated another saying in Kannada ‘ ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷ ಕಂಡರೂ ಪ್ರಮಾಣಿಸಿ ನೋಡು’ ( Prathyaksha kandaru pramanisi nodu’ meaning - Verify what you see, your eyes could be deceptive). As we celebrate his birth centenary, it is an honour and privilege and privilege for me to be writing this tribute for Dr HN.

Dr H Narasimhaiah - a preeminent rationalist, freedom fighter, Gandhian, teacher, physicist, writer, thinker, educationist, founder of Bangalore Science Forum, and the only Indian Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP International), set up by Paul Kurtz in the USA and a coveted Padma Bhashan recipient - was born one hundred years ago on 6th June, 1920, in a small town, Hosur in Karnataka. HN was a die hard rationalist who advocated and practised scientific temper all his life, including challenging internationally acclaimed spiritual guru, Sathya Sai Baba and other self styled god men to subject their ‘divine and magical powers’ to the exacting standards of scientific scrutiny and announced that their divine powers are nothing but magic tricks, which are meant to fool and exploit some of their gullible followers. 

HN spent most part of his life in trying to eradicate blind belief and superstitions that plagued Indian society, particularly in Karnataka. I am among those who come from one of the most backward areas in Karnataka - Raichur district of the Hyderabad Karnataka region - and I am  privy to one of the worst superstitious practices, witchcraft -  ‘Bhanumathi, that was practised in this area. This evil practice was rampantly prevalent in most parts of the Hyderabad Karnataka region that included the districts of Raichur, Gulbarga, Koppal, Yadgir, and Bidar. This social obscurantism was also portrayed on celluloid in 1982 in a film titled गहरायीं (Gehrayee) directed by Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje and the film was based on a real life experience of a family from this area, where the father, Chennabassappa, portrayed by veteran actor Sreeram Lagoo, their adolescent daughter, Umakka (Padmini Kolhapure) gets possessed by a so called spirit and they have no clue what to do about it. Their elder son Nandu (Anant Nag) is rational but he can’t remain one when he sees the condition of his sister keeps deteriorating, despite limited medical help. Amrish Puri plays the role of the evil tantrik, who disrobes Umakka for a ritual, meant to rid her of the evil spirit. This film helped in bringing to focus the spread of black magic or witchcraft practices that were rampant in India. This issue needed to be addressed from scientific point of view.

HN waged a frontal attack on this age old witchcraft / black magic practice, which was affecting hundreds and thousands of innocent lives and the fear of Bhanumati used to send spine cracking pain among the people of this area. I have witnessed several incidents of this black magic during my childhood days and some of my distant relatives have also been a victim of this evil practise. Prof HN, during his tenure as an independent legislature in the Karnataka Legislative Council, in the early 1980s, helped in the constitution of a committee, which he headed, that was tasked to probe the practise of Bhanumati menace, which had reached alarming proportions in North Karnataka. After a thorough investigation with experts from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, (NIMHANS), Dr HN and his committee came to the conclusion that Bhanumati was a fear-complex perpetrated by vested interests on psychologically weak villagers, or those who were afflicted with some mental health issues. His work as chairman of the legislative committee, that probed incidents of Bhanamati (black magic) in Kalaburagi and Bidar in 1980,  played a key role in creating awareness that the so called evil spirit of Bhanumati were nothing but manifestations of mental health issues, which were treatable. The efforts of Dr HN and his findings gradually helped in majorly reducing this centuries old menace, which had thrived in Karnataka and many parts of India. Courtesy the efforts of HN, the instances of black magic or witchcraft practise has more or less become extinct or has come down substantially, across

Due to centuries of our subjugation, foreign rule and oppression of the worst kind, which India faced prior to our Independence, there perhaps developed in Indian society, superstition, which accentuated evil practices of black magic, witchcraft and such other superstitious practices that were founded on blind belief and obscurantism of the worst kind. These superstitious practices were exploited by vested interest groups including some babas and gurus who fooled gullible people for their personal gains. Most of such horrendous black magic practices and witchcraft like the Bhanumati, used to ruin the lives of many families. Most mental illness health issues were passed off as black magic problems. People blindly believed babas, gurus, sadhus and such other so called godmen or religious or spiritual leaders, who professed to possess some divine powers, which they used and abused to exploit ordinary citizens, who believed in these obscurantist practices. Centuries of foreign rule, illiteracy and poverty added to the miseries of the superstitious practices. HN firmly believed that Scientific temper alone can get rid of such superstitious practices. Fortunately very recently - on the occasion of the birth centenary of HN - the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has constituted a Joint science Communication Forum to promote scientific temper by adopting common policy and best practices and facilitating interaction, cooperation and coordination amongst various public sector science communication institutions and agencies one of which is our organisation -  NCSM

HN was born hundred years ago on 6th June, 1920, to poor parents in Hosur, Gauribidanur taluk in Kolar district of Karnataka. His father was a casual teacher - ‘coolie meshtru' - who earned bread for his family by teaching Kannada to the children of his village. His mother was a daily wage-worker. Unfortunately the village did not have a high school and therefore HN had to discontinue his studies after he completed his class 7 in the on,y existing school in his village. Fortunately for HN, his school headmaster was transferred to Bangalore for joining a new school - the National High School, in Bangalore. HN was around 14 years and  by then he had already dropped one year of his studies due to non availability of High school in his village. His head master asked HN to come to  Bangalore to join his new school. This was a god sent offer for HN and this moment proved to be a defining moment in his career.

Legend has it that HN, in the year 1935, at a young age of 14 plus years and without any money in his pocket, walked all of 85 kilometres distance, in two days. He had to walk this distance on foot because he could not afford to pay the bus fare from his native village Hosur, near Gauribidanur, to Bangalore, to join the National High School for his studies. Fortunately,  this historic foot journey led HN  to an institution that would become the biggest vision and mission of his life for the next seven decades. He joined the National High School, Bangalore, in 1935 courtesy his head master, who was also very kind to help him with an accommodation in the ‘Poor Boys Home’ in the premises of the school. Subsequently, Narasimhaiah and the National High School and College became inseparable, and in a bond that lasted seven decades, HN remained constantly connected with this institute. Dressed in his characteristic Gandhian attire - khadi dhoti, jubba and a Gandhi cap, HN was almost always seen surrounded by students in the National College premises. The National High School in Basavanagudi, Bengaluru (then Bangalore), which HN joined in 1935, was founded by the legendary Dr. Annie Besant in 1917, the year she became the president of the Indian National Congress.  Besant wished to set up similar educational institutes across the country that would instil the values of patriotism and self-reliance among the young students and the next generation of freedom fighters. HN became one of the major beneficiaries of this school, who also engaged himself in freedom struggle.

The 1930s was a period of intense freedom struggle activities in India, which was spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi - the father of the nation. In 1936, just one year after HN had joined the National High School, Mahatma Gandhi visited his School, to gather support for the freedom movement, from Bangaloreans. Gandhi spoke in either Hindi or in English wherever he travelled across India. In some of the places, where none of these two languages were understood by the people, Gandhi ji preferred to have his speech translated and spoken in the native language, by one of the selected translators. In Bangalore too Gandhi ji felt the need to have his speech translated into the native Kannada language at the National High School, where he had come to speak. This was the defining moment in the history of HN. HN writes in his book “I met Gandhi in 1936 when he came to Bangalore. We, students of NHS ( National High School ), were waiting in the shade of a tree in Kumara Krupa (Government Guest house in Bangalore) to meet him. Gandhi ji wished to speak to someone who knew Hindi and could translate his speech into Kannada. My teachers sent me forward, and Gandhi asked me: ‘Naam kya hai?’ I told him. Then he asked me, ‘Hindi aata hai?’ and I said, ‘Thada-Thoda’ and he laughed. How could a 9th standard student like me translate his Hindi speech?” From that day onward, HN became a dedicated follower of Gandhian values. This first assignment of translating the speech of Gandhi ji from Hindi to native language Kannada, would set the future course of Hosur Narasimhaiah’s life. There is a  famous photograph of HN sharing space with Gandhi ji during this period, which is included in this blog. HN was so influenced by Gandhi ji that ever since his first meeting with Gandhi ji, he decided to start wearing khadi dress, which he continued until his last. In one of his interviews he says ‘ I started wearing khadi then, and still do, and this decision is based on economic grounds as well. By my wearing khadi, a poor villager gets his meal”. 

Six years after HN met Gandhi ji at the National College, Gandhi ji launched his Quit India Movement in 1942 and HN was one among those millions of Indians who joined the Mahatma in this freedom struggle and for the next two years, HN took break from his undergraduate studies and actively participated in the Quit India movement campaign and freedom struggle. HN describes his decision to take a break from his studies to join the freedom movement as “the most momentous decision in my life”. The Quit India movement was one of defining moment in the freedom struggle. Hundreds of thousands of protestors got arrested during this freedom movement that spread across the country.  HN too was arrested for his participation in the Quit India movement and he was put behind the bars for nearly a year in three different jails - Yeravada Central Jail, Pune, Mysore Jail and the Central Jail in Bangalore. Interestingly, decades later HN recalled his stay in these jails and compared them with his free stay in hostels. He said ‘throughout my student days, I stayed in free hostels. So when I was in Central Jail, which was just opposite my Central College hostel, I found no difference between them, both gave me free boarding and lodging”. HN always had his own special way of looking at things, this is one such example, which evidences his thoughts.

After completing his high school studies at the National High School, HN joined the Central College in Bangalore for graduate studies in physics and it was during this period that he got engaged in freedom movement for the country and thus lost two years of his studies. He got back to his college for continuing his studies and completed his graduation in Physics in 1944. He  also completed his post graduate studies and obtained a MSc in Physics in 1946. Soon thereafter, HN was offered a teaching assignment in the National College, an extension of the National High School in which he had studied, which he readily accepted and joined as a lecturer at National College in the year - 1946. He served as a lecturer and Professor at the National College for about ten years, before deciding to move to the US for his doctoral studies for which he obtained a Fulbright scholarship. HN was deeply influenced by Gandhian values, which he put to practise in his teaching. Although most of his students remember him as a strict disciplinarian, but several of them also remember him for his simplicity and extraordinary sense of humour. He often laced his lectures with humour and wit and used interesting anecdotes to make modern physics, the subject that he taught, quite interesting. He explained complex physics concepts in Kannada, which made his classes very attractive and accessible to students who couldn’t completely follow English. In the year 1957, HN chose to move to the United States for his higher studies. He obtained his Doctorate degree in Nuclear Physics from the Ohio State University, Columbus, U.S.A. (1957-60). All through his three plus years of his stay in the US, HN lived a very simple life. In one of his interview HN says that during most part of his stay in the US he ate Ragi mudde and Uppittu ( Upma ), an Indian breakfast dish, three times a day and was not bored of eating the simple dish. 

After completing his doctoral studies in the US, HN returned back to India in 1960, and rejoined his favourite college - the National College as a Professor of Physics. In just one year, the management decided to name him the Principal of the college.  Prof HN served as the Principal of the National College, from 1961 to 1972. The National College had a scheme to reserve two days in the year for special science programmes, which used to be organised at the college with an inaugural and valedictory programs. An ardent advocate of science that he was, HN was not convinced that there should be just two days in a year, marked for the celebration of science in the college. He said; science should always be a way of life and not confined only to those ceremonial two days of inauguration and valedictory. In order to take science to his students more closely, HN established a separate forum, which was detached from the formal curriculum of the college.  The outcome was an establishment of one of the best organisation for the promotion of science in the country - The Bangalore Science Forum (BSF), which he established in 1962. The main objective of the foundation was to help people see science in everyday life. Today, the Bangalore Science Forum is one of the best respected science organisation with a public outreach in the country, which has organised over 3,000 lectures with eminent scientists from around the world gracing the stage. HN also started a Science Festival - in July 1978 - under the aegis of the BSF, which continues to be one of the best events in science, even today. 

Karnataka was one of the first states to start private engineering colleges, which were also commercial. The demand for the private engineering colleges was unprecedented and so was the profits that these colleges earned for their management. As a result the demand for pure sciences courses, started declining in the early 1970s. The management of the National College were tempted to diversify into engineering education, which they believed were employment driven that also earned good profits for the management. However HN remained steadfast and firm in the face of this challenge and decided not to start an engineering college. He wanted National College to be on top but not as a profit-making business, which the engineering colleges were. In hindsight one can appreciate the fundamental difference between today’s education system and what HN practised. A S Kiran Kumar, former Chairman of ISRO, who graduated in Physics from the National College, in 1971 when HN was the Principal, has said  ‘HN always believed that education is not to be equated only with employment, rather, HN believed that you need to educate a person for him to deal with life in general’. 

HN remained attached to the National College all his life. He served as the President of the National Education Society, which runs the National High School and the National College and other educational institutions under one administrative set up, until his demise on 2005. In the year 1972, while he was serving as the Principal of the National College, HN was selected as the Vice Chancellor of the Bangalore University. He served his two terms as the Vice Chancellor of the prestigious Bangalore University from 1972 to 1978 until stepping down due to his differences with the Chancellor, on an issue related to Sathya Sai Baba. During his term as the VC of  Bangalore University, the campus was shifted to the current magnificent Jnana Bharati Campus. I had the honour to study briefly in this campus, while I was admitted for my first year Engineering in 1978 at the University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering. HN was also instrumental in starting many new departments - Performing Arts, Psychology, Business Administration, and Mass Communication. The Bangalore university’s sprawling campus off Mysore Road owes much to HN’s vision and zeal. Among his many contributions to the university is the Centre of Gandhian Studies.

HN also instituted the first ever Committee to Investigate Miracles and Verifiable Superstitions within Bangalore University, when he was the Vice Chancellor of the University. It is perhaps the only University which commissioned such a committee. Unfortunately this committee ran into an internationally acclaimed spiritual guru - Sathya Sai Baba, who had ‘whose who’ in his list of followers. The committee’s efforts to probe the miracles by Sathya Sai Baba, who often conjured sacred ash, lemons, watches, and gold ornaments out of thin air, led to a heated debate in the State. “If Sai Baba can create objects out of thin air, I request him to give me a pumpkin,” HN once famously said. The devotees of Sathya Sai Baba were high and mighty and there was always a clash between the followers of Sai Baba and the Committee, particularly HN. This clash would ultimately cost HN his Vice Chancellorship. Narasimhaiah resigned as Vice-Chancellor when Govind Narain, a Sathya Sai Baba devotee, took charge as Governor of the State in 1977. HN writes about this in his autobiography ‘Horatada Hadi’ (A Path of Struggle) “I thought about it. The Chancellor is a devotee of Sai Baba, while the Vice-Chancellor is the chairman of the committee to investigate his ‘miracles’. I resigned to avoid any conflict.” The very next day, he returned to his tryst with destiny institute - the National College and resumed teaching. 

HN’s biggest contribution has no doubt been in the field of science education, however he has also made substantial contributions in the fields of arts and social sciences. He started the Bangalore Social Science Forum (BSSF), which he envisaged will work on the lines of his famed Bangalore Science Forum, in the fields of social sciences. He also established the Bangalore Lalitha Kala Parishat (BLKP) in 1992 to promote arts in its various forms, including stage plays and other programmes, which were held on every first and third Friday of the month. Dr. Narasimhaiah was elected the president of Indian Rationalist Association during the 12th National Conference held at New Delhi in 1983. Narasimhaiah served the office of the President of Indian Rationalist Association till 1985. Ever since he joined the National College, HN has been inextricably associated with their institution. 

Every institution is the shadow of a great individual, and HN was at the forefront of National Education Society (NES), which grew from strength to strength during his tenure. The institutions functioning under NES are now among the best in the country, with which HN remained attached until his demise on the 31st January 2005. As a mark of respect to HN and his contributions to the institute, his body was kept for public viewing at the National High School, where thousands of people from different walks of life including the Chief Minister of Karnataka, former Prime Minister, Mr Deve Gowda, Prof U R Rao, and several students of National school and college and others who paid their last respect. His body was cremated with full state honors at his native village Hosur near Gauribidanur in Kolar district. The cremation took place in accordance with Dr. Narasimhaiah's will, for which he had constituted a committee for conducting his last rites and had set aside Rs. 2000 for the expenses. The mortal remains of HN may have been been confined to the holy fire and he may not be present in physical form but the ideals that he has left behind “Do not accept anything without questioning”, will continue to remain eternal for generations to come. He is one of those great spirits, whose ideals will remain central to all those practitioners of science and advocated of scientific temper. 

Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan and Jia Vigyan.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Disruption, Digitisation & Demand

Nehru Science Centre Lockdown Lecture Series.

‘Disruption, Digitisation & Demand’ 

by Padma Bhushan Shri S Ramadorai, Former CEO, TCS.

As we enter into the next phase of the Lockdown in Mumbai, which unfortunately is the worst sufferer due to the Covid Pandemic, Nehru Science Centre will continue to remain closed for public. In our endeavor to remain connected with our audience, we have brought the best of experts to address our visitors from our digital platform (lockdown lecture series and other events and programs). Our next lockdown lecture will be delivered by Padma Bhushan, Shri S Ramadorai, Former Vice Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, on 8th June 2020 at 11 AM.  Shri Ramadorai, a doyen of IT industry, is one of the IT pioneers in India who has helped TCS to be a leading global IT Company. He will be speaking on “Disruption, Digitization and Demand”, which seem to be a way forward for all of us in the new norm, which the Covid pandemic has ushered.

The Indian IT industry is now a name to reckon with globally.  It is not for nothing that it prompted the then American presidential candidate - Barack Obama - during his electioneering campaign trail in Buffalo, while addressing his electorate, to draw attention of the crowd to Bangalore & IT and emphasised that India was taking away the jobs of people of Buffalo and other Americans. Perhaps it is for this reason that the word ‘Bangalored’ has entered into the lexicon of English language. The Indian IT industry has grown and diversified much too rapidly and is now a 190 plus billion dollar industry. From a humble beginning of IT outsourcing jobs that Indian IT companies started, prompting Thomas Friedman to write his best selling book ‘ The World is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty First Century’ where he chronicles the convergence of technology and events that followed in the later part of the twentieth century that helped countries like India to become part of the global supply chain for IT services and manufacturing, the Indian IT has now become a global brand. This IT boom has helped in creation of an explosion of opportunities for IT professionals in India to create wealth and new opportunities for themselves and for others.

There are innumerable IT companies including the very well known companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc, which collectively constitute the Indian It industry. But then the company that deserves major credit for ushering the IT revolution in India, in my opinion, must go to TCS - Tata Consultancy Services. Tatas as a group is one of the best value brand in the corporate world, which is known for their par excellence governance and philanthropy. Whatever vicissitudes of fortune may have come the way of the Tata Group, the contributions of TCS, one of the companies under the Tata Group, has been extraordinary and path breaking. TCS as a company was founded in 1968 as ‘Tata Computer Systems’ and FC Kohli was appointed as the CEO of the company, which later on became a Public listed company in 2004.

Our speaker, Padma Bhushan, S. Ramadorai, joined TCS as a trainee engineer in 1969. And when he relinquished charge as the managing director of the TCS company in 2009, TCS had become one of the world’s largest software and services companies. When Ramadorai took over the CEO mantle from F.C. Kohli in the year 1996, the company revenues were pegged at Rs 600 crore. In just thirteen years of his tenure as the CEO and MD of TCS Ramadorai was able to convert TCS into a whopping Rs 36,000-crore global IT giant.

Born in Nagpur, Ramadorai finished his schooling and graduation in Delhi, before leaving for the University of California for a master’s in science. The TCS innings began soon thereafter, in 1969. He spent his early years in TCS under the leadership of its founder FC Kohli and imbibed all his ideas and ideals. He was asked to head US operations and this opportunity gave him a ringside view of business evolving in sync with constant upgradations in technology. This held him in good stead during his leadership years. The edifice that he built for TCS has helped the company to continue to scale newer and newer heights of unprecedented proportions. He globalised TCS, built a very strong sales and delivery engine, and created leaders like N. Chandrasekaran, the current  Chairman of Tata Group, who made TCS the star that it is. In 2002, he was the only Indian CEO to make it to the list of the top 25 most influential consultants in the world by the Consulting magazine. He has been conferred with plenty of awards and recognition including the Padma Bhushan.

I was privileged and honoured to be standing next to him as one of the awardees of the 16th NES Jagadguru Sankaracharya Sri. Jayendra Saraswati National Eminence Award during which he was awarded the National Eminence Award at the hands of the Jagadguru Sankaracharya Sri. Jayendra Saraswati.

You are all cordially invited for the lecture.

Image of Shri Ramadorai seated on sofa : Courtesy Economic Times

CERN & the Dancing Shiva - Nataraja : The Confluence of Science and Spirituality.

CERN & the Dancing Nataraja : The Confluence of Science Arts and Spirituality. 

Images Credits : Wiki Commons and Nehru Science Centre.

Last year, around this time, our temporary exhibition space, which presently has been converted into an Isolation ward for Covid patients by the BMC under the Epidemic Diseases Act, was home to an  exciting exhibition - Vigyan Samagam. This exhibition showcased seven mega science international projects in which India is a partner. These projects - Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), Square Kilometer Array (SKA), Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) - have an objective to unravel the mysteries of the universe that stretch from an unseen universe of subatomic particles - quarks, muons, positrons, Higgs Bosons (god particle discovered at the LHC, CERN) - to the extreme, beyond the observable macroscopic universe. These international projects have been envisaged as a result of rapid progress in science, which help in distinguishing the 21st century from earlier centuries. The quest for study and understanding of such extreme scales of universe - both at the micro and macro scale - need global collaboration and the nature of these projects mandate that collaboration. These projects also provide an opportunity for scientists across the world to collectively aim at pushing the frontiers of science.

The need to push the frontiers of science has led to formalising international collaboration in pooling of scientists, material and financial resources and establishing global partnerships in the Mega Science Projects, in which India is also a partner. To show case the significance of such mega science projects, particularly the Indian contributions in these projects, three Government of India institutions; Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology and the National Council of Science Museums had joined hands, to present the first ever “VIGYAN SAMAGAM”, exhibition, which was opened  in May 2019, at our centre - Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. The highlight of the Vigyan Samagam exhibition was the CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) pavilion, which was transported all the way from Geneva, Switzerland for the exhibition and the highlight of the pavilion was the Large Hadron Collider. 

Speaking of CERN, one is reminded of that historic moment - the 4th July 2012 - of the discovery of the ‘Gods particle’ - the Higgs Boson - at the Large Hadron Collider - LHC -, which is one of the major research facilities at CERN. Years before this elusive particle was discovered at CERN, with which India and Indian scientists have had a collaboration since the early sixties, the government of India decided to gift an artistically elegant 2 metre tall Chola bronze statue of the dancing Shiva (Nataraj) to CERN. On June 18, 2004, the statue of the Indian deity Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of Dance was unveiled at CERN, the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva. The statue, symbolizing Shiva’s cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was given to CERN by the Indian government to celebrate the research centers (CERN) long association with India, since the 60s. The statue of Lord Shiva was unveiled by His Excellency K M Chandrashekhar, the Indian ambassador to WTO, Geneva, Dr Anil Kakodkar, eminent nuclear scientist and Chairman DAE, and Dr Robert Aymar (Director General of CERN (2004–2008) in the presence of several other CERN scientists. This elegant statue, which symbolises the art and culture of India, now finds a permanent place in CERN between buildings 39 and 40, a short distance from the Main Building. India has been a partner state in the scientific research at CERN, an international state of the art scientific research institution, which is home to international scientists. Speaking on the occasion, representative of CERN had said that India was one of the institute’s observer states, and the statue of the Nataraj represents CERN’s multiculturalism, with scientists from across the globe taking part in the research at its facilities. One of the reasons why the Indian government chose the image of Shiva Nataraja was to acknowledge the profound significance of the metaphor of Shiva’s dance for the cosmic dance of subatomic particles, which is observed and analyzed by CERN’s physicists.

The commissioning of the statue of Shiva at the best of international scientific research centre CERN, as expected, raised some eye brows and in response the spokesperson of CERN stated “that the statue was a gift from India to celebrate its association with CERN, which started in the 1960’s and remains strong today”. In the Hindu religion, Lord Shiva practiced Nataraj dance which symbolises Shakti, or life force. This deity was chosen by the Indian government because of a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the ‘cosmic dance’ of subatomic particles. India is one of CERN’s associate member states. CERN is a multicultural organisation that welcomes scientists from more than 100 countries and 680 institutions. It is for this reason that CERN is often referred to as the global temp,e of learning. The Shiva statue is one of many statues and cultural icons and other art pieces, which have been installed at CERN, to exemplify CERN’s multiculturalism.

As stated above, CERN is a pre-eminent centre for state of the art research in frontiers of science and one of the major facility at CERN, which attracts global scientists, is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator -  the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which they built for researching particle physics. LHC is a giant circular tunnel built underground, which is 27 kilometres long, and between 50 and 175 meters below the ground. CERN is also the place where core technologies of the internet were first conceived and Tim Berners Lee, an engineer working with CERN  developed the World Wide Web (WWW), meaning the now ubiquitous WWW took its birth at CERN. Installation of the statue of Lord Shiva - the Dancing Nataraja - at this scientific precincts, which is kind of a Mecca for global science, is therefore unprecedented. The Chola Bronze ‘Dancing Shiva (Nataraj)’ metaphorically represents the dance of subatomic particles at the atomic level in modern physics. A plaque placed below the Nataraja statue describes the significance of the metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance with modern physics. It contains quotations from Fritjof Capra, an American Physicist ans it says ; “Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of different forms of visual images of dancing Shiva, which are created by artisans using the lost wax process of bronze casting the practice of which goes back to the Chola period. He further goes on to add ‘in our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.” Lord Shiva or Nataraja is one of the most important deities in the Hindu religion. Nataraja is also known by many other names such as Mahadeva, Neelakantha, Rudra, Shambhu, Shiva etc. Shiva’s form of Nataraja symbolizes the cosmic dance of creation and destruction.

The parallel between Nataraj’s dance and the dance of the subatomic particles, was first discussed by Fritjof Capra in an article titled "The Dance of Shiva: The Hindu View of Matter in the light of Modern Physics," published in Main Currents in Modern Thought in 1972. Shiva's cosmic dance then became a central metaphor in Capra's international bestseller ‘The Tao of Physics’, first published in 1975, which continues to be in print with over 40 editions and still going strong. The Nataraja or the dancing Shiva statue, cast in bronze, is testimony to the excellence of ancient Indian artisans and metallurgists, whose material evidence is found in most museums across the world, particularly in the Government Museum in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where rows of these spectacular dancing Nataraja statues - green in colour with almost one thousand plus years old patina on them, are found in plenty.

The two metre tall bronze statue of Shiva, in the quintessential cosmic dance posture, trampling upon ignorance, metaphorically symbolises mankind’s collective quest for understanding of the universe at the atomic level. It is therefore a pleasant feeling that the Indian dancing Nataraj statue finds a place in the very precincts of CERN where the ‘Gods particle’ - the Higgs boson,  was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. It was here at the LHC that the Tandava of subatomic particles was played out in the underground 27 kilometre tunnel and in the process the Higgs Boson, popularly called the Gods particle, as envisaged by Peter Higgs, was discovered at this historic location in the year 2012.

We, Indians, know that Nataraja is the dancing form of Lord Shiva, who is also considered as the supreme God of "Naatya" - dance. One of the dance performed by lord Shiva is the ‘Tandava nritya’, the divine dance, which is considered to be the source of creation, preservation and destruction. Scholars such as Fritjof Capra, have tried to establish a scientific connection between the Nataraj Tandava and modern physics and the Atom and its subatomic Spin. The name "Tandava" is derived from "Tandu", who was an attendant of Lord Shiva. Tandu is believed to have taught 108 karanas (mudras) - the combination of hand gestures with feet to form a dance posture -  to Baratha, the author of the famed “Natya Shastra".  These 108 karanas are discussed by Baratha in the fourth chapter "Tandava lakshanam" of  “Natya Shastra". Tandava symbolizes the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction. It deals with five principle manifestations of eternal energy : 

Shrishti - Creation

Sthiti - Sustenance

 Samhara - Destruction 

Tirobhava - Illusion 

Anugraha - Grace, blessing. 

There are many types of "Tandavas" and the most famous among them is the “Aananda Thandava" that  portrays bliss and ecstasy and "Rudra Thandava", which portrays destruction and violence. Metaphorically the Rudra Tandav has been compared with the modern science of creation and destruction of particles at the subatomic level.

Fritjof Capra, further explains the metaphorical significance: “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shiva in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.” Fritjof Capra further says,  in The Tao of Physics: “The Dance of Shiva symbolises the basis of all existence. At the same time, Shiva reminds us that the manifold forms in the world are not fundamental, but illusory and ever-changing. Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter." One of the leading scholars and a doyen of art historians, Ananda Coomaraswamy, was the first to see beyond the “unsurpassed rhythm, beauty, power and grace of Nataraja”. He praised it as “the clearest image of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of”. Coomaraswamy went on to explain that the dance, called Anandatandava or Dance of Bliss, symbolised the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the earthly rhythms of birth and death.  He saw it as a pictorial allegory of five manifestations of energy, which physicists said cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  Accordingly, the Tandava of Physics and Metaphysics could be represented as cycles of creation and evolution (shrishti) followed by those of preservation or support (sthiti) as well as destruction and evolution (samhara).

According to quantum field theory, creation and destruction is the basis of the very existence of matter. Modern physics has revealed that every subatomic particle is engaged in an end less process of energy ‘dance’ - a pulsating process of creation and destruction. Therefore from the modern physics point of view there seem to be a metaphorical resemblance of Shiva’s dance with the process of matter at atomic and subatomic level, which forms the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena. In a sense the dancing Nataraja metaphorically represents the unending natural phenomenon that gets played out in nature at Interstellar and this constitutes the fundamental physics of the universe. It is therefore a befitting honour for the age old traditions and culture of India that the Statue of the Nataraja finds a prominent place in the precincts of CERN. 

Many traditionalists in India including several scientists, believe that Science has no contradiction with ‘Dharma’, which is most often misconstrued as Religion. While religion may bring forth some restrictions, for a section of society, to run a particular belief fermented with some ethos, ‘Dharma’, many Indians believe, is far different from that concept. Dhrama is the reality of attributes of entire life process in a method of sacrifice of individual for the larger good of human society. In Vivekananda’s word it is ‘manifestation of divinity, already in man’. 

Dharma is the synthesis of science, philosophy, knowledge, intuition and everything in a single and supreme entity, which Shiva or the Nataraja represents.

Tribute to ECG Sudarshan on his 2nd Punya tithi.

Tribute to ECG Sudarshan on his 2nd Punya tithi.

Images : courtesy Wiki Commons.

On this day two years ago - the 13th May, 2018 - India and the world of science lost one of the best theoretical physicist, ECG Sudarshan, who bid final good bye to this world from his home in Texas, USA. Sudarshan enjoys a unique honour of getting nominated for the coveted Nobel Prize for a record nine times, but most unfortunately he could not make the cut even single time. ECG Sudarshan was known for his outspokenness, opinionated and combative mind, mercurial mood and also for his uncanny ways of being candid each time and every time. Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan (1931 – 2018) - ECG to friends - is considered by many as one of the most brilliant scientific mind to emerge from South Asia. His combative style and his candid opinion often landed him in controversies, and now that he is no more, even the last echoes of the controversies surrounding him will hopefully be laid to rest and he will only be remembered, eternally, for his deep insights and outstanding contributions to fundamental science, particularly in the field of quantum physics.

ECG Sudarshan was born on the 16th September, 1931, to the Syrian Christian parents E I Chandy, who was a revenue inspector in the old Travancore State and to Achamma, a school teacher, at Pallam in Kottayam district, Kerala. He was the second son among three to his parents. ECG’s aptitude for mathematics was apparently evident from his school days. Legend has it that ECG was destined to become a great physicist from very early days. As a young boy Sudarshan, precocious that he was, took deep interest in his older brother’s high school textbooks, which were far too beyond the reach of children of his age. After reading his brothers science (physics) book end to end, ECG was influenced by one of the sentence in the book, which read “the derivation of the formula for the period of a simple pendulum was beyond the scope of the book”. This motivated the young Sudarshan to search for a book, which could actually help him understand the derivation of the formula that could find the period of the simple pendulum. This early quest for going beyond his age in search for an answer and for quenching his thirst for knowledge, ensured that Sudarshan found a life-long love for Physics. After his high school studies,  ECG completed his two-year Intermediate at the Church Missionary Society (CMS) College (established in 1817) in Kottayam in 1948. He then moved to Madras (now Chennai) and joined the Madras Christian College (MCC) for his B Sc (Honours) in Physics, which he completed in 1951. He stayed in the MCC college in Madras for a year after his degree and worked as a demonstrator in physics. A year later, in 1952, ECG received his MA degree from the University of Madras. He then joined the famed Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Bombay (now Mumbai) in February/ March, 1952, as a research student. 

At TIFR, ECG worked with Dr Bhabha and  spent three years (1952 – 55) in Bhaba’s cosmic ray group at TIFR, Mumbai. This was the time when TIFR had best of scientists working in the field of cosmic ray physics, which was led by its founder Bhabha himself and others that included, MGK Menon and Sreekantan. The cosmic ray physics group in TIFR was nurtured by Bhabha and went on to receive international recognition for their studies of the characteristics of high energy cosmic rays using a variety of detectors at ground level, mountain altitude as well as in deep underground mines. TIFR scientists; Sreekantan and others made early experiments in deep Kolar Gold Field (KGF) mines, which  ultimately led to studies of energetic muons at a depth of up to 2760 metres. All this meant that there was a constant movement of scientists from other countries, including USA to TIFR. One such scientists to visit TIFR during ECG’s time was Robert Marshak, from the University of Rochester in the USA. Marshak, was highly impressed by the bright young student ECG, who he had met at TIFR. He asked ECG if he would be willing to join him for a PhD in US. Sudarshan agreed and left TIFR to move to US. Sudarshan worked on in his PhD along with his guide, Marshak, and in the course proved in (1957) that the weak interaction acts through currents of the form, and determines where is a vector and a pseudo vector and this work subsequently came to be known as the VA Theory of weak interactions. Three other scientists, Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg, developed this work further. The VA theory work, which was started by ECG and his guide Marshak,  eventually evolved as an electro weak theory of weak interactions that won Glashow, Salam and Weinberg the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately Sudarshan and Professor Marshak were left behind and not considered for their contributions to the commencement of this field of work.

The Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979, which was awarded jointly to Glashow, Salam and Weinberg "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current”, reveals that ECG’s work was a milestone in the development of weak interaction theory. Normally, such a vital contribution should have led ECG to the coveted Nobel Prize, but unfortunately his discovery was bogged down by unnecessary controversy. Marshak and Sudarshan’s paper was presented in a conference proceedings in 1957, but six months later, the famous Caltech duo of Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann published a paper with the same result, derived in a different way. The controversy over who gets the priority for the recognition of this work has lasted to the present day and the fact that Feynman was already a very famous scientist from Caltech, may have ensured a stalemate. As a result, the Nobel Committee played safe by deciding not to award this discovery to either of the groups despite multiple nominations for Marshak and Sudarshan. This was one of those nine nominations, which ECG earned for the coveted Nobel Prize, that eluded him.

The unfortunate incident of missing out the coveted Nobel Prize, embittered Sudarshan for life and accentuated his rebellion attitude. ECG’s rebellion attitude was seen from his early days. He renounced his Christian religion, to which he was born since  he was unable to reconcile the Church with his love for physics. In one of his memoirs ECG says “I was born in an Orthodox Christian family. I was very deeply immersed in it, and so by the age of seven I had read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation two or three times. I was not quite satisfied with Christianity, and gradually I got more and more involved with traditional Indian ideas.” His rebellion for the religious thoughts however did not inhibit his scientific creativity. In 1962, with Bilaniuk and Deshpande, he proposed the existence of a hypothetical particle called tachyons - which was hypothesised to travel faster than the speed of light. This paper in a way was aimed at proving one of Albert Einstein’s theories,  which states that ‘Nothing can move faster than light’, wrong. However, it was eventually proved that such a particle - tachyon - could not exist in reality as it would defy the fundamental laws of physics. The term tachyon, however, is still used even today as a placeholder for an imaginary particle with a quantum field that plays a crucial role in theoretical physics.

In 1963, Sudarshan proved the equivalence of semiclassical and quantum descriptions of light beams using what is now known as the Sudarshan-Glauber representation, which is a foundational work in the science of quantum optics. Glauber, however, did not initially accept this representation, and it was only later,  after his correspondence and interaction with Sudarshan that Glauber reinvented it. Most unfortunately and to the ‘amazement and horror’ of Sudarshan, the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists one of them was Glauber who shared half the prize amount while the other half went to John Hall and Theodor Hansch. Glauber was awarded for his work in ‘quantum optics’, and in the process Sudarshan’s seminal work had been overlooked yet again for the coveted Nobel Prize. 

This time however, Sudarshan openly expressed his anguish against the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who had ignored him for the 2005 Nobel Prize and instead had  chosen to give the Nobel prize to RJ Glauber “for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence”.  He wrote an open letter expressing his anguish against the Royal Sweedish Academy. In a letter to the Academy, he wrote “In the announcement of the 2005 Physics Nobel Prize, the Swedish Royal Academy has chosen RJ Glauber to be awarded half of the prize. The prize winners are chosen by the Royal Academy, but no one has the right to take my discoveries and formulations and ascribe them to someone else. The correct formulation of the quantum mechanical treatment of optics was carried out by me in my paper in 1963”. Unfortunately his letter was ignored. 

In 1969, Sudarshan moved from Rochester to the University of Texas at Austin, where he remained till his death. From 1970 onwards, for next 21 years,ECG held the position of director of Centre of Particle Theory at Texas. During this period, in the year 1977, Sudarshan and Baidyanath Mishra quantified the quantum Zeno effect. Earlier, in 1961, Homi Bhabha had tried to lure ECG back to TIFR, but somehow that did not work out. However, ECG with his love for Indian traditions, remained attached to TIFR as an Honorary Fellow until his last. In fact, Sudarshan  - who always retained his Indian passport  - kept coming to India for extended periods. He was also the senior professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore from 1971 to 1991. He founded the Centre for Theoretical Studies (CTS) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc),:Bengaluru in 1972. He also accepted the Directorship of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Chennai in 1986. He would spend six months a year at the IMSc Chennai and the other six months he used to spend at Austin, Texas, USA. Sudarshan was able to contribute majorly to the development of IMSc particularly in the areas of improved personnel and budget for the institute. However, his outspokenness, his mercurial moods and his idiosyncratic style of management led to a series of controversies, which lasted during the whole of his tenure.

Although ECG missed the coveted Nobel Prize, he was honoured with many other prestigious awards, including the Dirac medal of the the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in 2010, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Physics award (1985), the Bose Medal (1977), and the Majorana prize. In India, he was awarded the coveted C.V. Raman prize (1970). He was also awarded the Padma Bhushan (1976) and the Padma Vibhushan (2007). He lived a long life, despite the frustration of having twice been passed over for the Nobel prize and of seeing others awarded for the work, which was truly his. But that transient pain of the frail human psyche is now over, and it is only the outstanding scientific legacy of E.C.G. Sudarshan, which will last for future generations to study and admire.

ECG also had other interests. He was attracted to Indian traditions and Hinduism and chose the name 'Sudarshan' in the year 1970. He was also interested in Vedanta studies. He practiced Vedanta and delivered several lectures on the Vedantic school of philosophy. He was also deeply interested in Malayalam literature and spoke in typical Kottayam accent, wherever he travelled all over the world. He was deeply intrigued by Indic studies, and read classical Indian texts avidly in conjunction with philosophical treatises. Sudarshan was married to Lalitha Rao, daughter of former chief justice of the High Court of Mysore state, Nittur Srinivasa Rao—a famous Gandhian and a freedom fighter. They have three sons. Later, he got married to Bhamati, professor and head of department of physics at the Madras University. 

Professor ECG Sudarshan undoubtedly was a world class physicist and the Nobel committee has been completely unfair to the science community by denying him the coveted Nobel Prize for which he was nominated 9 times. In hindsight we can say it is Nobel’s loss and not that of ECG Sudarshan’s.  Long live ECG and his scientific legacy.

Rabindranath Tagore : A Tribute to the Polymath on his Jayanthi.

Today, the 7th May, 2020, besides being Budha Poornima - the birth day of Bhagwan Gautam Buddha -  also happens to be the birth anniversary of one of the greatest sons of India - Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the first non European and also the first nonwhite to be conferred with the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature (1913). Rabindranath Tagore was a creative genius and a polymath; a versatile poet, a par excellence short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, artist, rationalist, as well as a talented painter, whose pictures with their mixture of representation and abstraction began to manifest late into his career. Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur) was born on 7th May, 1861, in a very rich Brahmin family to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi in the famous Jorasanko mansion, the ancestral home of the Tagore family in Kolkata (Calcutta). He was the youngest sibling in his family. Tagore holds a unique distinction that two of his poems have been befittingly chosen as the national anthems of India and Bangladesh - “Jana Gana Mana” & “Amar Sonar Bangla” respectively, which is an extraordinary achievement that any poet can ever aspire for. Tagore used colloquial language, deviating from well established Sanskrit influenced Bengali, to reshape Bengali literature and music by introducing new prose and verse forms that could connect easily with the masses. The polymath Tagore’s contributions in the field of art, literature, playwright etc are well known all across the country and so also internationally but his extraordinary painting skills, which he acquired at the age of 67, are not much known beyond the boundaries of Bengal.

Therefore, when an opportunity came calling to commemorate Rabindranath Tagore’s sesquicentennial year of birth, the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, commissioned a monumental paintings exhibition: “The Last Harvest : Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore”, which was curated by Prof R Sivakumar, Shantiniketan with his insightful thoughts and understanding of the Poet painter - Tagore. This exhibition, of the original paintings of Tagore, was organised in nine major museums across three continents and on its return to India, it was presented in all the three National Galleries of Modern Art in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and so also in Bhopal and Hyderabad. I was privileged to be the Director of NGMA, Mumbai when this exhibition travelled to Mumbai during the period from April to June 2013. The exhibition was a treat for the art connoisseurs of the city of Mumbai and all through the exhibition period a series of outreach programs and activities were organised to connect Tagore and his creative endeavours with the people of Mumbai, courtesy Godrej Culture Lab and various other art and culture organisations in Mumbai, which made the exhibition all the more special.

Tagore lived a creative life for eight decades until his passing away at the age of 80 plus years, on 7th August, 1941 at his ancestral home in Calcutta (now Kolkata). His mortal remains may have been confined to the holy fire in the ritualistic Hindu cremation traditions and the fire may have consumed his physical body, but then he has left behind - for the world and India - a legacy and heritage that will remain etched in golden letters in the annals of history, which no fire or any other force can obliterate. He lived an extraordinary creative life, beginning his last aspects of creations - the paintings -  in his late sixties. Tagore has left behind a rich heritage of words, music, poetry, paintings, ideas and ideals and his legacy continues to have that power to move us even today and for eternity. On learning about Tagore’s death, Nehru, who was in Jail, wrote;  “Gandhi and Tagore, two types entirely different from each other, and yet both of them typical of India, both in the long line of India’s great men … It is not so much because of any single virtue but because of the tout ensemble, that I felt that among the world’s great men today Gandhi and Tagore were supreme as human beings”.

Tagore is a national figure in India, whose stature comes very close to the Mahatma - the title given by Tagore, to the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi ji, for generations to come, will continue to be revered and considered as an embodiment of our country’s freedom struggle and for very strongly providing that extraordinary leadership for political action. Tagore on the other hand being a creative poet, playwright, novelist, musician, theorist, educationist and painter, all rolled into one, personified the cultural ethos of India with roots in an age-old heritage of this great nation of ours. Even today, and for eons to come, one cannot think of Bengali culture without Tagore being central to it. Tagore’s name and fame and his contributions to the field of literature, art and culture spread across the world. French Nobelist, Romain Rolland (1915, Literature), was fascinated both by Gandhi and Tagore. On completion of his book on Gandhi he wrote to one of the Indian academic ‘ I have finished my book on Gandhi, in which I pay tribute to your two great river-like souls, overflowing with the divine spirit - Tagore and Gandhi’. Tagore greatly admired Gandhi but he had many disagreements with him on a variety of subjects, particularly on the role of rationality and of science, and the nature of economic and social development. Tagore always encouraged room for reasoning, and for a less traditionalist view, and more respect for science and for objectivity, generally.

The clash between Gandhi and Tagore, on their poles apart attitude towards science and rationality, is evidenced in their outlook towards a tragic natural disaster, which struck India in 1934. Bihar was struck by a devastating earthquake in January 1934 and it killed thousands of people. During this period Gandhi ji had immersed himself in the fight against the age old Indian traditions of untouchability, which was plaguing our country. Unfortunately, when the earthquake tragedy struck Bihar, Gandhi ji, in an unscientific and irrational manner, connected this natural disaster with the purported sins of practising untouchability by Indians and that the earthquake was a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins of untouchability. He said “for me there is a vital connection between the Bihar calamity and the untouchability campaign.” Rabindranath Tagore was also a great advocate of equality who too abhorred the irrational practise of untouchability and had joined hands with Gandhi in the movements against it. However, Tagore protested against Gandhi ji on his irrational interpretation of a natural calamity as a sin that was responsible for the suffering and death of so many innocent people, including children. He outrightly rejected Gandhi ji’s unscientific linkage of earthquake with human ethical failures. 

Down south there was another legendary engineer, Sir M Visvesvaraya, who was about the age of Tagore and his ideas on rationality and science and technology resembled Tagore. Sir MV had similar differences with Gandhi ji as that of Tagore on subjects like rationality, science and technology and so also on the concept and notion of economic development of the country. The irony is that there is not much that could find from archive on the personal connection between Sir MV and Tagore. However, in the year 1928 records suggest that Tagore stayed for three weeks in Bangalore, at the majestic colonial era building Balabrooie, on Palace Road. It was during his three weeks recuperating stay that Tagore wrote his famed Shesher Kobita and also some part of Yogayog. This building, which is a treasure trove of stories from Bengaluru's colonial past, was once home to its builder, Lord Mark Cubbon, Sir M. Visvesvaraiah and other illustrious stalwarts. It was also the residence of former Chief Ministers S.Nijalingappa and D. Devaraj Urs. Unfortunately over time this building has come to be known as a haunted place since the politicians (Chief Ministers) irrationally fear to stay in this building, strongly believing that it is haunted and anyone who stays in the building would quickly lose power. Sir MV who was just about a year senior to Tagore, loved reading Tagore and one of his favourite book was ‘Stray Birds’,  which was penned by Tagore. It provides a connect between nature, man and his environment as seen by a person sitting by a window where stray birds are seen singing and flying. The book also contained one-line poems, which are often just an image or the distillation of a thought, which stays with the reader in his mind and does not fly away as easily as the birds. Tagore was knighted in 1915, but gave up his knighthood after the massacre of demonstrators at the infamous Jallianwala bagh, in 1919. By then Tagore was beginning to be acclaimed globally. 

Tagore’s global recognition is evidenced in a book “The Golden Book of Tagore”, which was published as homage to Tagore, from India and the world, on the occasion of Tagore’s 70th birth anniversary, in 1930. This book is a testimony to the love and reverence that the intellectuals of the world bore for Tagore. The book has been sponsored by the leading intellectuals of the world such as Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and Kostes Palamas, and was brought out on the suggestion of French writer Romain Rolland. The book indicates how highly regarded Tagore was in India and around the world. The great Albert Einstein, who was one of the sponsors of the book, met Rabindranath Tagore in the same year in Berlin on July 14, 1930. This historic meeting between the two hogged the headlines ‘as the coming together of science and spirituality’. It was hailed as one of the most intellectually stimulating conversations in the annals of history. Their conversation, which mostly centred around science and the age old Indian traditions of spirituality has been chronicled in a book ; ‘Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein Met Tagore”  by David L. Gosling. 

Helen Keller, an American political activist and a deaf and blind author known around the world as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds, had this to say about Tagore ; “ Sitting beside Rabindranath Tagore and sharing his thoughts is like spending one's days beside the Sacred River, drinking deep of honeyed wisdom.” Tagore’s global recognition is also evidenced in the statements of several other international thinkers, writers and intellectuals. Russian author, Ms. Anna Akhmatova, who received the highest nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature, was also one of Tagore’s admirers and she translated his poems into Russian in the mid-1960s. She says “that mighty flow of poetry, which takes its strength from Hinduism as from the Ganges, and is called Rabindranath Tagore.” 

Tagore also had his influence on other thinkers of the world. His typical physical appearance – intellectual looking, handsome, bearded, dressed in non-Western clothes – to some extent may have helped him in being seen as a carrier of exotic wisdom. Yasunari Kawabata, first Japanese Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1968, treasured memories from his middle-school days of “this sage-like poet” - Tagore - and he goes on to add; ‘His white hair flowed softly down both sides of his forehead; the tufts of hair under the temples also were long like two beards, and linking up with the hair on his cheeks, continued into his beard, so that he gave an impression, to the boy I was then, of some ancient Oriental wizard’.

One of the greatest and an emotionally touching tribute to Tagore’s poetry comes from a World War I martyr, Wilfred Owen, who wrote some of the best British poetry on World War I. In November 1918 Wilfred was killed in action at an young age of 25, just one week before the Armistice. Susan Owen, the mother of Wilfred Owen, wrote a letter to Rabindranath Tagore in 1920, describing her last conversations, which she had with her son before her son left for the war, which would most unfortunately take his life. Susan wrote that her son said goodbye with those wonderful words of yours ‘When I go from hence, let this be my parting word”.  Among the remains of Wilfred, which were returned from the battle field to his mother, was a pocket notebook. She wrote to Tagore that her son’s pocket notebook contained  the writings of Tagore with his name written beneath those words”. This was a touching recognition and emotional tribute that Tagore had received from a very young World War I martyr, who himself was an outstanding poet. 

Tagore wrote most of his essays and poetry at the Shantiniketan (Abode of Peace), a small town, which grew around the school that Tagore had founded in Bengal in 1901. Tagore not only conceived an imaginative and innovative system of education at the Shantiniketan, but through his writings and his influence on students and teachers, he was able to use the school as a very strong base from which he could take a major part in India’s social, political, and cultural movements. Most of his essays covered subjects ranging from literature, politics, culture, social change, religious beliefs, philosophical analysis, international relations, and much else. Coincidentally the Cambridge University Press published Tagore’s ideas and reflections to the fore, which coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence (1997). This publication helped in examining what kind of leadership in thought and understanding, Tagore provided to his fellow citizens in the Indian subcontinent, in the first half of 20th century. 

Tagore’s recognition, particularly as a poet and also as a dramatist, essayist, short story writer, musician, humanist, philosopher and educationist, has been very well documented both nationally and internationally. However his paintings have not had the same impact as his other creative facets, especially among the common Indians and therefore the sesquicentennial exhibition of paintings of Tagore, which was organised at NGMA  Mumbai helped in creating awareness about the creativity of Tagore in paintings, which are now preserved as national treasures.

Tagore at the age of 67, to use his own words, "fell under the enchantment of lines" when he discovered that his hand was moving automatically across the pages of his manuscripts transforming the scratches and erasures into designs. For the next 12 years of his life he harnessed his new found love for painting and produced nearly 2,000 paintings. Although he used all kinds of paints and produced coloured chalk drawings, pastels, and later dry-points and etchings, Tagore's preferred medium was liquid colour. He often used ordinary fountain-pen ink and when this was not available; he crushed flower petals and used them as pigments. He rarely used a brush, instead he worked with a cloth soaked in colour, the back of a fountain-pen, his thumb, a stick or, more often, a knife. His original paintings, which are now declared as a National Treasure, from different collectors and sources, primarily from  the collections of Shantiniketan and NGMA Delhi, were used in the Last Harvest exhibition and these paintings illustrated that Tagore's art was peculiarly his own. 

Tagore, although took to painting very late into his career, did manage to organise some international exhibitions of his paintings, the first of which was held in 1930 in Paris. The same year a few of his  paintings were also shown in London, Berlin and New York. His first exhibition in India was organised in February, 1932 when 265 of his drawings, paintings and engravings were displayed to the public in Calcutta. A year after that (1933) Tagore held another exhibition in Bombay. In 1946, four of his paintings were included in an international exhibition of modern art organised by UNESCO in Paris. The UNESCO also featured an illustrated article on his works which figured in the issue of The UNESCO Courier, "Famous Authors as Artists", in August 1957.

Tagore said “My pictures are my versification in lines if by chance they are entitled to claim recognition, it must be primarily for some rhythmic significance of form which is ultimate, and not for any interpretation of an idea, or representation of a fact”. For him “painting was the language of the universe and that the world of sound is a tiny bubble in the silence of the infinite”. He further elucidates his love for painting by stating; “the Universe has its only language of gesture; it talks in the voice of pictures and dance”. He continues ‘every  object in this world proclaims in the dumb signal of lines and colors the fact that it is not a mere logical abstraction or a mere thing of use, but is unique in itself carries the miracle of its existence’.  In a picture the artist creates the language of undoubted reality, which every human being can see and interpret in his/her own ways, irrespective of the language, cast, creed, social structure that each one belongs to. For Tagore a piece of art has its own inner artistic significance.

Tagore, while speaking about his paintings, once said “People often ask me about the meaning of my pictures. I remain silent even as my pictures are. It is for them to express and not to explain. They have nothing ulterior behind their own appearance for the thoughts to explore and words to describe and if that appearance carries its ultimate worth then they remain, otherwise they are rejected and forgotten even though they may have some scientific truth or ethical justification”.

His concepts of education even today has great relevance and his dream for empowering the rural India continues to remain a challenge for all of us today. Tagore held that education must allow the child to develop in the context of nature. He believed that “the sweep of the earth and the expanse of the sky, the quietness of the evening and the promise of the morning, the beauty of the stars and the radiance of the sun must permeate the personality of the child”. From his own experience Tagore learnt that education divorced from social life and cultural traditions, and, more important still, bereft of contacts with nature became for the child an imposition and a burden. These very facts are effectively used by the science centres in creating interest in science among the students. 

For Tagore, art had its place along with mathematics and science. He believed, and he earnestly tried to carry out his beliefs in his school, that all aspects of the child's personality must develop harmoniously. He was one of the earliest among modern educational thinkers to emphasize activity as an essential principle of education. Education, for Tagore, was the foundation of society; that the teachers of today are the arbiters of the destiny of society of tomorrow and the day after.

Tagore worked tirelessly to empower his people in the villages. He believed that able men will stay in villages only when village life is reconstructed to provide educational facilities, health services, improved communications and adequate and wholesome water supply. Able men and women will stay in the villages only if there are opportunities for the fullest development of their personality. What a prophetic vision it has turned out to be. The current Covid pandemic played out the dying need in India for implementing the vision of Tagore for the development of villages. Had this got the attention of government post the independence, perhaps the pain and anguish that we are now witnessing on the faces of the stranded labours in most metropolitan cities during the current lockdown due to the Covid Pandemic would have been largely reduced. Hopefully the lessons that we have learnt during the Covid pandemic will make policy makers to rethink on the prophetic vision of Tagore and aim to develop our villages and help in creating job opportunities for our village brethren.

There can never be an end when one starts writing about Tagore, and therefore I am ending this tribute to Tagore by wishing that May he continue to inspire us, from the heavenly abode that is now home to him.

Jai Hind. Jaya he Jaya he Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya he.