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Science for Freedom Exploring Scientists’ Role in the Freedom Struggle

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Title Science for Freedom Exploring Scientists’ Role in the Freedom Struggle
 
Creator SINGH, SATVIR
 
Subject Freedom struggle
Science
Pre-independence India
Indian Scientists
 
Description 6-21
The paper traces the rise of scientific communities in response to
colonial oppression from the second half of the eighteen-century
until India’s independence in 1947. We study how scientific
temper, held in colonial captivity (Krishna, 1991, p. 89),
registered a break from colonial restrictions to find its moorings in
the freedom struggle. There were scientists, but no meaningful
science was allowed to happen by the British government. We
learn from the existing literature how discriminatory practices
disillusioned the native Indian scientists, which led to their parting
ways with the British government and forming their own scientific
community for conducting scientific research (Chakrabarti, 2009,
1996, pp. 188-195) (Krishna, 1991, pp. 89-95).
Even in the absence of government support, our scientists
established informal collaborative networks to carry out and share
scientific knowledge amongst them. Thus, scientists’ successful
formation of the scientific community in India marks the
beginning of the real scientific endeavour. A galaxy of early
scientists such as M.L. Sircar, P.C. Ray, J.C. Bose, C.V. Raman,
M.N. Saha and Ashutosh Mukherjee started scientific
investigation in pre-independence India.
The paper sheds light on the contribution of the above
scientists to the cause of science in India and argues that the birth
of science in the form of an organised scientific community was
occasioned by the British government’s opposition to free
scientific endeavour. The Indian scientists earned the displeasure
of the British government because they worked for establishing
science to create universal knowledge, not as a handmaiden to the
Empire (Krishna, 1991, p. 91). Thus, the paper concludes that the
struggle for freedom already began in the mind of the scientific
community in India against discriminatory colonial practises in
scientific institutions quite early. The article mentions specific historical events and draws inferences to form a theoretical
framework for understanding the motives behind such historical
happenings and their effects.
 
Date 2022-07-27T10:47:46Z
2022-07-27T10:47:46Z
2022-06
 
Type Article
 
Identifier 2278-2796 (Online); 2278-2788 (Print)
http://nopr.niscpr.res.in/handle/123456789/60168
 
Language en
 
Publisher NIScPR-CSIR, India
 
Source JST Vol.10(1-2) [January-June 2022]