..........................................Course Developed by Dr. Sambit Mallick

The institutionalisation of modern or Western science in India began with the establishment of the Great Surveys – the Geological, the Botanical and the Trigonometric – under the inspired impetus of the Asiatic Society of Bengal inaugurated in 1784. This was followed by the establishment of universities in the port towns of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras in 1857. This period saw the consolidation of the British rule in India, especially with the failure of the First Indian War of Independence of 1857. The British rule in our country was primarily based on their improved mode of production – improved technology, organisational abilities, etc., and it was important for the colonial government to maintain their superiority, if they were to continue to be the rulers. Colonisation is always inimical to any organised development of creativity amongst the colonised. As India was a large country to be governed, the British realised that it was important to have a cadre of well-trained Indians in all areas including science and technology. Therefore, the British set up a small number of universities loosely based on the British pattern in the nineteenth century. In fact, till 1850, India had only one University, founded at Serampore near Calcutta in 1818 by a group called The Danes; it was primarily a theological university. Between 1850 and 1900, five more universities were set up at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Allahabad and the erstwhile-undivided Punjab, intending to cover the entire country. The first two medical colleges were set up at Madras and Calcutta in 1835. The first scientific research organisation set up by an Indian, Mahendra Lal Sircar, was the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) at Calcutta in 1876. At the end of the nineteenth century, India had a total of six science-related societies (including the Asiatic Society of Bombay, set up in 1804), out of which two were professional societies: the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India (1820, Calcutta), and the Bombay Natural History Society (1883). However, we must remember that modern science was not introduced in a vacuum, that we had a rich tradition of knowledge systems including positive sciences and that some of them like ayurveda and astronomy were more democratised than perhaps modern science then or now.

he colonial government started building scientific organisations to use the knowledge generated by the institutions for gaining better understanding of the territory, climate, flora and fauna of the colony to administer the colony and perhaps exploit the resources in a more efficient manner. It is against this background that the first generation of nationalist scientists attempted to build scientific institutions and democratise science without taking any support from the colonial government. The enthusiasm shown by a section of our elites to embrace modernity, modern science may also be construed as an attempt to get closer to the colonial rulers. On the contrary, those who were suspicious of things Western or modern, including modern science, cannot be viewed as being opposed to democratisation of knowledge or of society, at large. Some of them at least did perceive modern science as a part of colonial dispensation and as an alien imposition. It is the policy of the colonial government that did not allow Indian scientists to occupy higher positions, though many of them were competent, hindered the process of democratisation of scientific knowledge in India. It is against this backdrop that the nationalist scientists attempted to build scientific institutions to democratise science.