Establishment and Expansion of Scientific Institutions in Post-Independence India

By the time India achieved independence in 1947, the scientific disciplines like physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology and the biological sciences were well established in the universities. There were a few leading scientists in these disciplines who were already recognized in the international sphere. The tensions in the organization of science in India were related to the building of S&T infrastructure in the context of development and further expansion of S&T institutions, which received little attention of the colonial regime. India was rather fortunate in having the leadership of Madan Mohan Malaviya, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and many others who showed keen interest in the development and use of S&T for India's problems of development since the pre-independence days. The support and involvement of this political leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC) for the national science phase forged close links between science and politics in the inter-war period.

Immediately after Independence, Nehru at the Indian Science Congress in 1948 called upon scientists by observing that, ‘in India there is a growing realization of this fact that the politician and the scientist should work in close co-operation'. India's science policy after 1947 as reflected by the non-formal personal relations that Nehru had with Homi Jehangir Bhabha in the Atomic Energy Establishment (AEE), Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar and later Hussain Zaheer in the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Jnan Chandra Ghosh and P.C. Mahalanobis in the Planning Commission and D.S. Kothari in the defense related area. The science-politics “nexus” under the leadership of Nehru contributed to the growth of S&T infrastructure and in assigning an important role to S&T in the political agenda. Though Nehru was instrumental in laying the foundations for planned economic development through the Five-Year Plans, India's first ever Five-Year S&T Plan (1974-1979) came into being only in 1973. Though Nehru consulted and interacted with a wide section of the Indian scientific elites, the enduring relationship these elite scientists had with Nehru was of special significance for the growth of science in certain specific directions. In fact, there existed an Advisory Committee for Coordinating Scientific Work (ACCSW), which was set up in 1948. Nehru was the Chairman and Bhatnagar was the Secretary. The ACCSW operated till 1956 when it was replaced by the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SACC). This Committee was also chaired by Nehru and other members included Bhabha, Kothari and others who were already close to the “power corridors”.