793 / 822
Prafulla Chandra Ray
(1861-1944)
Born on August 2,1861 in a village in the
district of Khulna now in Bangladesh, Prafulla
Chandra Ray's early interest in chemistry can
be traced to the extremely stimulating lectures
of Alexander Pedler who was then Professor
of Chemistry at the Presidency College,
Calcutta. In 1882 when he was 21 he appeared
at a competitive examination and won the
Gilchrist prize which enabled him to go to
Edinburgh for further studies. On his return to
Calcutta in 1888 after obtaining his BSc and
DSc degrees, P.C. Ray had to struggle hard
for a year to get a job. In 1889 he was
appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry in
the Presidency College in a temporary
capacity. In 1895 his discovery of the method
of preparation of Mercurous Nitrite was
published in as many as 140 communications
to chemical journals. In 1902 he published "A
History of Hindu Chemistry". In 1912 the
Vice-Chancellor of Durham University
remarked while conferring the honorary
degree of DSc on Ray : "A keen and
successful investigator he had long made his
mark by contributions to scientific periodicals,
both English and German, but his fame chiefly
rests on his monumental
History of Hindu
Chemistry,
a work of which both the scientific
and linguistic attainments are equally
remarkable, and of which, if on any book, we
may pronounce that it is definitive." In 1904
P. C. Ray went on study leave to England and
Europe to study modern trends and the
progress of chemistry. In France he was a
specially invited guest at the sitting of the
Academy of Science and was introduced to M.
Troost, President of the Academy and an
eminent scientist. He was struck by the
youthful appearance of M. Troost at the age of
71. He saw Moissan, the inventor of Calcium
Carbide and artificial diamonds. He returned
to Calcutta and compared the people and
youths of England, France and Germany with
the youths of Bengal. "In Bengal my sad
experience is that even young men approach a
subject in a half-hearted manner. Any initial
difficulty disheartens them; they would like to
have their path strewn with roses. An English
youth, on the other hand, whenever he
encounters any hardship, is put on the mettle,
it calls forth his latent energies. The Bengali is
cheerless, does not know how to enjoy life. He
is dreamy and loves to lead a somnolent sort
of existence. The average Bengali reminds one
of Tennyson's Lotus Eaters." He retired as
Professor of Chemistry from the Presidency
College in 1916 and later became the Palit
Professor of Chemistry at
the newly founded university college of
science. In 1892 he had started a chemical
plant in Calcutta which was to grow into the
now
famous
Bengal
Chemical
and
Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. He passed away in
1944. Jawaharlal Nehru paid him this tribute.
"Acharya Ray was one of the giants of old, and
more particularly, he was a shining light in the
field of science. His frail figure, his ardent
patriotism, his scholarship and his simplicity
impressed me greatly in my youth. It is well
that we remember and honour our greatmen
who have passed away after a lifetime of
service."
Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941)
Described as a Renaissance figure and the
Complete Man, Rabindranath Tagore was
many things, besides being a poet: dramatist,
writer of short stories, novelist, painter,
innovator
in
education
and
rural
reconstruction and champion of the One
World Ideal. His grandfather, Dwarkanath,
who built the family fortune, was known as a
"Prince". His father Maharishi Devendranath
Tagore broke away from orthodox Hinduism
and became a leader of the Brahmo Samaj.
Rabindranath, the fourteenth child, was born
on May 7, 1861 in the ancestral mansion,
Jorasanko, in central Calcutta. He was sent to
a school but the formal education did not suit
him and he became a dropout at the age of 13.
His education continued in the Tagore
household which" was suffused with literature
and music. In 1883 he was married to the
daughter of one of the junior officers of the
family estate. In 1901 he founded a school at
Santiniketan, the rural retreat where his father
used to pass his days in meditation. Not
bookish learning by rote but creative
education through the mother tongue was
Tagore's ideal which he sought to realise at
Santiniketan where all the creative and
performing arts were taught. In 1921 Tagore
opened his Viswa-Bharati University at
Santiniketan dedicating it to his ideal of world
brotherhood and cultural interchange: "To
study the mind of Man in its realisation of
different aspects of truth from different points
of view." During the campaign against the
partition of Bengal (1905), Tagore wrote
"Sonar Bangla"
(Golden Bengal) which was to
become the national anthem of Bangladesh.
He became a people's poet. He took part in a
procession singing his own song - "Let the
hearts of our people be one." In 1908 he
withdrew from Bengal politics in disgust at
the extremist excesses of the anti-partition
agitation and was virtually ostracised. "
Janaganamana
" was written for
the Congress session in Calcutta in 1911.
This was to become the Indian national
anthem. Translating into English -the
devotional poems written after the death of his
wife (1902) and his daughter and son
Shamindra (1907), he published in 1912 the
collection entitled
Gitanjali
(Song Offerings).
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1913 and is reported to have said: "I shall
never have peace again." Tagore and Gandhi
met for the first time at Santiniketan on March
6, 1915. In 1916 he visited Japan where he
was welcomed and lavishly feted. But when
he started speaking against Nationalism the
welcome changed to indifference and when he
left there was only one person, his host, to see
him off. In April
1919
after the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, he
renounced his knighthood. After his return
from a visit to Dacca he was faced by a
communal riot in Calcutta. The victims sought
shelter in the Tagore mansion. He wrote "If,
after making a bonfire of religiosity, India can
acquire a new religion, even genuine atheism,
she will be truly reborn." He accepted
Mussolini's invitation to visit Italy. He went
and gave out his favourable impressions about
Mussolini's Italy. When he later met Romain
Rolland, Tagore was taken to task for
showering encomiums on a Fascist regime.
When the Sino - Japanese war broke out the
Japanese poet, Ono Noguchi, wrote to him to
support the Japanese aggression. Tagore in his
reply said, "Wishing your people, whom I
love, not success but remorse." Right down to
his 80th year Tagore never lost his interest in
creation and expressed his delight in life
through a ceaseless outpouring of poetry,
prose, drama and song. In his 70s he wrote a
text-book on elementary science which
explained the theory of relativity and the
working of the Solar System. He passed away
on August 7,1941,
Lala Lajpat Rai
(1865-1928)
Born in a small village of Ludhiana, he
came to be known as
"Punjab Kesari".
tie got
his law degree from Lahore (1880) and set up
his practice in Hissar and then in Lahore. In
1888 he attended the Congress session at
Allahabad. When he saw the injustice of
British rule he became a fiery leader and took
a stand against the British government's
exploitation of India and reducing her into
penury. In 1905 he along with Gokhale went
to England to arouse public opinion on
injustice done to Indians. He was deported to
Burma for leading an aggressive movement in
Punjab. He became follower of Gandhi. In