799 / 822
necessary for him to find a job. He got a
clerical job at the Madras Port Trust in 1911.
He continued his interest in mathematics and
contributed to the Journal of the Indian
Mathematical Society. His work caught the
attention of Professor G.H. Hardy of
Cambridge. Meanwhile Dr. G.T. Walker,
Director of Meteorology, Government of
India, and a former lecturer of Mathematics
in Trinity College, Cambridge was introduced
to Ramanujan and his work by Sir. Francis
Spring, Chairman of the Madras Port Trust.
He at once recognised the quality of
Ramanujan's work and arranged for a
research studentship of Rs. 75 per month in
1912. Two years later Prof. Hardy succeeded
in arranging a research scholarship for
Ramanujan at Trinity College, Cambridge. He
arrived in England in April 1914. The cold
climate and his austere diet led to a
deterioration in his health. He fell ill with
tuberculosis and was admitted to various
sanatoria. In 1918 his health showed signs of
improvement. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society at the age of 31, the second
Indian to get this honour. In 1919, he returned
home. But there was a relapse and he
breathed his last in Madras on April 26,1920.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
(1888- 1958)
Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmed, as he was
named, was born in Mecca in 1888. His father
Maulana Khairuddin, an Arabic scholar and a
divine, after about 30 years in Arabia settled
down in Calcutta. He was married at 13 to a
girl named Zuleikha. His father died when he
was 21. Around this time he went through a
phase of his life when there was "no licence
and no heresy which I was not fated to
experience". He gave himself the appellation
of "Azad" or "free" after this. In 1906 Azad
had attended the Dacca convention at which
the Muslim League was founded but he did
not favour the League's support for the
British. He joined a revolutionary group in
Bengal. In 1912 he started an Urdu jpurnal
called
Al Hilal
which preached Hindu-Muslim
cooperation. In 1916 Azad was externed from
Calcutta. He went to Ranchi in Bihar where he
was interned till 1920. It was in Ranchi that he
began work on his translation of and
commentaiy on 10 of the Quran's 30 chapters,
a work which was finally completed in 1930.
When the internment order was lifted Azad
went to Delhi where he met Mahatma Gandhi
and accepted his leadership of India's struggle.
He also accepted non-violence but only as a
policy not as an everlasting principle.
However, he smoked freely in Gandhi's
presence although he was aware that
Gandhi was opposed to the habit. He became
President of the Indian National Congress in
1923. In 1940 he again became President of
the Congress and held that position through
the War years till 1946 when he was
succeeded by Nehru. He became free India's
first
Minister
for
Education
after
Independence. He was compared by Nehru to
the "French encyclopedists, men of intellect,
men of action. One is continually astonished at
the odd hits of knowledge that came out of
him almost unawares".
Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman
(1888-1970)
Nobel Prize winner and one of the most
brilliant scientists of India. He was born on
7th November 1888 atTrichinopoly. While in
college (Presidency College, Madras) he
submitted his article on Mathematics and
Physics to the Philosophical Magazine,
London. He secured the 1st rank in the
Finance Service examination and joined as
Assistant Accountant-General at Calcutta. The
turning point of his life came when he met Dr
Amritlal Sarkar, Secretary of the Indian
Association for the Cultivation of Science. He
allowed Raman to do research in the
Association laboratories. He got very much
involved in this work and worked on
"Surface
Tension"
and
"Propagation of Light".
Sir
Asutosh Mukherjee, Vice-Chancellor of
Calcutta University, was so much impressed
by young Raman's work that he offered him
the Palit Chair of Physics at the University.
He gave up his government job and joined as
Palit Professor in 1917. His discovery of the
Raman Effect brought him the Nobel Prize for
Physics in 1930. In 1933 he was appointed
Director of the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore. In 1948 he founded The Raman
Research Institute in Bangalore. He was made
the first National Professor in 1948 after
Independence. A gifted speaker he was well
versed in literary and religious classics.
Raman died on November 21, 1970.
Jawaharlal Nehru
(1889-1964)
Descended from Kashmiri Brahmins who
had migrated to India early in the 18th
Century, Jawaharlal Nehru was born in 1889
at Allahabad, where his father, Motilal Nehru
was a highly successful High Court lawyer.
He wrote of his childhood.: "An only son of
prosperous parents is apt to be spoilt,
especially so in India." He studied at home
under English governesses and tutors. When
he was fifteen his father sent him to Harrow.
At seventeen he entered Cambridge
University. And at twenty he went down to
London to take his law degree at the Inns of
Court where Gandhi had studied some two
decades earlier. After seven years in England
Jawaharlal returned to India in 1912 to
practise law with his father. Four years after
his return to India Nehru married Kamala
Kaul who came from a Kashmiri family
settled in Delhi. Nehru met Gandhi for the
first time in
1916
at the Indian National Congress Session
in Lucknow. He was elected President of the
1929
Congress session held in Lucknow
which proclaimed complete independence as
India's political goal. Until then the goal had
been dominion status. He made tours in
remote village areas "experiencing the thrill of
mass feeling, the power of influencing the
mass". He went to jail for the first time in
1921. Over the next 24 years he was to spend
a total of nine years in jail. A visit to the
Soviet Union in 1926-27 impressed him with
the achievements of the Soviet system and
made him a firm believer in Democratic
Socialism. From 1930 onwards he began to be
regarded as Gandhi's heir apparent, although
Gandhi did not officially designate him as his
political heir until 1942. As Prime Minister of
India after independence Nehru shaped India's
foreign policy. He played a leading role in
formulating the policy of non- alignment, the
grouping of a third force of nations who were
neither with the Soviet bloc nor with the US-
led Western bloc. In domestic affairs he
emphasised the importance of both democracy
and socialism. Apart from his stress on
socialism and the basic unity of India, Nehru
was deeply concerned about carrying India
into the modern age of scientific achievement
and technological development. Friendship
with China was one of the planks of Nehru's
policy but this broke down when China
invaded India in 1962 in pursuance of a long-
standing border dispute. Nehru's health
showed signs of deterioration after this. He
died on May 27, 1964 after a fatal stroke.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
(1890-1988)
Born in Uttamanzai village of Peshwar
District in the erstwhile North-West Frontier
Province now apart of Pakistan. He had his
early education at home and in the Mission
High School at Peshawar. He could not pass
the matriculation examination and was sent to
Aligarh where he studied the Urdu
newspapers. These readings created in him an
interest in politics. His regular nationalist
career started in 1919 when after his return