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from Aligarh he plunged into the agitation
against the Rowlatt Bills. He again plunged
into the civil disobedience movement of 1930.
He opposed the separatist policy of the Muslim
League. Due to his close relations with
Mahatma Gandhi, he was known as the
Frontier Gandhi. He founded an organisation
known as the Khudai Khid Matgars (Servants
of God). He subscribed fully to the doctrine of
non-violence which became an article of faith
with him. After the partition of India and the
formation of Pakistan he did not rest. He
started an agitation for the establishment of
Pakhtoonistan and was j ailed a number of
times by the Pakistan Government. After his
last imprisonment he lived in exile in
Afghanistan, returning to his homeland in
1972.
BhimraoRamji Ambedkar
(1891-1956)
He was born in Mhow of Meohar (Un-
touchable) parents. He was the 14th child. All
died except two brothers and two sisters. He
had his early education in Satara. He went to
Columbia University (U.S.A) on a scholarship
from where he went to England to prepare for
the bar. On his return to India he started the
Depressed Classes Education Society to
promote the education of the members of his
community. He organised the Ma- had tank
and Nasik temple entry Satyagrahas. He was
an advocate at the Bombay High Court and a
member of the Bombay Legislative Council in
1927-29. He became professor and then
principal of the Government Law College,
Bombay. In 1930 he entered national politics.
He represented the Untouchables at the Round
Table conference in London in 1930 and
1931. In August 1932 the British Prime
Minister Ramsay MacDonald published the
Communal Award allotting electorates to
eleven minority groups including the
Depressed Classses who had always been
regarded as part of the Hindu social structure
even though despised as "untouchables" by
the caste Hindus. Angered by the fact that
MacDonald had dealt with them as though
they were outside the Hindu pale, Gandhi
announced from Yeravada Jail in Poona that
he would start a fast unto death and break it
only if the award was suitably amended. This
prompted caste Hindu leaders as well as
Ambedkar to rush to his bedside for
discussions. A solution was reached under the
Poona Pact whereby untouchables would
forego separate electorates while getting a
bigger share of general legislative seats.
Gandhi set up an All-India Untouchability
League to fight the prejudice against the de
pressed classes and started his weekly
Har- ijan.
Ambedkar who believed that
"nothing can emancipate the outcast except
the destruction of the caste system" accused
him of trying to preserve this very caste
system. Made a member of the Viceroy's
Executive Council (1942-46) he promoted the
interests of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes
by securing funds for them for education and
reserving posts for them in the Government
services. He was opposed to Jinnah's demand
for Pakistan and believed strongly in the unity
of the country. He felt that although
safeguards were essential for the protection of
the minorities "our ideal is a United India.
Every minority in formulating the safeguards
it needs must take care that they will not be in-
compatible with the realisation of that ideal."
He founded the Scheduled Caste Federation in
1942 (It was renamed the Republican Party of
India in 1957). He gave to his community the
slogan : "
Educate, Organise, Agitate."
He was
chairman of the Drafting committee to frame
the Indian Constitution and came to be known
as the Chief Architect and Father of the Indian
Constitution. He was Law Minister in the
cabinet formed after Independence and drafted
the Hindu Code Bill. He resigned in 1951
because of opposition in the Congress to the
Bill. In October 1956 he ern-. braced
Buddhism. He died in December 1956. In his
tribute to him in Parliament, Nehru said :
"Babasaheb Ambedkar was a symbol of revolt
against all the oppressive features of Hindu
society."
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
(1892- 1964)
J.B.S. Haldane was born in England and
obtained his M.A. from Oxford University. In
1922 he was appointed Reader in
Biochemistry, Cambridge University and
became President of the Genetical Society,
London in 1932. He contributed to many
aspects of biology, including evolution and
population genetics. He is along with R.A.
Fisher and S. Wright one of the three founding
fathers of the mathematical theory of organic
evolution. Haldane based his mathematical
theory of evolution on the laws of Mendelian
inheritance. Haldane's genetical work was not
his only contribution to science. He made
many other valuable contributions in many
diverse fields ranging from botany,
physiology, and medicine to biochemistry,
hematology, statistical theory, cosmology and
mathematics. He studied the behaviour of the
human body under the stress of abnormal
physical environments like intense cold, heat
and pressure or under the influence of toxic
chemicals, gases, poisons, inoculations,
artificially induced fevers and temporarily
induced paralysis. Many of these experiments
were carried out on himself as a human guinea
pig. He was a member of the British
Communist Party but left it following the
prominence given in the Soviet Union during
the Stalin regime to the theories of Lysenko,
the Soviet biologist who repudiated
Mendelian genetics by supporting the theory
of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
He sharply disagreed with the British
Government's stand on Egypt's nationalisation
of the Suez Canal that led to the Suez crisis of
1956. He left England and migrated to India.
He was Professor at the Indian Statistical
Institute, Calcutta from 1957-61 and Director,
Genetics
and
Biometry
Laboratory,
Bhubaneswar from 1962 till his death of
cancer in 1964. He became an Indian citizen
in 1960.
Meghnad Saha
(1893-1956)
Born in Seoratali, near Dacca, he was the
fifth, child of his parents. He was named
Meghnad (roll of thunder) as he was born on a
stormy night. Received his early schooling in
his village and came to Dacca to join college.
In 1911 he joined the Presidency College,
Calcutta, for his science degree. He completed
his B.Sc (Honours) in mathematics and M.Sc
in mixed mathematics obtaining the second
rank in both examinations. His rival who stood
first was Satyendra Nath Bose. He applied for
permission to take the Finance Examination
but was turned down because of his
connections with some revolutionaries. He
joined
the
Department
of
Applied
Mathematics of Calcutta University but since
he could not get along with the professor was
shifted to the physics department by the Vice-
Chancellor Sir Asutosh Mukherjee. In 1918 he
got his doctorate in science. In 1921 he
formulated his theory of Therfnal Ionisation
which was not only a major breakthrough in
Indian science but also opened the doors to an
almost virgin field of astrophysics. In his
article on stars written for the Encylopaedia
Britannica Sir Arthur Eddington described
Saha's theory as the twelfth most important
landmark in the progress of astronomy since
the first variable star was discovered by
Fabricus in 1596. After publishing his theory
Saha went to England. From there he went to
Germany where he met leading physicists like
Einstein, Planck and others. In 1923
differences of opinion arose between. Saha
and C.V.Raman who happened to be the head
of the Physics