This highly interesting well-documented historical study entitled Science and Nationalism in Bengal: 1876-1947, dealing with all relevant important aspects of the theme not yet much explored, comprises the biennial Professor H. K. Barpujari Endowment Lectures (2003-04) delivered by a distinguished historian Dr. Chittabrata Palit, Professor of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in March, 2004. It is really gratifying to bring out this learned treatise within a few months of his delivering the lectures at the Institute. Professor Palit well deserves our sincerest thanks for presenting the manuscript for publication without any delay. He has fittingly dedicated the volume to the sacred memory of the late Professor Barpujari, a great benefactor and patron of the Institute. We must also offer our thanks to the Aruna Printers for performing their task quite promptly and efficiently. Dr. Ashoke Kumar Chakraborty, the Registrar of the Institute, and other members of our office staff have been of great help in coordinating the press-work for the timely publication of the manuscript as submitted by the author. We hope and believe that both scholars and general readers will duly appreciate the publication of this scholarly monograph.
It is happy news that this title has been all sold out. Yet there is a further demand from the interested readers and researchers. This has prompted me to undertake a revised edition with two more research papers on Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose and Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray. This enlargement makes the subject more comprehensive. Both Jagadish Chandra and Prafulla Chandra were imbued with a deep sense of nationalism and patriotism and reflected it whatever work they undertook. The tradition set up by Satish Chandra Mukherjee and Mahendralal Sircar was brought to its fullest flowering. Excellence in science was also a hallmark of our Bengal Renaissance. Whatever may be the western attitude of Orientalism, the Bengal scientists proved their mettle and deserve a place in the gallery of world science. The author would be rewarded if this edition also is welcome by the reading public and again sold out.
Colonial science, as viewed by Western scholars from William Jones down to George Basalla, meant the advent of Western science in a country without scientific heritage, interaction with its land and people and its transformation into modernity. It provoked a nationalist reply. To a nationalist, colonial science was discovery of India's natural and intellectual resources and their transfer to the West.
Through the Asiatic Society and the government surveys, Western science and technology entered India in trickles. This was not enough to transform India into an industrial society. It was not the intention of the colonial government to impart scientific and technical education in schools and colleges. It was afraid that spread of science would lead to industrialization in India and it would not become the exclusive market for British manufactured goods. So despite appeals by men like Rammohun Roy and Mahendralal Sircar, only elementary sciences were introduced in government colleges to train pupils to man the scientific institutions as assistants. Schools were even denied this privilege. Even when the Calcutta University was established in 1857 it had no programme of higher studies in sciences. The Bengal Engineering College that was established in 1854 only provided elementary training in civil and electrical engineering to get Indian overseers for the Public Works Department. After years of collaboration with the authority’s national aspiration rose for self reliance in science and technology. A nationalist movement was launched by Mahendralal Sircar since 1867 for a national science association. His labours were not in vain. He got a very good response from his countrymen in terms of financial and intellectual support, and in 1876 the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science was established. It undertook higher studies in science to create a pool of Indian scientists for national reconstruction. The IACS carried out its successful agenda of spreading both higher studies in science and popular science. Though Sircar died in 1904, it still remains a premier national science association in India today. The nationalist pursuit of science and technology has been termed by me as national science in reply to what goes in the name of colonial science. After Mahendralal, the torch of national science was carried on by Satish Chandra Mukherjee through his Dawn Society between 1902-1906. This shaded off to the birth of the National Council of Education in 1906 in the wake of the Universities Act of 1904 restricting proliferation of Swadeshi colleges and the Partition of Bengal in 1905 planned by Lord Curzon to break the backbone of the Bengali Hindu middle class who were indulging in Swadeshi agitation. There was massive protest against these measures of repression and an alternative national education system was launched by the NCE, Bengal from 1906 supported and funded by the native aristrocracy and intelligentsia. It ran over twenty two mofussil schools and two colleges in Calcutta on national lines. Though the schools languished after sometime for lack of funds, the two colleges survived.
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