SPEECH
BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE
BIRTH CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF DR. K. S. KRISHNAN
BANGALORE, TUESDAY,
JULY 28, 1998
It
gives me great pleasure to inaugurate the birth centenary celebrations
of Dr. K.S. Krishnan, an outstanding scientist, a great Indian and a great
human being. I thank Dr. Raja Ramanna and the National Institute of Advanced
Studies for giving me this opportunity.
Dr.
Krishnan was both a symbol and a product of the Indian renaissance that
produced many great figures in India's political, social, intellectual,
scientific and cultural life. It is one of the paradoxes of India that
some of these brilliant minds, men and women, had risen from circumstances
that were adverse historically and materially. Dr. Krishnan was not born
to privilege. Like his senior contemporary C.V. Raman who was born ten
years before him and like the legendary Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born
eleven years before him, Krishnan had to make do with modest circumstances.
Thanks, however, to the social and cultural support systems available
in our society, Krishnan was able to transcend the limitations of a mofussil
upbringing to complete his schooling and, by dint of his sheer brilliance,
complete his university education and become a teacher.
The
year 1928 was a landmark year in the history of Indian science. In that
year C.V. Raman made the fundamental discovery of the Raman Effect in
the molecular scattering of light - a scientific discovery from subject
India that startled the world with a shock of recognition. Like all great
scientific achievements it was the outcome of co-operative work by a group
of brilliant researchers of whom C.V. Raman was the leader and K.S. Krishnan
one of the important collaborators. However they did not have the advantage
of an immense organization where hundreds of researchers worked with expensive
and sophisticated equipment like super computers. It has been said that
the apparatus used by Raman and Krishnan in making their discovery cost
less than Rs.200 - a pocket spectroscope, a pair of complementary glass
filters, a mirror, a condensing lens, and some benzine.
This
is a good occasion for us to recall the fact that the first announcement
of Raman's discovery was made in a letter published in Nature on 3l March
l928, signed jointly by Raman and Krishnan, followed up by details in
another joint letter in Nature on 5 May l928. I am not unaware of the
debate on whether Krishnan has been given enough recognition for his contribution
to the Effect which goes by C.V. Raman's great name, and which brought
Raman the Nobel Prize. I have heard it said that the discovery could have
been called the Raman-Krishnan Effect. But I should like to quote the
great astrophysicist, S. Chandrasekhar, himself a Nobel Laureate, who
said to his biographer, Kameshwar Wali, the following (and I quote): "My
own view is that in a genuine sense, the discovery of the Raman Effect
was possible because two absolutely original scientists (Raman and Krishnan)
complementing each other worked together." (Unquote) It would also be
pertinent to take note of the fact that in Raman's Nobel Lecture,he did
not fail to acknowledge Krishnan's contribution. I think, we can derive
from the Raman-Krishnan collaboration a lesson in coordinated, collective
action. We do tend, in India, to individualize success and unsuccess,
accomplishment and failure, be it in politics, science or even in cricket.
Krishnan gives us the supreme example of a perfect team-mate and the egoless
merger of one's talent in the larger cause.
India's
future as a nation and as a democracy rests on co-operative efforts whether
it is in politics or economics or science and on the just and equitable
sharing of the fruits of our labours among the various sections of its
people. It is always salutary to go back to first principles and so I
would like to remind this gathering that the National Planning Committee
set up in l938 by the Indian National Congress under the chairmanship
of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had as its objectives (I quote) "to speed up
production and organise distribution in such a way as to bring about a
maximum increase in the standard of living within a minimum period of
time." (Unquote) We remain far from that goal, but if we have moved towards
it in any significant measure, it is because Pandit Nehru had laid the
foundations of India's scientific development and had held before the
nation a vision of India's progress through science.
It
is well-known that Nehru described our Five Year Plans as "science in
action" and pleaded for the dissemination of scientific temper among the
people and the promotion of "scientific approach to the problems of society".
Above all, he had set up a strategic coalition between scientists and
economic planners in India - a coalition that continues to this day. The
advancement of science in almost every branch including such fields as
atomic energy and space was planned with vision and executed by dedicated
scientists with vigour and zeal. Apart from Krishnan, Homi Bhabha, Vikram
Sarabhai, Meghnad Saha and many others like Sethna, Dhawan, Raja Ramanna,
C.N.R. Rao, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, R. Chidambaram and a galaxy of other scientists
rose to meet the challenges of the immediate post independence as well
as the current period. We have been fortunate to have scientists strong
in their theoretical knowledge and with a special genius for practical
applications of science and considerable organizational and leadership
qualities. The long-term scenario of India's scientific development worked
out by Bhabha, Sarabhai and their colleagues have stood the test of time
and the needs of the country, and were eminently implementable, and have
been implemented, though with a time lag. Whether it is in regard to atomic
energy, space, computers, or missiles our scientists have achieved startling
successes despite all manner of embargoes by the advanced nations. Those
who impose these embargoes on India do not seem to remember that some
of the fundamental discoveries in Mathematics and Geometry were the contributions
of the Indian civilization and that even in modern times Indian scientists
have made important contributions to the advancement of science. Anyway,
it appears that the genius of India expresses itself at its best in the
face of overwhelming challenges.
No
country has believed in using science and technology for peaceful purposes
and strove to do so as India has done during the last fifty years of our
Independence. And no country has pleaded so passionately and consistently
for disarmament and the elimination of nuclear weapons as India has done.
For twenty four long years after India demonstrated its nuclear capability
it refrained from weaponising this capability, pleading in the meantime
for some substantial progress towards nuclear disarmament by the great
powers. But our pleadings went unheeded. On the other hand the powers
were only refining and sophisticating the destructive capacity of their
vast nuclear weapon arsenals, instead of making any genuine efforts to
reduce and eliminate these weapons.
India
had declared its nuclear option, by implication, even before it became
independent. Jawaharlal Nehru in a statement he made in Bombay on June
26, 1946 referring to the dangerous implications of the use of the atom
bomb on Japan by the United States of America said: "As long as the world
is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the
latest scientific devices for its protection. I have no doubt that India
will develop its scientific research and I hope Indian scientists will
use the atomic power for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened,
she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal.
I hope India, in common with other countries, will prevent the use of
atomic bombs". This peaceful objective of India's scientific development
has been declared again and again. It is my belief that India's nuclear
weapon capability demonstrated recently will act as a catalytic agent
in the international efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons from the faceof
the earth. Our objective is not to blast our way into the Nuclear Club
but to awaken the peoples of the world and work together with all the
nations for the liquidation of any such Club along with the immense stock
of weapons of mass destruction stored in the cellars of this exclusive
club.
Scientists
and the cause of peace are not often seen to go together. That this is
wrong has long been demonstrated by the Pugwash initiative. Scientists
including Dr. Krishnan were passionately devoted to peace. Thanks to the
gift by K.S. Krishnan's family of a document which is now housed in the
Nehru Memorial Library at Teen Murti, New Delhi, we learn that in early
l947, before our independence, unbeknown to Gandhiji, Krishnan (who was
then Professor of Physics at Allahabad) took initiative to recommend the
Nobel Peace Prize for the Father of our Nation. It seems a friend of Krishnan's
on the Nobel Peace Committee had asked for a note on Gandhiji for this
purpose. Mr. Horace Alexander, a prominent British Quaker friend of India
had prepared such a note and sent it to C. Rajagopalachari who in turn
sent it to Dr. Krishnan in a letter dated 21st February, 1947 suggesting
that he may forward it to his "friend in the Nobel Prize Committee who
had asked for the note". Incidentally, the note said of Gandhiji. "He
has tried to show that even the weak, when armed with Right, need not
be quelled by insolent Might", and ended: "Thus, he is the outstanding
man of peace in the world to-day, and his claim to receive the Nobel Peace
Prize would seem to be pre-eminent".
It
is typical of Krishnan that he did this without any fuss. Why the proposal
did not fructify, we will never know. The fact is Gandhiji was passed
over. Next year, in l948, the Nobel Committee was again "bombarded" with
nominations for Gandhiji. But his assassination came two days before February
l, the deadline for the nomination. No prize was awarded that year and
the Committee said there "was no suitable living candidate". Gandhiji's
concept of peace through non-violence was, perhaps, too revolutionary
for the Western minds to accept.
At
Dr. Krishnan's sixtieth birthday, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru paid a tribute
to him. He said: "What is remarkable about Krishnan is not that he is
a great scientist but something much more. He is a perfect citizen, a
whole man with an integrated personality." When Krishnan died, S. Chandrasekhar,
said of him: "Whatever laurels in the world of science he might have won
can in no way appear by contrast as huge or prepossessing when we think
of his intense literary mind keen, subtle and ready to enter with sharp
perception into anything pertaining to the classics like Valmiki-Ramayana
or Kamba Ramayana. It was a delicious hour for me when in l959 at his
National Laboratory I met him only to pay my respects when he simply drew
me into a very absorbing discussion of certain passages by way of comparison
of Kamban with Valmiki. While he was speaking one could not help noticing
the sparkle in his eyes that denoted the capacity of a bright mind undaunted
by any attempt at essaying into regions hardly considered congenial to
a scientist who deals with facts and observable phenomena. He was great
in mind, great in heart and great in his chosen field of research." As
Pandit Nehru put it Dr. Krishnan was "a whole man with an integrated personality."
May
the life and times of Dr. K.S. Krishnan inspire us. I join you all in
paying homage to this great scientist and this great Indian - a truly
Renaissance personality.
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