Bose led the way with his satyagraha

Multi-faceted scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose was way ahead of his time. He pioneered many scientific discoveries; now, new research into his life reveals that he also pioneered what can only be described as the first use of satyagraha against the British almost two decades ahead of Mahatma Gandhi, who coined the term ‘Satyagraha’ in 1906. This fact about Bose has been spoken about in select seminars on Swadeshi science movement and even at small gatherings of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), but it has not gained wide currency. With India completing 75 years of Independence, a relook is necessary.

The full credit for widely deploying satyagraha to fight the injustice being heaped on Indians by the British is undoubtedly fully credited to the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and that is well beyond question.

JC Bose (1858-1937), considered one of the most illustrious scientists of India, was also a freedom fighter who not only discovered wireless or microwave communication well before Guglielmo Marconi but also discovered that plants can also ‘feel’. He was a physicist as well as a botanist and was responsible for setting up the Bose Institute in Kolkata. Many say the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics, which was awarded to Marconi, should ideally have been awarded to Acharya JC Bose for his path-breaking work on ‘millimetre range wavelength microwaves’ and for his 1894 public demonstration at Town Hall of Calcutta, during which Bose ignited gunpowder and rang a bell at a distance. His scientific capabilities are simply superb, but his use of satyagraha is a hidden jewel among the annals of how Indian scientists contributed to fighting for Independence.

Writing in the booklet Indian Independence Movement & the Role of Science brought out by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Jayant Sahasrabudhe, who trained at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, and is now the National Organising Secretary, Vigyan Bharati, says, “Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, well-known as the first Indian scientist of the modern era, displayed amazing Indian intellectual capabilities to the world, especially to the West. As a patriot, he did a first ‘satyagraha’. Upon his return to India from England (1884), after completing his studies in Physics with high distinction, he was willing to teach the subject. Here, he confronted injustice and racial discrimination inflicted by the British rule, under which the education service was practically segregated into two distinct racial camps — Imperial Service for the British and the Provincial Service for Indians — having the very same duties and responsibilities, but with much lower pay. After entering on his duties, Bose found that this two-third pay was to be further reduced by one half, since his appointment was only officiating. In other words, he was to get one-third of the normal pay. Refusing to submit to this oppression, Bose initiated a struggle with protest, a ‘satyagraha’. Records suggest that Bose continued to perform his duties but refused to encash the cheques for three continuous years that he received from the British government as a form of ‘new protest’.

Speaking earlier this month on the subject ‘Patriots, Scientists, Forgotten Heroes’ on Indian social media platform khulke.com, Sahasrabudhe said that “Acharya JC Bose refusing to encash his cheques for three years and then forcing the British to concede to his just and fair demand even as he continued to do his teaching work with the same vigour was truly the first use of ‘satyagraha’ to make a point against the British rule”. Sahasrabudhe says Bose was very upset with the insinuations made by the then British administration that ‘Indians have no aptitude for exact methods of science, no Indian can teach science’ and hence they can never practice science, suggesting of a racial inferiority complex being thrust on the ‘dark skinned’ Indians by the white skinned colonisers. Bose rebelled in his own satyagrahi fashion and brought the British to accept his demands of equality.

Sahasrabudhe asserts that this was way ahead of Mahatma Gandhi using satyagraha as a non-violent tool to oust the British from India. He says Gandhi launched satyagraha in 1917 during the Champaran Movement. Sahasrabudhe emphasises that JC Bose as an Indian nationalist scientist in 1894 became the first satyagrahi almost 23 years ahead of the Champaran Satyagraha.

This fact is also documented in the 1920 book by British scientist Patrick Geddes, The Life and Work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose. He notes: “When Bose joined the service, an Indian professor’s income, even if in the Imperial Service, was two-thirds that of a European’s (Bose succeeded later in getting this distinction abolished).

From the first, he was very clear as to his course, that of performing all that could be asked from him and more; but at the same time, he resolved to do all in his power throughout his career towards raising the status of Indian professors. With this combination of personal pride and loyalty to his countrymen and colleagues, he decided on a new form of protest, and maintained it with unprecedented definiteness and pertinacity. As his protest was disregarded, he resolved never to touch the cheque received by him monthly as his pay; and continued this for three years. Sahasrabudhe says ‘the British authorities yielded before this determined non-violent resistance’.

A 2022 biography, Unsung Genius: A Life of Jagadish Chandra Bose, by Kunal Ghosh, a former Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, talks about the “racial discrimination” he faced and it also describes that ‘his early years as a teacher were difficult, as he battled racism from British colonialists, who constantly put stumbling blocks in his research. But Bose ignored them, even fighting for his rights by refusing to accept a lower salary for years’. It also reiterates ‘why Bose, and not Marconi, should have won the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research into radio waves’. Truly, an unsung genius forgotten even in India!

Sahasrabudhe adds that in 1895, Bose made a ground-breaking discovery through which he pioneered wireless communication. Bose was driven by a nationalistic spirit. This, many say, was undoubtedly the first satyagraha. Through his actions and thought, Acharya JC Bose was certainly way ahead of his time.