J.C. Bose was a pioneering Indian scientist in the late 19th century. He made important contributions to the study of radio and plant science. Some of his key achievements included being the first to publish on microwave optics and wireless communication. He conducted early experiments on wireless telegraphy in 1895 in Calcutta. While Bose's work was recognized by the Royal Society and he received some grants, his innovations were not fully adopted in India at the time. Bose rejected commercializing his work through patents, and he was later "rishified" or portrayed as reviving ancient Indian scientific traditions rather than being part of modern Western science.

1. J. C. Bose
in scientific and national contexts
Rajesh Kochhar
rkochhar2000@yahoo.com
Indian National Science Academy Webinar
30 Nov. 2021
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2. 2
• Friends
• It is a matter of great pleasure and honour
for me to be speaking on Jagadis Chunder
Bose [his spellings], under the auspices of
Indian National Science Academy.
• I am thankful to the Academy and its
President, Prof Chandrima Shaha, for
giving me this opportunity.

3. 3
• J C Bose was the first tangible proof that members of a
slave country could be the equals of their European
masters. Bose and P C Ray were India’s (and non-
Western world’s) first mainstream modern scientists.
Both burst on the world scene in 1895. At its 12th
session held in Calcutta in December 1896, Indian
National Congress took note of their, especially Bose’s,
achievements.
• For later reference, note that Bose’s pioneering demo of
wireless telegraphy, that took place before his tour of
Europe, was not mentioned.

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• Indian science as certified by the West was seen as
part of nationalism
• -
• Creativity-wise, Bose’s work ranks higher than
Ray’s (on mercurous nitrite). Ray however
remained focused, created a flourishing school of
chemistry, and founded pharmaceuticals-oriented
industry. In contrast Bose’s world-fame researches
remained personal .

5. • Bose experimentally studied properties of extremely
short-length, radio waves. For his work, he invented
new instruments. Europe was happy to work with
metal to make radio detectors. But since metal rusts
in the damp climate of Bengal, Bose experimented
with a whole new class of “natural substances”
including even jute. His work on galena was
especially of great intrinsic value to the world of
science. It is the ecological aspects of his physics that
made his work valuable to the West.
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6. • His physics work lasted barely 6-7 years, from
1895 till about 1901. From 1903 till end, all
his publications are on plant physiology. His
plant work is better appreciated now. But in its
time, it was considered an embarrassment.
Most of it was not published in any
mainstream journal, and delayed his election
as FRS till 1920. By this time, Britain had lost
much of its shine due to First World War, and
Bose had retired from Presidency College.
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7. • His impact on India is more psychological than
material. His appeal and message went beyond the
science that made him famous. He came to carry an
aura, and as Ray noted, exerted a great “moral effect”
on “the impressionable minds of the youth of Bengal”.
• -
• India created a composite Bose by transferring
international recognition of Radio Bose to Plant Bose.
He was perceived as an original modern
thinker/researcher on issues that jelled with ancient
Indian philosophy rather than as a part of the European
science machine to which he owed his name and fame
•
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8. • Bose passed his BA from St Xavier’s College,
Calcutta, in 1880. The same year he was sent
to University College London to study
medicine. But because of recurrent fever (now
believed to be Kala Azar), he decided to
abandon medicine and transfer to physics at
Cambridge. He did not go on a scholarship. He
got it when he was there.
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9. • He passed BA ( Natural Science Tripos) in
1884 in second division. The same year or the
next (when exactly? he obtained BSc degree
from University College, London.
• One of his teachers in Cambridge was Lord
Rayleigh who remained his life-long well-
wisher and promoter.
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10. Lord Ripon
• Bose’s sister’s husband, Ananda Mohan Bose, was
a former student of Christ’s College, and a leading
public figure of his time. Anand Mohan arranged
for Bose to call on the former Cambridge
economist, Professor Henry Fawcett, who was now
the Post Master General. Fawcett consulted Lord
Kimberley, Secretary for State for India, who
advised Bose to go back to India and see.
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11. • Armed with an introduction from Fawcett, he met
the Viceroy, Lord Ripon, at Simla. The Viceroy
promised to nominate him for the Imperial
Educational Service, and duly sent his
recommendation to the Government of Bengal.
When Bose called on the Director of Public
Instruction at Calcutta, the latter expressed his
displeasure saying: “I am usually approached from
below, not from above.”
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12. • DPI offered Bose an appointment in the Provincial
Service, which he refused. He was next offered a
position in the Imperial Service. However, there was
a rule by which “a native officer is only allowed to
draw two-thirds of the pay that would be drawn by an
English officer doing the same duty”. Bose accepted
the appointment as Professor in Presidency College
Calcutta in 1885 but insisted on full pay. By way of
protest, he did not draw his salary for three years after
which the Government yielded and paid the back
arrears.
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13. Hertzian waves
13
• First nine years of his professional life were
uneventful. Hertz’ death, in 1894, made him aware
of Hertzian waves. Oliver Lodge was a leading
expert on these waves who had improvised a
detector which he called coherer. He gave at Royal
Institution a memorial lecture on “the Work of
Hertz”. The lecture text was then expanded and
published as a short book.

14. • Lodge succeeded “in disseminating an
understanding of the properties of Hertzian
waves beyond the small circle of mathematical
physicists to whom the subject had appealed
hitherto”. He “provided very simple and
precise instructions whereby such detectors
could readily be duplicated, even by unskilled
hands”. It was Lodge’s book that introduced
Bose to the exciting new world of radio waves.
The results that Bose obtained were quick,
spectacular, and beyond his own wildest
imagination.
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15. • To sum up in advance, Bose first published his
results in Calcutta in May 1895. His first paper
was published by Royal Society on 12
December 1895, and the second on 1 January
1897. He visited Europe for six months during
1896-1897, and then again for about two years,
from July 1900 till late 1902. ( Subsequently,
there were other visits also.)
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16. First publication (1895)
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• He presented his first results at the Asiatic
Society of Bengal which published them in the
May 1895 issue of its Journal. According to
P.C. Ray, Bose “had not then realized the
importance of the new line of research he had
hit upon”. Bose sent a reprint to Rayleigh who
immediately saw its worth and got an abridged
version published in The Electrician .

17. Wireless telegraphy in Calcutta (1895-
1896)
17
• There is mention of three wireless demos: in Presidency
College (1895), Town Hall (1895), and British India
Association Rooms (1896). Of these only the last one is
attested by press report.
• Acc to secondary sources, in 1895, in Presidency College
radio waves were generated in Ray’s office and received
in an adjacent room where they fired a pistol. Ray does
not mention it in his autobiography. {What is the primary
source for this?}

18. • In c. 1921, that is 25 years later, Bose published an
essay in Bengali: Adrishya Alok [invisible light]. He
said he gave a demo in the Town Hall in 1895 in the
presence of the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Alexander
Mackenzie, whom he wrongly called William.
Mackenzie took office only on 18 December 1895. If
he presided, the event could have taken place only
after that date.
• .
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19. • Bose described the experiment later in 1896, in
England, in an interview to an American journalist :
Electric waves were generated through a spark.
They passed through three 18-inch thick, brick-and-
mortar walls, were received in a room 75 feet distant,
where they were able to fire a pistol and ring a bell. (
Does the description fit a portion of Town Hall?)
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20. • On 20 Feb.1896, British India Association Rooms
played host to Mackenzie, his wife, high officials of
the European Service, members of the Legislative
Council, and the leading members of the Calcutta
Native Society.
• “Professor J C Bose's electric performances added a
most enjoyable air of scientific pastime which was
thoroughly liked by all present”.
• (Event reported in Amrita Bazar Patrika, 24 Feb.
1896. Source Ashish Lahiri)
• 20

21. • Did Lt Gov attend two Bose events within a short span
of two months? Were there two demos or one? Was Bose
mistaken about the Town Hall event? The issue can
easily be resolved by examining the official engagement
diary of the Lt Gov.
• In any case, it is significant that Calcutta audience failed
to recognize the historical significance of Bose’s wireless
telegraphy. Congress Resolution of December 1896 does
not mention the experimdent.
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22. • Calcuttans did not know that they were witnessing
the first ever world experiment on wireless. India at
the time had no scientific or industrial community, no
acquaintance with the significance of Hertzian waves.
Bose’s pioneering experimentation, for Calcutta, was
no more than an amusing scientific pastime, worthy of
display in front of a Lieutenant Governor and high
officialdom.
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23. • In 1897, Father Lafont assisted by a Tagore boy (Maharaja
Jotindro Mohan Tagore’s son Pradyot Kumar), took the X-
ray image of the Viceroy Lord Elgin’s hand, decorated with
a rin,g and won a photography prize for the effort Earlier,
Dr Mahendralal Sircar’s social stock went up when the
Viceroy, Lord Lytton, invited him to display the spectacle
of the newly invented Crooke’s tube. It was later used in
Europe to discover the electron. Scientific apparatus which
served as a research tool for Europe was but a toy for
India.
• Bose’s work was innovative, but not part of Calcutta
culture
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24. Royal Society
24
Rayleigh became a link between Bose and Royal Society.
Bose sent his paper to Rayleigh who communicated it to the
Society. It was received by the Society on 20 October 1895,
and published in its Proceedings on 12 December 1895. Note
that it appeared in 1895 itself and not 1896, as is almost
invariably stated.

25. DSc
25
On the basis of this paper, Bose was awarded DSc by
University College, London, and MA by University of
Cambridge, both in 1896. Bose’s next paper was received at
the Royal Society on 2 June 1896, and published on 1
January 1897. Here both these degrees are attached to his
name.

26. Royal Society Grant
26
Out of the Parliamentary Grant of £1000 given to it, the
Royal Society sanctioned Bose £15 in 1896-97, and £20 in
1897-98. ( I found this from old published records. ) It is
likely that the two grants were given to enable Bose to
prepare experimental demonstration in London. British
India on its own was not enthused by scientific
accomplishment of Indians, but it was sensitive to
recognition given by English establishment. Government
now gave him an annual research grant, and six-month
study leave in 1896-1897.

27. Invention versus Innovation
27
Invention and Innovation are not synonyms. Individuals are
inventive; systems are innovative. Invention is the outcome of
an individual’s creative effort. It becomes an innovation only
when it is accepted by the system and incorporated into its
scheme of things. The West transformed Bose’s invention into
an innovation for itself.

28. British Navy
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• The first institution to appreciate Bose’s work was
British Navy. In 1891, it was seeking some means
of communication by which a torpedo boat could
announce its approach to a friendly ship. As soon as
Bose’s coherer became known, it was immediately
employed to establish communication from one end
of the ship to the other.

29. Andaman
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• Cyclones that visited Bay of Bengal and damaged ships
arose near Andaman. If wireless was established between
mainland and the islands, prior information on cycloes
could be received and “some frightful disaster to shipping”
averted. On these consideration, Lt Gov of Andaman and
Nicobar, Sir R C Temple, studied the “Marconi system”
while in England on leave.

30. Bose in England
30
• In 1896 in England, Bose got a duplicate made of his
equipment by the best firm of instrument makers in
London which “expressed a wish to make copies of the
same instruments for supply in the laboratories of Europe
and America”.
• The Electric Engineer expressed “surprise that no secret
was at any time made as to its construction, so that it has
been open to all the world to adopt it for practical and
possibly money-making purposes”.

31. Anti-patenting
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In 1901, Dr Alexander Muirhead), like Bose a doctorate in
science from London University, and now a manufacturer of
telegraphic equipment, proposed that Bose patent his
discoveries and share profits with Muirhead. Bose however
rejected the suggestion with contempt. On 30 September
1901, a patent was filed in USA in Bose’s name, assigning
half of the royalty to Sara Chapman Bull, better known as
Mrs Ole Bull after her Norwegian husband . The patent was
granted on 29 March 1904. Bose refused to encash the patent
and let it lapse.

32. Sister Nivedita
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• There is an irony that has been missed. Bose
though a physics professor in a college was still a
product of an orientalized East; accordingly he was
repelled by the idea of making money from his
inventions. On the other hand, Sister Nivedita
(born Margaret Noble) though a spiritual person
was still a child of western industrial culture; she
was all for patents and royalties .

33. Rishification
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• The Spectator described him as “a Bengalee of
the purest descent possible”, implying kinship
with Europeans on the basis of Aryan Race
theory. The former President of the French
Academy of Sciences, Alfred Cornu, exhorted
Bose: “You must try to revive the grand traditions
of your race, which bore aloft the torchlight of art
and science and was the leader of civilization two
thousand years ago.”

34. Tagore
34
• Rabindranath Tagore, whose own world fame was
still into the future, wrote to Bose in England on 17
September 1900: “We need not understand what you
have achieved… we shall simply help ourselves to all
the credit when The Times publishes words of praise
from the lips of Englishmen”.

35. • Continuing in the same vein, Tagore
wrote to Bose on 4 June 1901: “I bow my
heart at the feet of the God who has
chosen you as the instrument of removal
of India’s shame”. Those were indeed the
days when God operated through the
West.
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36. . In 1901 itself Tagore wrote a poem in Bengali,
titled To Jagadishchandra Bose, which
dramatically opened with the lines: “Young image
of what old Rishi of Ind/Art thou, O Arya savant,
Jagadis? Towards the close, the poet says: ‘So
may our India, Our ancient land, unto herself
return’. For the English-educated Indians, modern
science was not a solution to current problems but
a revival of old textual traditions. In retrospect,
rishification of Bose was a hindrance in
appreciating science as an agency for production
of wealth.
• .
36

37. • As Ray reminded his audience on the occasion
of Bose’s knighthood (1916), Bose would have
made millions for himself as royalty. Even
more importantly, he would have become a
role model for production of wealth through
science. But at the time India was interested in
“showing the world” rather than becoming part
of Western machinery.
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38. Victimhood
• A 100 years after Bose, India seems to have
come to the rather distressing realization that it
is unlikely to make any pioneering scientific
inventions any more. It has therefore decided
to bestow victimhood on Bose.
• It has been claimed that Marconi cheated Bose
and that Bose should have received the Nobel
Prize.
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39. • There is no doubt that the British in India, as a
body, practised discrimination against the
natives, and lost no opportunity to put them in
their place. But, Bose personally had no reason
to complain on that count. Bose was placed in
the European grade by the Viceroy himself.
True that he had to agitate for three long years
to get equal pay, but he did succeed finally.
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40. • At professional level, top-class Western scientists
supported the Radio Bose. He was even offered a
“new professorship in a renowned university” .
The West was ready to co-opt Bose. But Bose
was not willing to be co-opted.
• -
• It is true that Marconi made use of the concept of
a coherer Bose had devised and described two
years previously. But there was no stealth
involved, because Marconi used information that
was already in public domain.
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41. • Indian criticism of the West would have been justified if
Bose had been in competition for the Prize and had been
deliberately sidelined. By the time of Marconi’s Prize, Bose
was an ex-physicist. Had Bose continued with his radio
work, and built a scientific network in the West, someone in
Europe or North America might have nominated him. In
case of both Raman and Tagore, there was canvassing or
campaigning by the candidate or on his behalf. Any decision
by a committee is open to influences. They do not work in a
vacuum.
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42. • Fred Hoyle did not get a share in Noble Physics
Prize even though his junior co-author, William
Fowler, did, for work on stellar nucleo-
synthesis. The reason for his neglect was that his
later ideas were considered maverick.
• Harry Kroto, the 1974 Chemistry Nobel Laureate,
noted that the Nobel Prize is not just an award for
a piece of work, but a recognition of a scientist’s
overall reputation.
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43. • If Bose had persisted with wireless telegraphy,
and canvassed for the Nobel Prize , he may
have received it. But by the time it was given
to Marconi, he had disqualified himself.
because it would have been construed as
recognition of his plant work. Did he ever
express a wish for the Prize? Non-Nobel for
Bose is our problem; it did not affect him.
Had he been given choice between (i) Nobel
physics prize and (ii) mainstream recognition
of his plant research, I think he would have
opted for the latter.
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44. In conclusion
44
• Chronologically, Bose was the first one to demonstrate
wireless telegraphy. His research focus however was on
experimental study of radio waves. When his work was
recent, it was duly recognized. In course of time,
physicists, engineers, and historians simply forgot him.
• There is however now an increasing realization
that a world history of radio waves must include
Bose’s name.

45. 45
•Thank you