Eternal India Encyclopedia

the Congress session in Calcutta in 1911. This was to become the Indian national anthem. Translating into English -the devotional poems written after the death of his wife (1902) and his daughter and son Shamindra (1907), he published in 1912 the collection entitled Gitanjali (Song Offerings). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 and is reported to have said: "I shall never have peace again." Tagore and Gandhi met for the first time at Santiniketan on March 6, 1915. In 1916 he visited Japan where he was welcomed and lavishly feted. But when he started speaking against Nationalism the welcome changed to indifference and when he left there was only one person, his host, to see him off. In April 1919 after the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, he renounced his knighthood. After his return from a visit to Dacca he was faced by a communal riot in Calcutta. The victims sought shelter in the Tagore mansion. He wrote "If, after making a bonfire of religiosity, India can acquire a new religion, even genuine atheism, she will be truly reborn." He accepted Mussolini's invitation to visit Italy. He went and gave out his favourable impressions about Mussolini's Italy. When he later met Romain Rolland, Tagore was taken to task for showering encomiums on a Fascist regime. When the Sino - Japanese war broke out the Japanese poet, Ono Noguchi, wrote to him to support the Japanese aggression. Tagore in his reply said, "Wishing your people, whom I love, not success but remorse." Right down to his 80th year Tagore never lost his interest in creation and expressed his delight in life through a ceaseless outpouring of poetry, prose, drama and song. In his 70s he wrote a text-book on elementary science which explained the theory of relativity and the working of the Solar System. He passed away on August 7,1941, Born in a small village of Ludhiana, he came to be known as "Punjab Kesari". tie got his law degree from Lahore (1880) and set up his practice in Hissar and then in Lahore. In 1888 he attended the Congress session at Allahabad. When he saw the injustice of British rule he became a fiery leader and took a stand against the British government's exploitation of India and reducing her into penury. In 1905 he along with Gokhale went to England to arouse public opinion on injustice done to Indians. He was deported to Burma for leading an aggressive movement in Punjab. He became follower of Gandhi. In Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928)

the newly founded university college of science. In 1892 he had started a chemical plant in Calcutta which was to grow into the now famous Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. He passed away in 1944. Jawaharlal Nehru paid him this tribute. "Acharya Ray was one of the giants of old, and more particularly, he was a shining light in the field of science. His frail figure, his ardent patriotism, his scholarship and his simplicity impressed me greatly in my youth. It is well that we remember and honour our greatmen who have passed away after a lifetime of service." Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Described as a Renaissance figure and the Complete Man, Rabindranath Tagore was many things, besides being a poet: dramatist, writer of short stories, novelist, painter, innovator in education and rural reconstruction and champion of the One World Ideal. His grandfather, Dwarkanath, who built the family fortune, was known as a "Prince". His father Maharishi Devendranath Tagore broke away from orthodox Hinduism and became a leader of the Brahmo Samaj. Rabindranath, the fourteenth child, was born on May 7, 1861 in the ancestral mansion, Jorasanko, in central Calcutta. He was sent to a school but the formal education did not suit him and he became a dropout at the age of 13. His education continued in the Tagore household which" was suffused with literature and music. In 1883 he was married to the daughter of one of the junior officers of the family estate. In 1901 he founded a school at Santiniketan, the rural retreat where his father used to pass his days in meditation. Not bookish learning by rote but creative education through the mother tongue was Tagore's ideal which he sought to realise at Santiniketan where all the creative and performing arts were taught. In 1921 Tagore opened his Viswa-Bharati University at Santiniketan dedicating it to his ideal of world brotherhood and cultural interchange: "To study the mind of Man in its realisation of different aspects of truth from different points of view." During the campaign against the partition of Bengal (1905), Tagore wrote "Sonar Bangla" (Golden Bengal) which was to become the national anthem of Bangladesh. He became a people's poet. He took part in a procession singing his own song - "Let the hearts of our people be one." In 1908 he withdrew from Bengal politics in disgust at the extremist excesses of the anti-partition agitation and was virtually ostracised. " Janaganamana " was written for

Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944)

Born on August 2,1861 in a village in the district of Khulna now in Bangladesh, Prafulla Chandra Ray's early interest in chemistry can be traced to the extremely stimulating lectures of Alexander Pedler who was then Professor of Chemistry at the Presidency College, Calcutta. In 1882 when he was 21 he appeared at a competitive examination and won the Gilchrist prize which enabled him to go to Edinburgh for further studies. On his return to Calcutta in 1888 after obtaining his BSc and DSc degrees, P.C. Ray had to struggle hard for a year to get a job. In 1889 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Presidency College in a temporary capacity. In 1895 his discovery of the method of preparation of Mercurous Nitrite was published in as many as 140 communications to chemical journals. In 1902 he published "A History of Hindu Chemistry". In 1912 the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University remarked while conferring the honorary degree of DSc on Ray : "A keen and successful investigator he had long made his mark by contributions to scientific periodicals, both English and German, but his fame chiefly rests on his monumental History of Hindu Chemistry, a work of which both the scientific and linguistic attainments are equally remarkable, and of which, if on any book, we may pronounce that it is definitive." In 1904 P. C. Ray went on study leave to England and Europe to study modern trends and the progress of chemistry. In France he was a specially invited guest at the sitting of the Academy of Science and was introduced to M. Troost, President of the Academy and an eminent scientist. He was struck by the youthful appearance of M. Troost at the age of 71. He saw Moissan, the inventor of Calcium Carbide and artificial diamonds. He returned to Calcutta and compared the people and youths of England, France and Germany with the youths of Bengal. "In Bengal my sad experience is that even young men approach a subject in a half-hearted manner. Any initial difficulty disheartens them; they would like to have their path strewn with roses. An English youth, on the other hand, whenever he encounters any hardship, is put on the mettle, it calls forth his latent energies. The Bengali is cheerless, does not know how to enjoy life. He is dreamy and loves to lead a somnolent sort of existence. The average Bengali reminds one of Tennyson's Lotus Eaters." He retired as Professor of Chemistry from the Presidency College in 1916 and later became the Palit Professor of Chemistry at