Eternal India Encyclopedia

from Aligarh he plunged into the agitation against the Rowlatt Bills. He again plunged into the civil disobedience movement of 1930. He opposed the separatist policy of the Muslim League. Due to his close relations with Mahatma Gandhi, he was known as the Frontier Gandhi. He founded an organisation known as the Khudai Khid Matgars (Servants of God). He subscribed fully to the doctrine of non-violence which became an article of faith with him. After the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan he did not rest. He started an agitation for the establishment of Pakhtoonistan and was j ailed a number of times by the Pakistan Government. After his last imprisonment he lived in exile in Afghanistan, returning to his homeland in 1972. He was born in Mhow of Meohar (Un- touchable) parents. He was the 14th child. All died except two brothers and two sisters. He had his early education in Satara. He went to Columbia University (U.S.A) on a scholarship from where he went to England to prepare for the bar. On his return to India he started the Depressed Classes Education Society to promote the education of the members of his community. He organised the Ma- had tank and Nasik temple entry Satyagrahas. He was an advocate at the Bombay High Court and a member of the Bombay Legislative Council in 1927-29. He became professor and then principal of the Government Law College, Bombay. In 1930 he entered national politics. He represented the Untouchables at the Round Table conference in London in 1930 and 1931. In August 1932 the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald published the Communal Award allotting electorates to eleven minority groups including the Depressed Classses who had always been regarded as part of the Hindu social structure even though despised as "untouchables" by the caste Hindus. Angered by the fact that MacDonald had dealt with them as though they were outside the Hindu pale, Gandhi announced from Yeravada Jail in Poona that he would start a fast unto death and break it only if the award was suitably amended. This prompted caste Hindu leaders as well as Ambedkar to rush to his bedside for discussions. A solution was reached under the Poona Pact whereby untouchables would forego separate electorates while getting a bigger share of general legislative seats. Gandhi set up an All-India Untouchability League to fight the prejudice against the de BhimraoRamji Ambedkar (1891-1956)

pressed classes and started his weekly Har- ijan. Ambedkar who believed that "nothing can emancipate the outcast except the destruction of the caste system" accused him of trying to preserve this very caste system. Made a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1942-46) he promoted the interests of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes by securing funds for them for education and reserving posts for them in the Government services. He was opposed to Jinnah's demand for Pakistan and believed strongly in the unity of the country. He felt that although safeguards were essential for the protection of the minorities "our ideal is a United India. Every minority in formulating the safeguards it needs must take care that they will not be in- compatible with the realisation of that ideal." He founded the Scheduled Caste Federation in 1942 (It was renamed the Republican Party of India in 1957). He gave to his community the slogan : " Educate, Organise, Agitate." He was chairman of the Drafting committee to frame the Indian Constitution and came to be known as the Chief Architect and Father of the Indian Constitution. He was Law Minister in the cabinet formed after Independence and drafted the Hindu Code Bill. He resigned in 1951 because of opposition in the Congress to the Bill. In October 1956 he ern-. braced Buddhism. He died in December 1956. In his tribute to him in Parliament, Nehru said : "Babasaheb Ambedkar was a symbol of revolt against all the oppressive features of Hindu society." John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892- 1964) J.B.S. Haldane was born in England and obtained his M.A. from Oxford University. In 1922 he was appointed Reader in Biochemistry, Cambridge University and became President of the Genetical Society, London in 1932. He contributed to many aspects of biology, including evolution and population genetics. He is along with R.A. Fisher and S. Wright one of the three founding fathers of the mathematical theory of organic evolution. Haldane based his mathematical theory of evolution on the laws of Mendelian inheritance. Haldane's genetical work was not his only contribution to science. He made many other valuable contributions in many diverse fields ranging from botany, physiology, and medicine to biochemistry, hematology, statistical theory, cosmology and mathematics. He studied the behaviour of the human body under the stress of abnormal physical environments like intense cold, heat and pressure or under the influence of toxic

chemicals, gases, poisons, inoculations, artificially induced fevers and temporarily induced paralysis. Many of these experiments were carried out on himself as a human guinea pig. He was a member of the British Communist Party but left it following the prominence given in the Soviet Union during the Stalin regime to the theories of Lysenko, the Soviet biologist who repudiated Mendelian genetics by supporting the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He sharply disagreed with the British Government's stand on Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez Canal that led to the Suez crisis of 1956. He left England and migrated to India. He was Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta from 1957-61 and Director, Genetics and Biometry Laboratory, Bhubaneswar from 1962 till his death of cancer in 1964. He became an Indian citizen in 1960. Meghnad Saha (1893-1956) Born in Seoratali, near Dacca, he was the fifth, child of his parents. He was named Meghnad (roll of thunder) as he was born on a stormy night. Received his early schooling in his village and came to Dacca to join college. In 1911 he joined the Presidency College, Calcutta, for his science degree. He completed his B.Sc (Honours) in mathematics and M.Sc in mixed mathematics obtaining the second rank in both examinations. His rival who stood first was Satyendra Nath Bose. He applied for permission to take the Finance Examination but was turned down because of his connections with some revolutionaries. He joined the Department of Applied Mathematics of Calcutta University but since he could not get along with the professor was shifted to the physics department by the Vice- Chancellor Sir Asutosh Mukherjee. In 1918 he got his doctorate in science. In 1921 he formulated his theory of Therfnal Ionisation which was not only a major breakthrough in Indian science but also opened the doors to an almost virgin field of astrophysics. In his article on stars written for the Encylopaedia Britannica Sir Arthur Eddington described Saha's theory as the twelfth most important landmark in the progress of astronomy since the first variable star was discovered by Fabricus in 1596. After publishing his theory Saha went to England. From there he went to Germany where he met leading physicists like Einstein, Planck and others. In 1923 differences of opinion arose between. Saha and C.V.Raman who happened to be the head of the Physics