Tag Archives: Indian Institute of Science

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K. L. Sebastian, Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry: About the Book and Author

(From the talk given during the book launch on 20 Augsut 2026)

A very good afternoon to everyone gathered here on this important occasion to release the book authored by Prof. Kizhakeyil L. Sebastian, KLS to many of us. He has titled the book: Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry. I am very pleased and feel privileged to have an opportunity to speak about the author and the book today.

Prof. Sebastian has been an outstanding teacher and researcher. I am very glad that he made the efforts to write this book. Let me give a brief introduction to the Author before talking about the book. Prof. Sebastian was born in Kerala in 1950. His first name, Kizhakeyil would be his house name, I think. It may have been in Thrikkakara at Ernakulam in Kerala. [1] The second letter ‘zh’ is unique to Tamil (Thamizh) and Malayalam, which is his mother tongue. I have heard about this sound being used in Marati as well. He did his B. Sc. from the Kerala University in 1970 and MSc from Calicut University in Kerala in 1972. The same year, he came to this Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry (IPC) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and completed his Ph. D. in about three years working with Prof. A. K. Chandra. Incidentally, Prof. Chandra wrote a book titled Introductory Quantum Chemistry in 1974 and KLS must have been in the group at this time. Those days, it used to take several months to a year to have the Thesis evaluated by national and international experts and he got his degree in 1976. During this period, he worked with Prof. S. K. Rangarajan who had joined our Department in 1975. SKR as we call him fondly turned out to be a major influence on KLS. For those who do not know, Prof. Rangarajan may have been the only one to become a Professor in IISc who did not have a Ph. D. He had done BA in Maths. He did train many Ph. D. students in our Department. When we joined the Department, SKR returned to Bangalore from Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Karaikudi, where he served as Director. We invited him to come to the Department regularly and gave him an office. As the Chair of this Department a few years ago, I had invited Prof. Sebastian to come back to IPC and be with us. SKR and KLS are great colleagues with whom one could discuss about any topic in Science. They were both very generous with their time and in sharing their knowledge. KLS wrote a moving obituary of SKR and anyone interested may read it. [2]

Prof. Sebastian seems to have had no ‘break’ all his life. From 1976-84, he served as a Lecturer in Calicut University, soon after completing his Ph. D. In 1984, he was promoted to the Reader position at Calicut and in the same year, moved to University of Cochin as Professor. During his tenure at Calicut University, he went to do post-doctoral research at the University of Liverpool, UK from 1980-82 and Chalmers Institute of Technology, Sweden in 1982. The following year, he went to the University of Munich as an Alexander van Humboldt Fellow to work with Prof. Gerhard Ertl, who won the Nobel prize for developing the mechanism of Habor-Bosch Process producing ammonia from the very inert nitrogen gas. Sebastian served as a Professor in the University of Cochin for 12 years teaching physical chemistry and quantum mechanics in particular. He was working with research students and publishing high-quality papers in not so high impact Journals. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1994 and got the coveted SS Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences in 1995. The next year, IPC Department invited him to be a Professor. Getting into IISc, either as a student or faculty is not easy. In our Department, getting in as faculty after doing Ph.D. in our Department is near impossible, particularly after 1980s. Moving from a state University to IISc is indeed exceptional. KLS did all these extraordinary things. To my knowledge, Prof. Kishore, who was the Chair when I joined, came from Gorakhpur University and Sebastian came from Cochin. In the foreword of the book, KLS says ‘the years I spent at IISc were the best years in my life’. I joined IPC is 1997 and I am glad to have had a nearly complete overlap with him in our Department. His presence in IPC certainly helped me and I suspect it helped many of my colleagues in the Department / Division and the Institute.

Not surprisingly, he was a member of the Centre for Condensed Matter theory in IISc and also a member of the Condensed Matter Theory Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bangalore. He also had visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany; University of Milan-Bicocca, Asian Institute of Nanobiosciences, Pusan, Korea and at the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology at Tsukuba, Japan. He served our Department as Chair from 2005-08 and the Science Education Panel of the Academies from 2015-17. He also served as the Vice-President of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2016-18. He has served in the board of education in several Universities and selection committee in several IITs. More importantly, he was the Chief Editor for Resonance, Journal of Education from 2012-14 after serving in the editorial board from 2002. He had written several articles in Resonance. I wrote a few articles in Resonance as well during this period.

In 2011, IISc started the undergraduate program in sciences after a century of existence without one. We were lucky to have Sebastian in our faculty, and he was the obvious choice to teach the first semester course in chemistry dealing with the physical principles of chemistry. His course was very popular. Some years earlier, Prof. Mangala Sunder Krishnan spearheaded the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning, popularly known as NPTEL [3].  Sunder had spent two semesters on sabbatical in our Department. He convinced Sebastian to give lectures on quantum mechanics. KLS did not like to give lectures sitting in a chair with the laptop on a desk, as it was done in IISc those days. He preferred a lecture hall with students in front and Sunder arranged this in IIT Madras. KLS went there every weekend and recorded 12 lectures on Saturday and Sunday. His NPTEL course is available on YouTube [4]. I noted on 19 August 2026 that the lectures have been listened to 2.4 Lakh times.

I have listened to Sebastian numerous times in various places and occasions. He could explain even the most difficult concepts in a way everyone in the audience can learn. The popularity of his lectures for the NPTEL course convinced him to write this book being released today. He remembered to thank Prof. Mangala Sunder Krishnan in the foreword. When I was asked to speak about the author and book in this function, I readily agreed, though I did feel we have several excellent theoretical chemists who could have done this. In any case, let me share my thoughts on the book now.

Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry is not the first book on this topic. However, this may be the first book on this topic, perhaps on any topic, which uses interesting cartoons throughout the book to explain difficult topics. He has used the characters found in his famous lectures and modified them, perhaps for copyright reasons. Quantum Ganithathil is the teacher of quantum mechanics. Ganitham in Malayalam is Maths and you can note the ‘il’ which also means ‘illam’ or house. Professor lives in Maths. Mathew Kudiyil is a drunkard claiming to be a Captain in the army who wants to learn quantum mechanics. Kudi is drink in Malayalam and Mathew lives in ‘drinks’. His lectures would use Professor Calculus and Captain Haddock from Tin-Tin comics and he could not get permission to use them in the book. He has four student characters in the book, best being Anita. One can see their questions, comments and the response by the teacher throughout the book in cartoons.

Prof. Sebastian used to begin his lectures on quantum mechanics with two photos. One of dracula and another of Aiswarya Roy, a beautiful actress in India who won the Miss World in 1994. He would say some students think of a dracula when thinking about quantum mechanics, feeling scarred. He himself thought quantum mechanics is beautiful, like Aiswarya Roy. For the book, he has created a beautiful Indian actress using AI. As I was going through the book, I remembered the book with the same title written by Pauling and Wilson published in 1935, nearly 90 years ago [5]. That book was published very soon after all the major discoveries happened in quantum mechanics from 1925-30. Prof. A. K. Chandra’s book is titled somewhat similarly, Introductory Quantum Chemistry, published in 1976, fifty years ago [6]. Clearly Sebastian’s book includes topics that could not have been covered by the previous books. Chapters on density functional theory and computational chemistry are new. Pauling and Wilson’s book starts with a chapter on classical mechanics and one on ‘old quantum theory’ including Bohr’s model of hydrogen atom. Chandra and Sebastian do not allocate a chapter for these initial developments and focus on quantum mechanics as well established after 1925.

Sebastian begins his book with the two slit experiment and acknowledges Feynmann for this. The wave-particle duality is best explained by this experiment which has been done with electrons initially and more recently with C60, fullerene. I have been fortunate to listen to his lectures on this and I am sure all the readers of this book will get hooked to it right away. The book mentions about Einstein’s dilemma and his famous quote ‘God does not play dice’ Chandra also began his book with waves and quanta. Pauling and Wilson have 15 Chapters and except for the first two, one can see that Sebastian has covered and updated all the topics. Chandra’s book has only 9 chapters and the first 8 are covered in Sebastian’s book. The ninth chapter in Chandra’s book discussed Hellman-Feynman theorem and its applications in Chemistry. This is something I have not learned myself and I hope Sebastian includes this when he plans the second edition.

Another topic that is missing is the developments based on electron density topology, Bader’s Atoms in Molecule: A quantum theory [7] and Erin Johnson et al.’s Non-covalent Index analysis [8]. These have proven useful for understanding structure and bonding in small molecules and supramolecules as well. Of course, I am aware that Prof. Sebastian is not appreciative of AIM theory, and he has Prof. Roald Hoffman, another Nobel laureate sharing similar views [9]. Almost 20 years ago, I wanted to use AIM theory and it was difficult for me to read the papers and books and grasp them. I was lucky to have KLS as a colleague. I asked him to read and give some lectures which he readily agreed. I did learn about AIM theory and the fact that Sebastian is not impressed with it. Our group has since used AIM theory and recently NCI, extensively. My only response to KLS about AIM theory was that we should use experiments and theoretical models available to us and be aware of their limitations before drawing any conclusions. All experiments and models have something to teach us. More data and less interpretation lead to good science, less data and more interpretation lead to wrong conclusions.

Due mostly to his health conditions, Prof. Sebastian could not come back and stay with us in the Department after his term as Dean at IIT Palakkad came to an end in 2021. While we missed him dearly, we are very pleased that he has taken the time and put in a lot of efforts to complete this book. I am sure this would remain useful for students and researchers for generations to come. He does worry about the effect of AI and wonders if books would become obsolete. I have no doubts books such as this will remain an invaluable source. I would encourage everyone interested in learning quantum mechanics, and its applications to chemistry, to get your copy and read it. Those interested may contact IISc Press. Thank you, Sebastian, for writing it.

References:

  1. https://fellows.ias.ac.in/profile/v/FL1994021 (Accessed on 20 August 2026)
  2. https://ipc.iisc.ac.in/~kls/skr-1.htm (Accessed on 20 August 2026)
  3. https://nptel.ac.in/ (Accessed on 20 August 2026)
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf_4Qv-A55Q&t=14 (Accessed on 20 August 2026)
  5. L. Pauling and E. B. Wilson, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry, The McGraw-Hill, New York (1935) Dover Edition (1985).
  6. A. K. Chandra, Introductory Quantum Chemistry, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi (1974).
  7. R. F. W. Bader, Atoms in Molecules: A Quantum Theory, Oxford University Press (1990).
  8. E. R. Johnson et al. “Revealing Non-covalent Interactions”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 6498-6506 (2010).
  9. S. Shaik, H. S. Rzepa, and R. Hoffman, “One molecule, two atoms, three views and four bonds” Angew Chemie. Int Ed. Engl 52, 3020-3033 (2013).

(Reference 9 is an interesting read for those interested in Chemical Bonding. It records the conversation between three theoretical chemists. An excerpt follows:

Roald:  … … and got widely different results. I like to show these to people who claim there is a good way to define a bond. Of course they’ll tell me that I should do a QTAIM analysis.

Sason: Better define that.

Henry: Quantum Theory of Atoms and Molecules, QTAIM, a method based on the topology of the electron density ρ,[14] has its uses.

Roald: I was saying that tongue-in-cheek, Henry. I am no great fan of QTAIM – in the hundreds of QTAIM papers that crowd the literature, I have yet to see one that makes a chemical prediction, or suggests an experiment.

Somewhat coincidentally, the same issue has an article co-authored by me. E. Arunan, R. Brakaspathy, G. R. Desiraju, S. Sivaram, Chemistry in India, Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. Engl. 2012, 51.)

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Indian Institute of Science, J N Tata, Uncategorized

J N Tata planned the Indian Institute of Science and Swami Vivekananda did not influence it!

It is 27th May again! In 1909 on this day, the vesting order for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science was issued. Last year on this day, I had written a blog about this great institute and the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science and argued that they defined India before independence (1). One of the reasons was the choice in naming these institutions as Indian. Calcutta in the state of Bengal and Bangalore in the Mysore Kingdom built educational institutions named as ‘Indian’, many decades before India got independence. In Uttar Pradesh, Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University were established in the following decades. One can still see this difference in the view points of the people of eastern and southern India in comparison to the northern states. Often I feel that there is a huge communication gap between the people of these regions in India for historic and geographic reasons.

This blog is not about the names though. It is about whose vision led to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). It is become a popular myth that IISc resulted from a stimulating discussion between J N Tata and Swami Vivekananda while on a ship from Yokohama to Vancouver. A recent post in TheBetterIndia mentions that they met on 31 May in 1893 (2). If one is not careful in reading this post, the myth will resonate as a fact. I have written a few blogs about learning history and pointed out how difficult it is to learn history (3-5). I also believed in this myth and have written about this in my first blog on ‘Learning History’ (3) and also a recent editorial in Current Science focusing on conflict of interest (6). I had email discussions with two experts: Dr. Subbarayappa who authored a book on the history of Indian Institute of Science (7) and Prof. P. Balaram, our former Director, who ensured that we will have an Archives and Publications Cell at IISc. I have also been helped by Mr. Sharath Ahuja, who was taking care of the Archives and Publications Cell in the initial years. I am pleased to share the images from Mr. Ahuja, of the Tata statue at IISc and the commemorative stamp issued by the Government of India during our Centenary. You can see the replica of our Main Building held by Tata in his hands! It is a fitting statue for the founder in front of the iconic building shown in the stamp.

The letter written by J. N. Tata to Swami Vivekanada, on 23rd November 1898, offers the most important clue. This is reproduced in the book by Subbarayappa and also the TheBetterIndia portal. This is what Tata says at the beginning: “I trust, you remember me as a fellow- traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall at this moment your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, and the duty, not of destroying, but of diverting it into useful channels.” Clearly, he does not mention about any discussion about the need for a research institution. On the other hand, Tata continues this sentence with: “I recall these ideas in connection with my scheme of Research Institute of Science for India, of which you have doubtless heard or read”  (emphasis added).

Prof. Balaram gave an excellent talk on the history of the Indian Institute of Science at the National Centre for Biological Sciences recently. Thankfully his talk is available on YouTube (8). I would encourage anyone interested in the history of Indian Science in 20th Century, not just IISc, to listen to this talk spending the 90+ minutes! Prof. Balaram quotes from primary sources about J. N. Tata’s plans for Science and a research Institution in India years before he met Swami Vivekananda during his voyage to Chicago. Why then, Prof. Balaram decided to include Swami Vivekananda in the commemorative stamp during the centenary of IISc? His talk has some clues as to how this happened. If you are keen, you may listen to the talk.

Tata in his letter went on to say the following: “I am of opinion that if such a crusade in favour of an asceticism of this kind were undertaken by a competent leader, it would greatly help asceticism, science, and the good name of our common country; and I know not who would make a more fitting general of such a campaign than Vivekananda.” Tata clearly wanted Swami Vivekananda to lead the Institute. In his book, Dr. Subbarayappa mentions that Swami Vivekananda’s reply to the letter by Tata could not be traced. However, an Editorial was published in April 1899 in Prabhuddha Bharata, a magazine started by Swami Vivekananda. The editorial is not signed and perhaps was written by the Swami. It starts with this sentence: “We are not aware if any project at once so opportune and so far reaching in its beneficent effects was ever mooted in India, as that of the post-graduate research University of Mr. Tata. The scheme grasps the vital point of weakness in our national well-being with a clearness of vision and tightness of grip, the masterliness of which is only equalled by the munificence of the gift which is ushered to the public”. The scanned image of the editorial can be seen below:

J N TATA AND SWAMI VIVEKANANDA001.jpg

Clearly, Swami Vivekananda recognizes IISc as an outcome of a project mooted by Tata and was very enthusiastic of this project. He was invited by Tata to be the first head of the Institution. However, it is clear that Indian Institute of Science was the result of J. N. Tata’s vision and this vision was not influenced by any discussion with Swami Vivekananda. J. N. Tata not only planned IISc, he also built steel and power plants to help India become what it is today. One cannot celebrate IISc or India, without celebrating the great J. N. Tata.

  1. https://earunan.org/2017/05/28/indian-institute-of-science-iisc-and-indian-association-for-cultivation-of-science-iacs-defined-india-before-independence/
  2. https://www.thebetterindia.com/127599/swami-vivekananda-jamsetji-tata-chicago-conference-iisc/
  3. https://earunan.org/2015/04/02/learning-history/
  4. https://earunan.org/2015/04/11/learning-history-ii-and-happy-new-year/
  5. https://earunan.org/2015/04/14/learning-history-3-birthday-new-year-and-so-on/
  6. E. Arunan, Curr. Sci. (Weblink: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/114/07/1385.pdf )
  7. B. V. Subbarayappa “In Pursuit of Excellence: A History of The Indian Institute of Science” Tata-McGraw-Hill 1992.
  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=horcEiRiHh0

 

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Indian Institute of Science on 12th of July! Mahatma Gandhi and Morris Travers!

My last blog was around 27th May, which happens to be the day in 1909 the vesting order for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was issued. It wasn’t well known until Prof. Balaram, the then Director, started planning the centenary celebrations of the Institute in 2007! It wasn’t easy to find out when IISc started. Given this history, one cannot expect to know much about what happened in IISc over the 11 decades that have passed. May be with some efforts, we can have a ‘On this day in IISc’ booklet detailing the important things that have happened in IISc.

Ninety years ago on this day, 12 July 1927, Mahatma Gandhi visited the IISc and spoke to the faculty and students. A picture taken on that day is shown below and the famous quote by Albert Einstein on Gandhi follows!

What did Gandhi tell the IISc people? He says: “There is no place for a rustic like me who has to stand speechless in awe and wonderment”. It is interesting to note that, in 1927 Gandhi was awed by the ‘huge laboratories and electrical apparatus’ present in IISc. He reminds the IIScians that these have been established due to the labour of millions, often unwilling and forced. (1) He pointed out that the 30 Lakhs donated by Tata and also the generous contributions from the Mysore King, both originated from the same labour of the poor millions! He wanted all the research efforts to have the welfare of the poor as the main objective. It is interesting that we have had very similar views expressed by many and the Governments. I personally do not agree that all research efforts should have direct benefit to humanity. There have been a lot of discussion on basic vs applied research and my view is that every society and Government should support both, as long as it is done with competence. However, I would agree with one statement made by Gandhi: “no taxation without representation”. He accuses the elites of taking the poor for granted and acting as if ‘they knew what is good for everyone’.

Gandhi recollected a discussion with a Professor who had informed him: “…that the properties of some of the chemicals will take years of experiments to explore”. As a physical chemist, I might make a very similar statement on chemicals today! He was also talking about the ‘wireless instruments’ being made in 1927!

What else happened on 12th July of relevance to IISc? Morris Travers and William Ramsey discovered  Xenon on 12th July 1898 (2). William Ramsay was contacted to help with the establishment of the research institute planned by the Tata. Ramsay sent in his student Morris Travers as the first Director of the Indian Institute of Science. Travers also was the Chairman of the Chemistry Department, and established the building which houses our Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Department today. He also built the iconic Faculty Hall, mentioned in my previous blog.

I have personally been keen on rare gases including xenon. They are unique in the periodic table and remain as monoatomic gases at ambient conditions and no other element in the periodic table remains as monoatomic gas. Still, they can condense to become liquids or solids at high pressure/low temperature. The attractive forces between the rare gas atoms leading to their freezing was derived by London in 1930s. van der Waals had pointed out that attractive forces exist between all gaseous molecules and hence the ideal gas law ignoring this must be corrected. He introduced the equation named after him ‘van der Waals equation’. This is now taught to high school students all over the world. I had written a series of articles in Resonance, Journal of Education on these intermolecular forces, named after London and van der Waals (3). Clearly, London forces are similar to those acting between inert gases and ‘van der Waals forces’ imply forces acting between all molecules that condense. These have been considered equal by many scientists incorrectly.

July 12th, then becomes an important day in the history of the Indian Institute of Science. It’s first Director Morris Travers had discovered xenon on this day in 1898 and in 1927, Mahatma Gandhi addressed the IIScians asking them to think about the poor when they do research. After nearly a century, this view is gaining strength now.

 

References:

  1. The Hindu, 13-07-1927 and the Young India 21-07-1927. If you want to read this, I have a pdf version sent to me by Sharath Ahuja.
  2. http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/resource/rdc00000712/on-this-day-jul-12-discovery-of-xenon?cmpid=CDC00000712 (Accessed on 11 July 2017).
  3. http://ipc.iisc.ac.in/~arunan/resonance_articles.html

 

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Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Association for Cultivation of Science (IACS) defined India before Independence!

On 27th May 2017, all students, faculty and staff of the Indian Institute of Science received an email from the Director that started with the following message: “Today is the 27th of  May,  on which day in 1909 the vesting order for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science was issued.”(1)  On 27th May 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India passed away! Between 1951 and 1961, India established the five Indian Institutes of Technology. Nehru as the Prime Minister is credited with founding these institutes and they are governed by the Institutes of Technology act 1961. India had become an independent nation in 1947 and these five institutions of national importance were named Indian Institute of Technology.

How did Indian Institute of Science get it’s name in 1909, nearly four decades before India become an Independent nation? This was established in Bangalore which was part of the Mysore Presidency, ruled by the Mysore Royal Family. This question came to my mind following a comment by a friend in Facebook below my post on 27th May 2017 announcing the birth anniversary of IISc, as we call the Institute. He felt the Institute could have been named Mysore Institute of Science or Maharaja Institute of Science as it was the Mysore Maharaja H.H. Sir Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, who gave 371 acres of land to establish the Institute. He also gave additional financial support. This friend is perhaps from Mysore and he was emphasizing the Mysore King’s contributions to the Institute.

The Institute owes it’s existence to J N Tata, who was born in Gujarat. (Edited on 20 August 2025: Tata dreamed of establishing a research Institute in Inda for long. There is a myth about Swami Vivekananda suggesting this to Tata and that does not seem to be the case. I wrote a blog on this after writing this blog in 2017 and anyone interested is welcome to read that blog (2)). His plan materialized a few years after him passing away, and it was named Indian Institute of Science. The locals call it Tata Institute even today. In front of the iconic building housing all the administrators today, there is a statue of J N Tata, which was installed in the early days.  Somehow, the contribution of the Mysore King was not adequately recognized for more than a century. Just a few years ago, the bust of the Mysore King was unveiled inside this building.  With some effort, the King and Tata could say hello to each other right in front of the iconic building:-)

Mysore_King2_P1350302

Even as I was wondering how they decided to name the new institute as ‘Indian Institute of Science’ in 1909, another comment on my post reminded me of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science,Calcutta, which was established in 1876 itself! Somewhat interestingly, the first Indian Director for the Indian Institute of Science, C. V. Raman came from IACS to IISc in the 1930s. The first Director of the very first Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur, J. C. Ghosh, went from IISc to West Bengal. He was a Professor in the Department where I work and we have a best Thesis award for physical chemistry students from our Department named after J C Ghosh.

I learn that IISc started with the grant from Tata and the Governments of both Mysore King and the British gave some support. It seems to me that the name was chosen appropriately. IACS received no such support from any one! C V Raman worked there and got the Nobel prize before coming to IISc. Mysore king gave Raman a land too to start the Indian Academy of Sciences. Raman built a research institute named after himself and the Indian Academy of Sciences in this land, in the same road, now called C V Raman avenue across from IISc.

IACS was established by Mahendra Lal Sarkar (3) to carry out basic research. It generated funds by arranging public lectures on Science for which the audience had to buy tickets. Sarkar still named the institution as Indian Association for Cultivation of Science, though no Government or benevolent donors gave any support. Those were the days! Now the trend is to name a lecture hall, building, and institutions after the founder or a donor. When I learn about the name of IACS starting with Indian, IISc starting with Indian seems more justified. Still, why do we have such thoughts occurring on some people’s mind?

One of the reason is that the contribution of the Mysore king has not been recognized at all. If you search Google for images with ‘Tata statue at IISc’, you will see perhaps 1000s of images. I tried ‘Mysore king bust at IISc’, I could not find a single one. I could still see many images of Tata statue and others related to IISc. The diversity India naturally leads to regional/local feelings based on State, Language, Religion, and Caste. There are some who try to identify a person of their back ground who may have played a minor role and attribute undue importance. On the other hand, some who have made enormous contributions do not get their dues!

It turns out the Mysore king was indeed a minor when the decision to give the land was made by the Maharani. However, he not only honored it as he became a major, he continued to support the Institute. I was indeed inspired to read from one of his speeches the following: “I cannot help feeling that the Council will be well advised to keep an open mind on the scholarship question until they are satisfied by actual experience that scholarships are not actually needed.” (4) Apparently, the Council decided that there would be no need to provide any financial assistance to students as the poor may not gain much by learning Science! May be the Mysore Royal Family should have insisted that the Institute be named after the King 🙂 Some of you may have read my last blog on naming things (5). It is indeed important!

Somewhat coincidentally, 27th May 1997 was the last day of my job at IIT Kanpur. I resigned my job effective that day and traveled to Bangalore on 28th May 1997 and joined IISc on 29th May 1997! This blog is published on my 20th anniversary at the Indian Institute of Science. I am glad it is the Indian Institute of Science and not Mysore Institute of Science or Maharaja Institute of Science. I do think Indians should avoid such regional feelings as borders between state/nations are arbitrary. My views on this could be seen in an Editorial published in Current Science recently (6). However, I do hope the contributions of the Mysore King is much widely recognized!

References

    1. http://chep.iisc.ac.in/IISc_History.html (Accessed on 28 May 2017).
    2. https://earunan.org/2018/05/27/j-n-tata-planned-the-indian-institute-of-science-and-swami-vivekananda-did-not-influence-it/
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahendralal_Sarkar (Accessed on 28 May 2017)
    4. https://archive.org/stream/SpeechesByKrishnarajaWadiyar/SpeechesByKrishnarajaWadiyar_djvu.txt (Page 128)
    5. https://earunan.org/2017/04/23/whats-in-a-name-everything
    6. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/112/03/0435.pdf

Acknowledgements:

I thank Dr. Sharath Ahuja who provided the image of the Institue’s Tower building, which was taken from a drone by Dr. Omkar of Aerospace Engineering Department at IISc. Dr. Ahuja in fact reminded me of this anniversary. I could not get the picture of the Mysore King’s bust before posting it, though I had personally clicked some pictures. What is shown in this blog is an image from Google search and the original page is http://www.indianetzone.com/59/krishna_raja_wadiyar_iv.htm

Added the picture of the Mysore King’s bust on 29th May 2017, courtesy Sharath Ahuja and removed the picture from the website quoted above.

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Learning History

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!” It was an interesting exercise to find out who said it first as there are various versions.  (https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080825183900AACAIkV This and other web references accessed on 2 April 2015. It credits George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher). Learning from history is as important as it is difficult for many reasons.

One obvious reason is that learning by reading is much less efficient than learning by experience. Most every one ends up repeating history and (re)learning. May be it is better that way, as even as the 7th billion person in the current world, one has to live the life one had no choice of getting. There may really be nothing more to do other than repeating what someone has done and fail/succeed.

One often hears the quote ‘History is written by the victors’ attributed to Winston Churchill. According to the website http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5597/is-history-always-written-by-the-victors “History is written by victors” may itself be an example of history written by the losers! While the quote is commonly mis-attributed to Winston Churchill, it’s origins are unknown!” I really do not know the history of these statements.

Let me tell you about two things that I know for sure. Indian Institute of Science was the result of a dream by J N Tata and this was influenced by the inspirational dialog he had with Swami Vivekananda on a ship. We celebrated the centenary over a whole year during 2008-09. In 2011, we started an undergraduate programme for the first time, 100 years after we started admitting students. The first batch was admitted in 1911. Clearly the students admitted in 2011 are the 101st batch and not the 100th batch!

While only some can create history, every one would like to have their name etched in history. I have been part of the Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Department at the Indian Institute of Science from May 29, 1997. I learned that this was the first Department to be started by the founder Director Morris Travers who happened to be a Chemist as well.  Interested readers may go through an article I wrote in Resonance about Travers’ contribution to the discovery of Noble gases. (http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Volumes/14/12/1210-1222.pdf) Another Department on Electrical sciences also began and these were the only two Departments initially.

I recently found a discussion in Linkedin about the History of Indian Institute of Science started by Chief Engineer at TRIAD OMAN CONSULTANTS INTL.  I had not known him personally but somehow was in the circle. He claimed that “Soil Mechanics and Metallurgy were the First Departments to be Set-up.” I had put a comment pointing out the mistake but then there were 100s of comments applauding the authors for the interesting information and one is not clear if all the readers would go through all the comments to find out the truth. I get messages from Linkedin for more than two years about people still reading this piece.

There is a book about the History of Indian Institute of Science written by Subbarayappa titled ‘In pursuit of excellence’. http://www.amazon.in/In-Pursuit-Excellence-History-Institute/dp/0074624504.  I have heard from our former Director Prof. P. Balaram that there are some inaccuracies in the book though it does give the first two Departments as chemical and electrical sciences accurately. I have witnessed some attempts in the recent years to take credit away from some and attribute credits wrongly to others in the campus.  One cannot take anything and everything that is written on paper or even on stone, on face value. One need not mention about the accuracy of what is found on the web, which is readily accessible anywhere and everywhere now.

Around 2000, I got a newly built laboratory to house the new spectrometer that we built. Almost a century old Department got four new laboratories built thanks to some funds that came from the Central Government. Of course, it was decided that the Director would inaugurate the new lab.  The estate office arranged for a stone with the name of the Director and the date of the Inauguration and most of us participated in the inauguration without taking it too seriously.  Around 1991, two other laboratories were inaugurated and the information was carved on stone. You can see the information written on stone:

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According to these two stones, Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry was opened by Prof. C. N. R. Rao on 27th February 1991 and by Prof. Goverdhan Mehta on 8th March 2000. It did not occur to any one involved, including me, to suggest that the stone should mention ‘This laboratory for IPC Department was opened by’. What  more evidence does one need than what is carved on a stone! In another 100 years from now, two historians may be arguing with solid evidence that Chemistry Department was not the first one and Subbarayappa had his facts wrong. If the Linkein discussion would still be available that would establish soil mechanics and metallurgy as the first Departments and these two stones can give the date of Chemistry Department within two decades, but certainly not in 1911! May be some one changed 1991 to 1911 by mistake and that mistake was carried through 🙂

Somewhat coincidentally after witnessing the way politicians, scientists and of course every one else getting influenced by money, I was reminded of the beautiful song in Parasakthi, the first movie of Sivaji Ganesan who might be considered the best actor in 20th century Tamil Cinema by many. The song is ‘Desam gnanam kalvi easan poojai ellaam kasu mun sellathadi “தேசம் ஞானம் கல்வி ஈசன் பூஜை எல்லாம் காசு  முன் செல்லாதடி”. It means, ‘the nation, wisdom, education, God, praying rituals would all be secondary to money’ and it is a great song. I thought it was written by M. Karunanidhi who became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and popularly known as Kalaingnar Karunanidhi and Mu Ka. He also had written the story and dialogue for this movie and it became a cult classic. Mu Ka is still alive and active in politics and is close to his 90s.

I mentioned this song to some one when I heard about the central Governments decision to withdraw pictorial warnings about the dangers of cigarette smoking. A committee had concluded that ‘no study on Indians has found the correlation between cigarette and cancer’. One does not know if we should laugh or cry. The greatest book on cancer, “The emperor of all maladies” was written by Siddarth Mukherjee, a person of Indian origin. A real scholarly work and a must read for every one including our law makers. Of course, their main concern is the tobacco companies and money. How can one run a party without money. So, I was reminded of this beautiful song. And that brings me back to History. One of my friend contradicted me and said this song was written by Udumalai Naryana Kavi. I was almost convinced of my memory and I checked with my elder brother who is knowledgeable as well and he confirmed it.

I thought I would check on google as it is widely known to be aware of everything. I found the song in YouTube and it did not have the lyricist’s name. It had the names of the singer (C. S. Jayaraman)  and composer (R. Sudarshanam). Then I found the website, http://www.thamizhisai.com/tamil-cinema/tamil-cinema-001/parasakthi/desam-gnanam.php and it gives the Tamil lyrics in full but gives the singer’s name as Chandrababu! This is certainly wrong and appalling to me. It has the composer’s name correct but the lyricist’s name as Bharathidasan. It cannot be correct either.

And then I found another site, http://www.lyricaldelights.com/2012/03/24/parasakthi-desam-gnanam-kalvi-eesan-poosai-ellaam/. This has the song in Tamil, transliteration in English and also a good translation in English. While most of the information is correct, it also has the lyricist name wrong in my opinion. It gives the name as Kannadasan, perhaps the most popular lyricist in Tamil cinema during the 20th century.

So much for learning the history of recent events! Buddha seems to have mentioned: Three things cannot be hidden for long: The sun, the moon and the truth! (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/buddha133884.html) While I am convinced about the sun and moon and would very much like it to be true for ‘truth’, how can we ever be sure. No wonder, Thiruvalluvar said this ‘எப்பொருள் யார்யார்  வாய்கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள்  மெய்பொருள் காண்பது அறிவு ‘ Irrespective of what you hear, and irrespective of who you hear from, you need to use your intelligence to see the truth’.

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