Bernal was a committed Marxist and a member of the British Communist Party. Bernal's interest and involvement in social and political issues began about the same time he initiated his scientific studies at Cambridge. He was the most respected and loved of Western intellectual communists. Today Bernal's views as a hardcore communist may not be appealing, if not, totally irrelevant. The world has drastically changed since Bernal's time. But then Bernal's political activity was just one aspect of his fascinating personality. Above all Bernal was a great teacher who could influence and inspire a large number of students, who later made pioneering contributions in their respective fields. Bernal was an original thinker. He was a visionary scientist. In fact, Bernal was one of the most influential scientists of his generation.

By all accounts John Desmond Bernal was a dazzling thinker and talker. His contemporaries called him "Sage" as he was considered to be uncommonly wise. He had been the most brilliant thinker of his time. It was his encyclopaedic knowledge, his breath of vision, and his conscientious activism that most singled him out rather than his scientific contributions. Charles Percy Snow (1905-80), the English novelist and physicist, thought that Bernal was "perhaps the last of whom it could be said, with meaning, that he knew science'. Julian Huxley (1887-1975), the English biologist and writer, thought Bernal to be the wisest man in Britain. Joseph Needham described him as one of the best minds of their generation.

Bernal was born on 10 May 1901 in Nengh, County Tipperary, Ireland. About his family background, C.P. Snow wrote: "Like almost everything else about him, his family origins were unusual. His father was what used to be called a squireen, somewhere between a farmer and a catholic Irish squire. His mother was an American, educated at Stanford, who wrote some interesting journalism and had considerable resemblances to a Henry James expatriate heroine. There were, as happened throughout Bernal's life, legends about this heredity, for he was a mythopoetic character about whom stories, and inaccurate statements, of fact massively accumulated. For private circulation there once appeared a loving document about him entitled The Irish Jew".

At the age of 10 he was sent to boarding school, Stonyhurst, a Jesuit establishment, in England. He stayed there for two years before coming back to Ireland. It is said that the reason for leaving the school was that he was dissatisfied with the scientific education there. But after an interval, Bernal was sent again to England, to another public school, Bedford. At eighteen Bernal won a major open scholarship in mathematics to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. After getting a second class in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos, Bernal took Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos in chemistry, mineralogy and geology in which he got a first class. Then he proceeded to Part II physics and got another second class. He became obsessively absorbed with crystallography and undertook an elaborate painstaking research problem in this field. He derived 230 space groups by means of Hamiltonian quaternions, an astonishing piece of work for an undergraduate.

This work enabled him to get a research post at the Royal Institution in London in 1923. He was to work with William Henry Bragg (1862-1942), who alongwith his son William Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971), developed X-ray analysis of the atomic arrangement in crystalline structure. Within a short period, after joining the Royal Institution, Bernal established himself as one of the most accomplished crystallographers in England. At the instance of Bragg he started to work on the structure of graphite. His analysis of the structure of graphite was a classic piece of distinctly laborious work. He also created a diagram for interpreting X-ray photographs which is now called "Bernal Chart". In 1927 he came back to Cambridge to join the newly established department of crystallography. It was Arthur Hutchinson, the professor of Mineralogy, who persuaded the university to establish a department of crystallography and advertise for an Assistant Director of Research. The period from 1927 to 1937 in Cambridge was the most creative period of Bernal's scientific life. At Cambridge he worked on the structure of vitamin B I (1933), pepsin (1934), vitamin D 2 (1935), the sterols (1936) and the tobacco mosaic virus (1937).

In 1937 he was appointed as professor of physics at Birkbeck College of the London University. He succeeded his great contemporary Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), who built an improved cloud chamber used to photograph tracks of a nuclear disintegration and cosmic ray shawer discovered the positron and got Nobel Prize in physics in 1908. Here Bernal made notable contribution on the structure of liquids and inspired others to do important work.

The Bimolecular Research Laboratory, the brain-child of Bernal was opened by Sir Lawrence Bragg on 1 July 1948. In the words of Bernal : "The setting up of the Birkback College Biomolecular Research Laboratory was made possible by the generous gift of the Nuffields Foundation which enabled the college to equip and man the two houses in which the present research center is lodged. The old research laboratory of the physics department where work along these lines was carried out on a small scale before the war had been destroyed by enemy action and would in any case have been much too small for the scale of work at present in hand". The three objectives of the laboratory were :

1. "To work on the structure of proteins".
2. "To develop the necessary electronic and computing skills needed for the faster and better analysis of these proteins".
3. "To understand the fundamental nature of the constituent active materials in cements and the nature of their reaction with water".

The establishment of this laboratory is the testimony of Bernal's great vision. In those days when there were no proper hardware and computer it was extremely difficult to determine a precision structure. It took a team of 2 or 3 people 3 years to determine a precision structure. With the development of computer the same could be achieved in less than 0.1 second on a Intel based P2 running at 400 MH2.

Bernal used to live in a flat on the top floor of the laboratory to avoid wasting of time in commuting. Moreover, staying there he could check up easily on the activities of his students in their offices on the lower floors. Besides scientists, many eminent peace campaigners were entertained in his flat above the laboratory including Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), who painted a mural on the wall of the flat. The mural, the only one ever executed by Picasso in England, was saved from demolition.

Pablo Picasso's drawing on the wall of Bernal's Flat

Bernal was one of the principal creators of molecular biology. Bernal was the founder of protein crystallography. Indeed, the field of molecular biology was sterile until Bernal's observation that protein crystals could be studied only in the wet state. Bernal was the first crystallographer to obtain clear images of X-ray diffraction by protein in 1934. To avoid dehydration during the experiment, Bernal had placed the protein crystals in a capillary tube that was closed at both ends. While the images obtained by Bernal did not lead to a three-dimensional description of protein structure, but these images were clear enough to confirm the macromolecular nature of proteins. Thus Bernal demonstrated the possibility of resolving the three dimensional structure of proteins. Among his students were Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910- 94), who determined the structure of the vitamin B12 molecule through X-ray crystallographic analysis and got Nobel Prize in 1963; Rosalind Franklin (1920-58), who played a major part in the discovery of the structure of DNA by J.D. Watson and Francis Crick; Aaron Klug (1926- ), who developed crystallographic electron complexes and got Nobel Prize in 1982; and Max Perutz, who worked on the structure of haemoglobin and got Nobel Prize in 1962.

Bernal's role in establishing the field of protein crystallography will be obvious from the following remarks of Perutz :

"In 1934 J.D. Bernal and Dorothy Crowfoot (now Hodgkin) at the Crystallographic Laboratory in Cambridge, England, placed a crystal of pepsin in an X-ray beam to see if it gave a diffraction pattern. It was an unpromising experiment because it had already been proven that protein crystals give no diffraction pattern. This was only to be expected because the great German chemist Richard Willstatter and his pupils had shown that proteins are colloids of random structure, and the enzymatic activity of J.H. Northrop's crystalline pepsin did not reside in the protein, which was but inert carrier for its real, yet to be isolated, active principle. Besides, even if the German chemist were wrong, and a diffraction pattern were obtained, it would clearly be impossible to deduce from it structures of molecules as larger and complex as proteins.

Contrary to all reason, or perhaps because they had not read the literature, Bernal and Crowfoot discovered that pepsin crystals did give an X-ray diffraction pattern. It was made up of sharp reflections that extended to spacing of the order of inter atomic distances, showing that pepsin was not a colloid of random coils, but an ordered three-dimensional structure in which most of its 5,000 atoms occupy definite places. Their observation opened the subject of protein crystallography. (emphasis not in original).

In the historical development of science, Bernal has a leading place. It was not so much for his actual contribution. As stated above he demonstrated that if treated correctly a protein crystal could retain its order during irradiation by X-rays and the three-dimensional structure could be worked out from the information scattered become of X-rays. His students went on to solve the structures of haemoglobin and other key materials. The application of X-ray crystallography to structural analysis of complex molecules revolutionised our understanding of biology.

Bernal was the originator of the study of viruses by X-ray crystallography. This is because Bernal could visualise the utility of X-ray diffraction in determining the structure of virus and he and Isador Fankuchen (1905-64) had taken the first X-ray photograph of Tobacco Mosaic Virus and Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus in the 1930s. Bernal also conducted research into the origin of life and the structure and composition of the Earth's crust.

It can be said that Bernal's work with Dorothy Hodgkin, Isidor Fankuchen and others on X-ray crystallography effectively started molecular biology. Bernal had anticipated that in the geometry and physical structure of such molecules must lie some of the explanations of the origin of life and the way the living process works. That Bernal was right became amply clear when Watson and Crick unravelled the structure of the DNA- the double helix.

Science was absolutely central both to Bernal's social thinking and to his philosophical thinking. The scientific method encompassed the whole of his life. Bernal viewed science as a social activity, integrally tied to the whole spectrum of other social activities; economic, social and political. According to Bernal, the cause of science was inextricably intertwined with the cause of socialism. He believed that "In its endeavor science is communism". Bernal had proposed that government support and planning of scientific research would be the best means of improving the condition of human life. For Bernal there was no philosophy, no social theory, no knowledge independent of science. Science was the foundation of it all. Bernal's philosophy of science was in the tradition of Engel's. The important thing about Engel's concept of nature, as Bernal saw it, was that Engle's saw it as a whole and as a process. Bernal founded altogether a new discipline called "Science of Science". Its objective was to overcome overspecialization and to achieve the unity of science. "It placed science within the context of the whole of human and cosmic evolution. Its central idea was the process of transformation, and its scope was the whole range of human experience".

Bernal's own writings included : The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929); The Social Function of Science (1939); The Freedom of Necessity (1949); The Physical Basis of Life (1950); Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century (1953); Science in History (1954); World Without War (1958); Origin of Life (1967) and The Extension of Man--Physics Before the Quantum (1972).

Bernal collaborated in the 1940 monograph on steroids with Isidor Fankuchen and Dorothy crowfoot Hodgkin, in which crystal data were listed for more than eighty sterol derivatives. "The Social Function of Science", which Bernal wrote became the most celebrated piece of work. Many a people were greatly influenced by it. During the same period when he was involved in groundbreaking research on the crystals of biologically important substances like sterols, proteins and viruses.

Jerry Rabetz, historian and philosopher of science, wrote in his essay, the Marxist Vision of J.D. Bernal : "With a magnificent sweep, his surveys run through the history, sociology, political critqiue and the future of science. His was a coherent vision, one deriving from a great tradition of progressive thought about science, which first matured to the mid - 18th century but was, I think, and enriched and deepened by Bernal's own intense concern for science and democracy … Bernal's Social Function of Science was perhaps the last of the great testaments of science in which a person of broad intelligence and philosophical depth could argue coherently the social problems of the world, and of science itself, could be solved simply by the methods and approach of science".

Eugene Garfield wrote: "Through my career-- in fact, since my early adolescence - I have been fascinated by the history and sociology of science. Indeed, it is quite likely that a book my uncle gave me at the end of my freshman year in high school - John D. Bernal's The Social Function of Science was the spark that ignited my incipient interests in research and influenced my eventual decision to make a career for myself in the science community".

In Science in History Bernal gave a general review of the achievements of science as a whole, revealing its philosophical significance and role in human history. In World Without War he discussed the prospects of the peaceful use of scientific discoveries for the benefit of humanity.

Towards the end of his life Bernal was not happy about the way science was being done. Jerry Rabetz had asked Bernal in the early 1960s in London at a British Society of History of Science meeting : "How do you feel now nearly 25 years after you published your great work on the social function of science? How do you feel about science especially now since the lessons have been absorbed?" Bernal replied: "Oh, it's all a racket. Back in the old days we all loved science, we were in it just because we loved it and it was a great fun. But now you have all kids, it is just careers and they don't care. All they want is more money and more personnel. It is terrible".

Bernal was deeply involved in wartime activities during the Second World War. After the Germans invaded Russia, he threw all his energies into aggressive war. Under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Security, Bernal carried out with Solly Zuckerman an important analysis of the effects of enemy bombing. He became an Advisor to Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900-79), the Chief of Combined Operations. He went to the Quebec Conference and helped plan the invasion of Europe. After the War, Bernal worked for establishing peace on the globe.

Bernal died, at the age of seventy on 15 September 1971. Bernal was an active, often restless man but unfortunately for some years before his death he had lost almost all muscular movement. He could not speak even with amplifier except those of his nearest connections who could catch his tone of voice.

We would like to end this brief write-up on Bernal by quoting C.P. Snow on Bernal : "..all through this life he had a curious lack of the artistic impulse to perfect a piece of work and sign his own name underneath. He started so many things, and stayed to finish only a few. Others could do the final work. He was part of a collective enterprise. In some depths of this temperament he was self-centred, but also he was the most unselfish of men. It was that combination, as rare as the somewhat similar one of Einstein's, which made him different from most of the human species". Certainly we need many more Bernals today - to inspire the younger generation and to generate ideas worthy of pursuing.

- A UNIQUE SCIENCE POPULARISATION EFFORT IN PREINDEPENDENCE INDIA

The name of Prof. Ruchi Ram Sahni's may still be unfamiliar to a majority of Indians. In fact before NCSTC and Vigyan Prasar made efforts to publicise the pioneering efforts made by Ruchi Ram Sahni in popularising science in the last part of the nineteenth century, people knew him only as the father of Birbal Sahni, the founder of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow. Ruchi Ram Sahni was a multi-faceted personality. He was a scientist, an innovator, an enthusiastic educationist, a fierce patriot and a devoted social worker. He was the first Indian scientist to issue daily weather forecasts on his own. He was also the first Indian scientist to work on the nucleus and cosmic "e rays - and that too with Ernest Rutherford. I first wrote on Ruchi Ram Sahni in NCSTC Communications (November 1991 and January 1992 issues). Subsequently, we brought out an edited version of his memoirs under the aegis of Vigyan Prasar, The way he popularised science is not only appealing but also instructive and is still relevant. That is why I thought it proper to include here the story already told for the benefit of the readers of Dream-2047.

The Punjab Science Institute (PSI) was established as a registered Society in 1.885. The main objective of the Institute was popularisation of all kinds of scientific knowledge throughout Punjab by means of lectures (in English and in the vernacular) illustrated with experiments and slides, as well as the publication of tracts. (Incidentally, Punjab in those days consisted of the present-day Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in India and parts or whole of Punjab in Pakistan.) The PSI objectives were expanded after a few years to include the encouragement of technical education, particularly of chemical industries.

Members of the PSI Society and most of those who promoted its activities were teachers (also called 'Professors') from various colleges. Those who gave popular lectures spent enormous amounts of time in preparing for them, since these were invariably accompanied by well-prepared slides and demonstration of experiments to make them interesting, popular and absorbing, And all this work was done voluntarily by these individuals on their own, without seeking any funds/grants from the government. However, there were some - mostly Europeans - who did invest a lot of time and serious effort in preparing their lectures, but these were faithful repetitions of published lectures delivered at different places/institutions in England, quite often word by word, without any acknowledgement whatsoever. Some famous examples of such published lectures were: 'Soap Bubbles' (by C,V, Boys), 'Chemical history of a candle' (by Faraday), 'Spinning tops' and 'The story of the tender-box' (by Perey).

There were others who chose their own topics and prepared their own lectures, designed and put together their own slides and experimental demonstrations, One of them was a physicist, Prof, Ruchi Ram Sahni, who was a co-founder and Joint Secretary of PSI. While working at Shim la, with the Meteorology Department :is the Second Assistant Meteorological Reporter, he used to give popular lectures on 'Weather' with special reference to India and the Monsoon phenomenon. These lectures created much interest and were attended by Indian and European individuals, and clerks in Government of India offices.

The interest and enthusiasm generated all over the Punjab province by popular lectures organised by the Punjab Science Institute could be gauged from the demands received by PSI from all over to send lectures, and from the fact that it was even "decided to charge a small fee at mofussil stations to cover at least part of the expenses incurred in sending out lectures generally accompanied by a laboratory assistant and the necessary apparatus to illustrate the lecture". "... after 1886, a fee ranging from 1 to 2 annas became a common feature at the popular lectures given in mofussil even when the lecturer was a local man. As a rule, in such cases, part of the apparatus and very frequently, an assistant... had to be sent from the headquarters". In 90 per cent of the cases, it was Prof. Ruchi Ram Sahni who was called upon to respond to these requests for popular lectures – one reason being that especially between 1890 to 1898, he had delivered so many popular lectures at Lahore and at other stations in Punjab that he was never' at a loss for a topic for his lecture, or the appropriate apparatus to illustrate it'. I n fact, there was a rapidly widening circle of friends and pupils, some of whom used to send him personal requests and invitations to visit their stations for a popular lecture.

According to a rough estimate, Prof Sahni must have delivered some 500 such popular lectures. Included among these was the annual course of some twenty lectures in the Punjabi language which he gave In the compound of the Baoli Sahib at Lahore.

Prof Sahni considered these to be his most successful popular lectures which, week after week, attracted a large number of shopkeepers at a time of the day when people were out making their daily purchases. Not only that, the audience was always forthcoming with suggestions whenever Prof Sahni found himself struggling for a correct Punjabi expression or word for something he was explaining/describing. Each year, about ten of his lectures were devoted to very common, everyday subjects, such as "Soapmaking", "The water Lahoris drank before 1880", "Pure and impure air", "The toys and their lessons", "Electroplating", "Electricity in the service of man (4 parts))", "Glass-making", "The Punjab and its rivers"(illustrated by a large relief map made in clay under Prof Sahni's direction for an exhibition in Lahore), " The common flame", "How does the telegraph wire speak?", etc. Several other lectures (of a slightly advanced variety) were repeated at mofussil stations and at other places in Lahore. All this had created much enthusiasm and interest in the study of science; so much so,that "there were mare schools teaching science as a regular subject of studies and more scholars studying elementary physics and chemistry in Punjab than in any other province of India".

Every once in a While, Prof Sahni chose to speak an the latest scientific discoveries in his popular lectures; these proved a success for beyond his widest expectations. In fact, his lectures on the newly discovered "X-rays'" ".Edison's phonograph" and the "wireless telegraphy" created so much interest that persistent demands came for their repetition at the same place two, three times and even oftener. Also, the experiments on the wireless during these lectures were perhaps among the earliest experiments repeated in India. Prof. Sahni has cited several. of his personal experiences to nail the contention often made during his time (what's new! So. it has been even in our times) that it was not possible to teach science through the medium of Punjabi or other Indian languages.

As a rule all these lectures, through fees charged for them, generated enough resources to cover all related expenses. In fact, because of the popularity of the lectures organised by PSI, enough funds had been collected that after investing money in the purchase of scientific apparatus and of books for the library, a sum of Rs. 3000/- in cash was left with the Society when it was decided to close the institute because of the circumstances, that had arisen. The money left aver was actually meant for building a lecture-hall at Lahore and thus a permanent local habitation for PSI, "which was not to be"! A new association, the Society for the promotion of scientific knowledge (SPSK), with objects similar to those of PSI, had been established by same students of the Lahore Medical College, with Dr C.C. Caleb as its President. By this time, Prof Oman, co.-founder of PSI with Prof Sahni, had left India. Prof Sahni gat deeply absorbed in "serious and complicated litigation in the Dyal Singh will case, which lasted for about 10 years". Several members of PSI had joined SPSK and there was not enough room for two bodies with same objectives to work parallelly. Also, at the Government College, with Prof A.S. Hemm as the Head of the Science Department (where Prof Ruchi Ram Sahni was a faculty member), "certain practical difficulties" led to the decision of closing dawn PSI and transferring all its assets to the new Society under Dr. C.C. Caleb, who was an active member of the erstwhile PSI.

The PSI workshop

During his deep involvement with the delivery of popular science lectures and with the overall management of this PSI activity, Prof Ruchi Ram Sahni had realized quite early that 'no science teaching in the province was possible without the provision of ordinary facilities for the repairs of simple school apparatus'. Even if PSI members were convinced of the need, no other member could be convinced that a workshop set up by them could possibly undertake the repairs of scientific instruments: everyone was so apprehensive of the likely difficulties even in undertaking repairs of scientific Instruments; let alone manufacturing them, that no onesl1pported the workshop idea (In fact, the idea of a workshop attached to the Science Department of a College was even more unthinkable, thenl)

Undeterred by this, and convinced of the need, Prof Sahni established the PSI workshop in 1888, armed With little or no spare money of his own but With the confidence that, somehow if he persevered with the project, success would have to follow!

Prof Sahni was able to work out an arrangement with a Railway workshop Mistri (technician), Shri Allah bakhsh – who had some ordinary tools and a simple charcoal furnace with a single goat"skin bellows at his house -- to prepare a few simple pieces of apparatus for him. This man, who was getting a salary of Rs. 25 per month and making another Rs. 10 by mending locks, making keys and doing other odd jobs for the neighbours, later became the Head Mistri of the PSI workshop. For this, Prof Sahni used to spend four hours every day - 8 p.m. to midnight - at Mistri Allah Bakhsh's house located at the for end of a long _ narrow lane. This meant real hard labour, V preparing for his lectures and class work in the morning, delivering popular lectures and managing the PSI's popular lecture programme, attending to his official duties at the college, and then spending long hours supervising his new 'baby workshop' at the Mistri's house. The simple items being made in the 'workshop' were sold to schools at cost price, or even less - price meaning the cost of materials and Mistri's labour only, and not accounting for the long hours spend by Prof Sahni supervising the whole operation.

This arrangement continued for about a year. The workshop was then shifted to Prof Sahni's house, with Shri Allah Bakhsh as a whole time Mistri at a monthly salary of Rs. 45. Prof Sahni had invested his entire savings of Rs. 1500 as 'outlay capital' on the workshop. With a full-time Mistri and a few unskilled helpers, to begin with, the operations expanded manifold.

After some years, a "Lock and Safes" section was added to the workshop, as a side-enterprise, largely to keep such a large number of trained men occupied for half the day with lock-making; outside piece-jobs were also being taken up within a month of adding this section; two types of locks were designed and produced which no other key would fit and which could only be broken open. So quickly did the demand grow for these locks that this section was making a net profit of Rs. 100 per month. This, thus, assured the success of the scientific section of the PSI workshop; here was a source of regular monthly income which could make up any shortfall on the instruments side. Later, the 'Locks and Safes' section had to be closed down because some friends of Prof Sahni wanted to start manufacture of such locks on a large scale. However, this new enterprise did not last more than 34 years, in the absence of proper supervision and quality control; the company lost its reputation and had to wind up with heavy losses.

At the time, all the brass-casting and turning jobs till then used to get done outside on a contract basis. With increased work, however, getting piece jobs done outside became more and more problematic. So, a small casting, section had to be added to the workshop; this also meant allowing doing of outside jobs to keep all the employed workers gainfully engaged. This done, there were problems on the metal turning front, since the workshop did not have its own lathe; those few in the city who were doing contract jobs for the PSI workshop earlier, were becoming more and more unreasonable with every passing day, with hikes in their demands. The PSI workshop needed a lathe badly and right away, and also the services of a good turner!

With the help of Mistri Allah Bakhsh, Prof Sahni was able to locate an unemployed turner who knew of an individual in a place called Kusur (near Ferozepur) who had a used lathe that was available for sale at a reasonable price. Prof Sahni employed the turner on a decent salary on the condition that the lathe was purchased. On reaching Kusur, it was discovered that the lathe owner already knew Prof Ruchi Ram Sahni and had used his workshop in the past for odd 10bs. Thus a very reasonable deal was worked out and the lathe was dismantled, packed and brought back by train to Lahore, taken straight to the workshop at Prof Sahni's house, assembled and installed overnight; a whole lot of associated tools and fixtures too had come with the lathe. Next day, every one was stunned to see a working lathe, where there was nothing the previous evening.

Prof. J.G. Oman, who was away on holiday to UK when the PSI workshop was founded, returned in mid.1889. He did not quite like the idea of this workshop having started during his absence, and insisted that it strictly limit itself, to repairs of school apparatus. This was not quite possible, since there was not enough repair work to be done to keep engaged even the small number of artisans that the workshop had employed. It was thought prudent, however, to slow down the pace. With widening experience, the workshop began to handle repairs of more complicated apparatus. Prof Sahni's popular lectures all over Punjab, helped spread the good reputation of the workshop in the whole province; even some PWD offices began to send instruments like theodolites, prismatic compasses etc for repair to the PSI workshop. Such opportunities, involving overhauling and examination of the working of a variety of delicate instruments, helped raise confidence of the workshop Mistries (technicians) who were then emboldened to undertake the manufacture of more advanced school and college apparatus. By the early 1890s, despite all the self restraint, the workshop had developed into a reputed institution in respect of its workmen and appliances for the manufacture of a fairly decent set of scientific instruments.

During a trip to Bombay, for making some essential material purchases (like brass, zinc and other metal plates, and copper and brass wires of various thicknesses etc), Prof Sahni landed himself in a local English firm dealing in scientific apparatus, to pick up some items for which his workshop had placed orders with this firm. While making inquiries about his order, Prof Sahni came across the name of Shri Hira Lal, Science instructor at Hoshangabad, C.R, who had placed an order for Tate's Air Pump with that firm. On returning to his residence, Prof Sahni shot off a long letter to Shri Hira Lal, telling him about PSI, the PSI workshop, and enclosing his own small catalogue of apparatus available from the PSI workshop at half the prices shown in the British firms' catalogues - with an offer to send him everything on approval and on a returnable basis, if necessary, at the PSI workshop's expense. This, subsequently, led to a longstanding relationship and the workshop enjoyed Shri Hira Lal's patronage for along while thereafter.

Also, during the above trip to Bombay, Prof Sahni accidentally wandered into a public auction being conducted on behalf of a firm dealing in scientific instruments, which had gone into liquidation. At this auction, Prof Sahni was able to 'outbid' all the others to pick up three platinum cups, 20 platinum plates for. Grove's battery cells, four other machines, a huge lot of carbon plates, a lot of cotton and silk covered insulated wire, some electric bells with batteries etc, 'among others - all for a paltry sum of As 124. He had all the stuff safely packed and had it despatched to his workshop at Lahore by train. On his return, he sold most of the items, picked up at the auction in Bombay, for a profit of at least As. 3000 which was credited to the PSI workshop account.

With a comfortable financial position, the workshop was able to afford sending gifts of simple apparatus costing As 4 to 7 each to some of the schools. All the five inspectors of Schools in the province were informed, through a circular, about the history and progress of the workshop and its capabilities and were offered a set of a dozen selected pieces of apparatus produced by the workshop and a Mistri to explain and demonstrate the working of all the instruments Of these, the only one to respond was the only Indian among the five inspectors, Master Pyare Lal from the Jalandhar Circle; the others did not even bother to acknowledge the circular! He offered to visit the workshop at his convenience to see the apparatus being actually made. He in face so sometime later and spend three hours familiarising himself fully with all the details. Master Pyare Lal proved a great source of encouragement, later, like Shri Hira Lal of Hoshangabad. One European gentleman, occupying a high post, "even blurted out the opinion that he would not cut the throat of his own people byencouraging an industrial undertaking like the workshop. He seemed to regret the remark afterwards because he tried to explain himself away. The Head of the Department of Instruction, however, officially expressed his gratification that the workshop was providing facilities for the teaching of science subjects to the schools in the province".

Industrial conference. at Poona

In the summer of 1893, Prof Sahni received an invitation from Shri Namjoshi of Poona (a well, known public worker in the cause of industrial advancement of the country), to attend an industrial conference to be l1eld in the ensuing autumn. Her_ was an opportunity to bring the PSI workshop to the notice of wider audience specially interested in new industrial undertakings.

Prof Sahni, accompanied by his Head Mistri Allah Bakhsh, arrived in Poona with several boxes of scientific instruments made at Lahore. At Poona, the grand old man Shri Govind Ranade insisted that Prof Sahni stayed with him at his house. Prof Sahni was greatly impressed by the simplicity and unconventional ways and characteristics of Shri Ranade during his six days of stay with him, and long walks in the morning.

The Conference, on a suggestion from Shri Namjoshi, had appointed a three-member Committee to examine the apparatus brought from Lahore and on display at the Conference, and to present a report on the same. Surprisingly, the Committee made its report confidential. 'Why?' No one was able or willing to tell Prof Sahni. At last, Shri Namjoshi told Prof Sahni in confidence that, in effect, "the Committee did not believe that the apparatus could have been made at Lahore or anywhere else in India". They were, in fact, convinced that the instruments exhibited were really made in England and that all that the PSI workshop had done was to remove the original varnish and replace it or create a varnish of their own so as to give ,it the appearance of an Indian origin, and the proof of it was the further fact that with all their own resources of skill and appliances in Bombay and elsewhere they themselves could not turn out similar articles.

With the permission of the President of the Conference, Prof Sahni was able to speak for ten minutes about his workshop with special reference to the instruments that were exhibited at the Conference. Prof. Sahni stated that, in his view, the Committee, could not possibly have made it more flattering for the PSI workshop. For it meant only two things: (a) But for the varnishing, the Lahore-made apparatus stood on par with the imported Britishmade apparatus in respect of the actual working; and (b) the report showed that the workshop in Lahore had been able to achieve a success that was admittedly beyond all the resources of the' more advanced presidency of Bombay. In response, Prof Sahni made three alternatives offers to the Conference.

(i) the Conference could depute any number of individuals to visit the PSI workshop at Lahore to see the apparatus in the actual process of its manufacture and that, if not satisfied with the made-in-Lahore claim, the workshop would be responsible for the to and fro second class fare of all the deputed individuals.
(ii) the Conference could place a large order for any of the items of the apparatus with the workshop. As the asking prices were only half of the English prices, they would be gainers at the expense of the PSI workshop. Or

(iii) the Head Mistry could be left at Poona, Bombay, or anywhere else where he could be provided with the necessary facilities for the manufacture of the apparatus. He would then make any of the items they liked in front of their own eyes. All that they needed to guarantee in return was the salary of the Mistri, for the time, not exceeding a month.

This submission by Prof Sahni was greeted with loud applause and Prof Modak of Baroda (probably the Chairman of the reporting Committee) came forward and embraced Prof Sahni. This was the start of along association of Prof Modak with the workshop and with Prof Sahni.

The subsequent history of the workshop was a string of successes and achievements. It continued with the routine of manufacturing and selling apparatus from year to year! Yes, the output increased, the sales mounted and its reputation spread to other provinces with orders from the most distant parts of the country. Some years later, when an industrial exhibition became a regular adjunct of the annual session of the Indian National Congress, exhibits from the PSI workshop attracted particular notice and were recommended for gold or silver medals. At the 1906 Calcutta Exhibition, Prof JC Bose was one of the Committee of judges for the section on scientific exhibits; he spoke of the workshop's contribution to the exhibition in flattering terms; and the workshop was awarded a Gold medal.

With the passage of time, the quality of the apparatus improved and more advanced and more delicate pieces of apparatus such as resistance boxes and chemical balances etc. were turned out. They compared favourably with most of the imported articles. Yes, the workshop never could come anywhere near the best instruments used for research work. But even for such of the delicate instruments that were produced by the workshop, the demand was very limited, so much so that it was difficult to make suitable arrangements for the calibration and reliable testing of these instruments. With a stronger effort at promotion, perhaps a few more orders could have been secured.

Prof Sahni was keen to add some new activity to the workshop. He thought of adding a section to make binoculars, and students mircoscopes etc for which a fairly sizeable demand had grown. He even went to Germany in 1914, with. a large sum of money, to bring back the required appliances for grinding lenses etc. But the war broke out and he had to return home empty handed, after spending a year in England.

Towards the close of the nineteenth century, Prof Sahni seriously toyed with the idea of establishing a big chemical factory at Lahore. He did some ground work, made a practical study of the different aspects and, among other things, visited Calcutta to discuss the matter with Dr P.C. Ray. Sulphuric Acid was the chemical Prof Sahni had in mind for manufacture. With Dr. Ray's help, he was able to visit some factories. Despite all this, the idea never could materialise.

top