Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

150th Birth Year
Tribute
W e reproduce below Acharya Jagadish
Chandra Bose’s speech at the founding of the Banaras
Hindu University in 1916. Therein, he expressed the
firm conviction that India should produce knowledge
through researches and our universities must be centers
of learning, inquiry, discovery and invention. Currently,
we note with sadness that most of our Universities
are just examination bodies giving out degrees.
In contrast, China which has the modern science tradition
much later than India is currently producing
more post-graduates, engineers and Ph Ds in sciences
and engineering than even the United States. Acharya
Jagadish Chandra Bose’s foresight and message to
the nation must now at least be taken seriously and
the Knowledge Commission’s recommendation during
that the 11th Five Year Plan our universities
should go up to 1400 at least and that they should be
of world class must be taken seriously. -EdI
In tracing the characteristic phenomenon
of life –from simple beginnings in that vast region
which may be called Unvoiced, as exemplified
in the world of plants, to its highest expression
in the animal kingdom –one is repeatedly
struck by the dominant fact that in order to
maintain an organism at the height of its efficiency,
something more than a mechanical perfection of
its structure is necessary. Every living organism,
in order to maintain its life and growth, must be
in free communion with all the forces of the universe
about it.
Stimulus Within and Without
Further it must not only constantly receive
stimulus from without, but must also give
6
Indigenous Research and Inventions
Our Universities’ Primary Role
J.C.Bose Speaks
out something from within. And the healthy life
of the organism will depend on these twofold
activities of inflow and outflow. When there is
any interference with these activities then morbid
symptoms appear,, which ultimately must end
in disaster and death. This is equally true of the
intellectual life of a nation. When through narrow
conceit, a nati0on regards itself self-sufficient
and cuts itself from the stimulus of the outside
world, then intellectual decay must inevitably
follow. So far as regards the receptive function.
Then there is another function in the intel-
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna