The Royal Society and India

This exhibition uses materials from the Society’s historical collections to show the evolution of the relationship between the two nations.

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Portrait of physicists Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett PRS and Daulat Singh Kothari (1954/1955) by UnknownThe Royal Society

The Royal Society and India

India, the birthplace of such fundamental concepts as Zero, has long occupied a prominent place in the activities of the Royal Society and its Fellows.
From its earliest days, Fellows collected information about India, often relying on the knowledge and works of Indian people.

Extract of a letter, from Henry Powell to his father [William Daniel Powell] (1665-01-06) by Henry PowellThe Royal Society

Observers and observatories

Fellows of the Royal Society received intermittent reports on India and its customs from the earliest years of the Society’s existence, such as this 1665 letter on astronomy and earthquakes in Balasore in Eastern India.

Paper, 'Of the way, used upon the coaste of Coromandelle, of cooling of drinks' (1663-07-08) by Robert Moray FRS (1608-1673)The Royal Society

Or, Robert Moray FRS who recorded in 1663 how people on the Coromandel coast in South Asia cooled their drinks by exposing them to the sun and wind. 

View of Jantar Mantar (1777) by Campbell; Archibald (1739-1791)The Royal Society

The East India Company strengthened its hold on the subcontinent during the 18th century. Sir Robert Barker FRS, then ‘late Commander in Chief in Bengall’ visited the impressive observatory Jantar Mantar in Varanasi in 1774.

Jantar Mantar contains the world’s largest astronomical instruments built in masonry: its geometrical forms architecturally distinct from prevailing styles.

Barker sent back to London some superb illustrations for use in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions drawn by Archibald Campbell chief-engineer for the East India Company (future colonial governor of Madras, Georgia and Jamaica).

Perspective of the Laghu Samrat Yantra sundial (1777) by Campbell; Archibald (1739-1791)The Royal Society

Barker, during his visit on the existence of tables predicting eclipses of the Sun and Moon in the collections of the Brahmin scholars
“who were in possession of certain books and records...

...some containing the mysteries of their religion, and others the tables of astronomical observations, written in the Skanskirrit [Sanskrit] language”.

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The astronomical complex at Varanasi was part of a network of five observatories built in the 1730s by order of Sawai Raja Jai Singh, including that of Jaipur listed as UNESCO Work Heritage Site since 2010.

Table of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter taken at Madras [Chennai] (1808) by John Goldingham FRS (c 1766-1849)The Royal Society

Jaipur remained a place of astronomical and meteorological observations throughout the centuries. 

Plate XXXIX, from 'Essay on the architecture of the Hindus' (1834) by Ram Raz (Rama Raja) (c. 1790–1833)The Royal Society

More traditional architecture was also a subject of great interest to the Royal Society’s Fellows. The library holds a copy of one of the seminal 19th century works on the subject, the ‘Essay on the architecture of the Hindus’ by Ram Raz.

Plate XVIII, from 'Essay on the architecture of the Hindus' (1834) by Ram Raz (Rama Raja) (c. 1790–1833)The Royal Society

Raz was an Indian clerk who taught himself the basics of Sanskrit, mathematics, geography and astronomy. Posthumously published in 1834, the book contains a wealth of detail derived from ancient Sanskrit treatises. 

Madras Observatory interior (1821) by Unknown artistThe Royal Society

Astronomer William Petrie FRS set up an iron-and-timber observatory at his residence in Chennai, then known as Madras, equipping it with his own instruments.

This was so successful in establishing a reference meridian in British India that it continued to play a major role throughout the 19th century and was chosen as the start of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1802.

India (1822) by Aaron ArrowsmithKalakriti Archives

The Great Arc

The British occupation of India demanded accurate physical surveys for the purposes of communication. As part of the physical stocktaking process, a Survey of India had been established by the East India Company in 1767.

Index chart of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India (1875) by Office of the Trigonometrical Survey of IndiaThe Royal Society

This led to the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS), a spectacular undertaking begun by William Lambton FRS upon which the modern mapping and surveying of the country is still based.  

Portrait of George Everest (1855/1860) by Maull & PolybankThe Royal Society

From 1818 the project was joined by its most famous employee, George Everest. Everest rose to become superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey and Surveyor-General of India, earning Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1827 for championing scientific surveying.

Marianne North Gallery by RBG KewRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Although the Great Arc took Everest to northern parts of India, it was only the continuation of the survey into the foothills of the Himalayas by his successors that identified the distant ‘Peak XV’ as the world’s highest mountain. The peak was renamed Everest in 1856.

Reduction chart of the triangulation, Office of the Trigonometrical Survey of India, 1875, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Plate of the elevation towers of the Great Arc of India, S. Stockley, 1874, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Plate of the theodolite constructed for the East India Company, S. Stockley, 1874, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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To survey such a large territory, a network of stations were built to elevate the instruments used.  

Description of stations of the Great trigonometrical survey of India (1878) by Office of the Trigonometrical Survey of IndiaThe Royal Society

To access the Northern regions of India and into Tibet, the GTS hired several local surveyors, including the heroic Nain Singh Rawat who determined the location of Lhasa, Tibet. Many Indian surveyors such as Narsingh Das named in this table conducted the scientific groundwork.

Cursetjee, Ardaseer: certificate of election to the Royal Society (1841-03-27) by The Royal SocietyThe Royal Society

First Fellow

The first Indian citizen to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society on 27 May 1841 was Ardaseer Cursetjee (1808-1877). He was part of the same industrialisation processes which inspired the GTS, introducing both gas lighting and steam pumps to his native town of Mumbai.

The SS Entreprize coming to mouring (1830) by G. A. PrinsepThe Royal Society

Cursetjee travelled to England in 1839 to further his studies of marine steam power, which was in the process of transforming navigation and commerce in India.  

The Marquess of Northampton's soirée (1847) by Henry HarrisonThe Royal Society

Within months of his arrival  Cursetjee had made the acquaintance of the Marquess of Northampton, then President of the Royal Society and was elected to the Fellowship. He was presented to Queen Victoria during his stay in London.

Mumbai, Maharashtra (1840)Kalakriti Archives

Cursetjee appears to have visited many of the sights of the capital, commenting that a “nuisance of London is the dirty state of the roads compared with those of Bombay”.

Portrait of Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman by UnknownThe Royal Society

Scientific greats

Indian nationals contributed greatly to British science. With the genius of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan FRS (1887-1920) and the Nobel Prize-winning achievement of Sir C V Raman FRS (1888-1970) there came unquestionable evidence that Indian science was of a high order.

Passport photograph of Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan (1919) by UnknownThe Royal Society

Regarded as one of the great mathematical prodigies, Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan was the Royal Society’s second Indian Fellow. A self-taught and precocious child, his mathematical career was almost halted by financial difficulties in his early twenties.

Page from one of Srinivasa Ramanujan's mathematical notebooks (1957) by Tata Institute of Fundamental ResearchThe Royal Society

In 1913, Ramanujan began a correspondence with the mathematician G H Hardy FRS, who recognised Ramanujan’s natural genius, ranking him alongside titans such as Euler and Gauss. Hardy’s support led to a five-year stay in Cambridge, during which period Ramanujan was elected FRS.

Ramanujan, Srinivasa Aaiyangar: certificate of election to the Royal Society (1918) by The Royal SocietyThe Royal Society

His 1918 election citation highlighted his “investigations in elliptic functions and the theory of numbers”. Sadly, by then Ramanujan was already suffering from tuberculosis. Despite a return to the Indian climate in a bid to beat the disease, he died in April 1920 at age 32.

Title page of "On the molecular scattering of light in water and the colour of the sea" (1922-04) by Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman FRS (1888-1970)The Royal Society

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect.

Raman, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata: certificate of election to the Royal Society (1924) by The Royal SocietyThe Royal Society

His first research papers were written in his spare time while he worked as an accountant in Kolkata. He was to become the honorary secretary of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India’s oldest research institute established in 1876.

Figures on "Kaufmann's theory of the impact of the pianoforte hammer" (1920-04) by Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman FRS (1888-1970) and Bhabonath Banerji (fl. 1896-1932)The Royal Society

Another of Raman’s scientific interests was the acoustics of musical instruments, including the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings; he was the first to investigate the harmonics of Indian drums such as the tabla.

Raman was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1924, making him the fourth Indian FRS, after Cursetjee, Ramanujan and Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose.  

Portrait of Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Bourne & Shepherd, 1917, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Portrait of Jagadish Chandra Bose FRS, Unknown, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Commemorative stamp celebrating Ardaseer Cursetjee, Indian postal service, 1969-05-27, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Passport photograph of Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan, Unknown, 1919, From the collection of: The Royal Society
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Portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru (1945) by Ambalal Jhaverbhai PatelThe Royal Society

Conclusion

By the time of Independence in 1947, Royal Society scientists of both nations swayed policy in the new Government of India under the direction of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru, made explicit the needs of the new state:  

 

“Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.” 

Today, 21st century India is of tremendous importance to the Royal Society due to its growing role as a global scientific power and its position as the world’s most populous country.

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