বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৬ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৪

Indian Scientist and Participant in Freedom Struggle

         Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was the co-researcher of Sir Ronald Ross who studied malaria from 1881 to 1899. Finally in 1899 Ross with able assistance from Dr Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay, while working at Presidency General Hospital ( PG ), discovered that malaria was caused by anopheles mosquito. Though Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902 for this pioneering discovery, Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was deprived of the same honour, the reasons for which has been explained by Dr Uli Biesel and Dr Christophe Boete in their dissertation titled 'The Flying Public Health Tool : Genetically Modified Mosquitoes and Malaria Control' in Volume 22, 1st issue of 'Science as Culture' ( Lancaster, UK ) magazine in 2013 in following words:

"Even though Ross was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize he was by far not the only one who hypothesized that mosquitoes transmit malaria. The importance of his Indian research assistant Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay is acknowledged by many. The fact that he was not a corecipient of the prize, but merely received a gold medal, is read by many as an effect of colonial relations. Ross also stood in direct competition ( and exchange ) with a research group in Italy, most notably Battista Grassi ( Capana, 2006 ). It remains unclear who made the discovery first, but evidently Ross was better at publicizing his results quickly."

          In their article 'Neglected malarias : The frontiers and back alleys of global health' published in 'BioSocieties' Volume 6 from London School of Economics and Political Science ( 2011 ) Dr Ann H Kelly and Dr Uli Biesel has written, "Other key actors in this history of discovery were Patric Mansion, also a colonial medical officer in China and the founding director of the London School of Hygene and Tropical Medicine. Mansion postulated the mosquito-malaria theory, for which Ross established scientific proof. Geovanni Battista Grassi, an Italian zoologist who discovered the transmission process of avian malaria, and simultaneously to Ross, proved the connection between mosquitoes, parasites and humans. The priority of discovery became an issue of extended dispute. Needless to say, behind the big men was the work of unaccredited technicians and field workers. For a novelistic treatment of the role of Ross's laboratory assistant Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay, see Amitava Ghosh's 'The Calcutta Chromosome' ( 2001 )"

          In his novel Amitava Ghosh has explored the exploitation of Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay and Mohammad Bux by Ronald Ross. Barbara Romanik in her article Transforming the Colonial City : Science and the Practice of Dwelling in The Calcutta Chromosome published in Mosaic Volume 38 ( 2005 ) has focused on the novel's representations of science, arguing that,  "Ghosh's representation of Calcutta squeezes with his broader challenge to Eurocentric accounts of the history of science. Ghosh employs a factual framework for the events in the novel, drawing upon Ross's motivated and mischievous Memoirs which were published in 1923. Many of the characters in the novel are historical persons drawn from excerpts of letters and other documents incorporated by Ross into his autobiographical work. The Memoirs are designed to buttress Ross's claim of sole credit for the discovery that malaria is caused by the anopheles mosquito."

         Claire Chambers in her essay Postcolonial Science Fiction : Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome published in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature ( 2003 ) Volume 38, explains that "it was common currency among Bengali intellectuals that Ross exploited native workers in his quest to find the cause of malaria."

          Michele Reid in her essay titled Postcolonialism published in The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction has written that Amitav Ghosh "uses an alternate history to question the boundaries erected to separate notions of scientific 'truth' and fiction. Subverting the Western history of science, it posits that Ronald Ross did not 'discover' how malaria was transmitted but that Indian local knowledge and expertise played a far greater role in this medical breakthrough."

          The fact remains that Ross identified Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay because Bandyopadhyay, as a student of Calcutta Medical College,  had been propagating the use of mosquito nets known as Moshari ( Machchardani in Hindi or Urdu ) among the village folk of Bengal to avoid malaria and other mosquito related fevers ; he did not, however, have the wherewithal to scientifically prove the relation between malaria and a particular type of mosquitoes. Moshari had been in use in Bengal since the time of Buddha. Moreover, Mahanad at Pandua, where Ronald Ross had stationed himself for accessibility to patients, was just across the Ganges river at Panihati, where Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay had his ancestral residence, which was just near the ferry called Ramchand Ghat.The present road in Panihati, named after him, is quite at a distance from 'Nilambati' where he resided during his association with Sir Ronald Ross.

          After Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was denied the reward of his labour, a deligation of Bengali intellectuals comprising such stalwarts as  Upendranath Brahmachari, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Brajendra Nath Seal, Shivnath Sastri and Prafulla Chandra Roy met  Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy and requested that the Imperial Government initiate substantive steps to decorate Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay .

          On the recommendation of  Lord Curzon for decorating Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay with an Imperial honour he was awarded the gold medal by King Edward VII of Great Britain at an event in Delhi during the Delhi Durbar in 1903. The medal with a citation from the King was handed over to Dr Bandyopadhyay by the Duke of Connaught in the presence of Indian Princes and dignitaries. The medal was more than three hundred grams with the figure of the King on one side and the name of Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay along with a figure of anopheles mosquito on the other side.

         On his return after receiving King Edward's Gold Medal, Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was felicitated by Bengali scientists and physicians at the Senate Hall, Calcutta. The function was presided over by Chttaranjan Das. A Kashmir shawl was presented to him by Prafulla Chandra Roy. The main speaker was Dr Upendranath Brahmachari. Other speakers were Brajendranath Seal, Shivnath Sastri and Bidhan Chandra Roy who later became Chief Minister of West Bengal.

          Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was born at Entally, Calcutta, West Bengal, India. Though his grandfather Durgadas had purchased a sprawling house in an auction for only thirteen rupees as a result of which the house had come to be known as 'Nilambati', Kishori Mohan's father Nanilal Bandyopadhyay had shifted to Calcutta where his three sons Lalmohan, Haridas and Kishori Mohan were born .The  standard of English education, Nanilal felt, was not satisfactory in Panihati .

          Nanilal got his youngest son Kishori Mohan married to his friend Gurudas Chattopadhyay's daughter Kshetraprosadi as Gurudas's sons were all well educated and conversant with English language and literature. In fact Gurudas's son Anadinath had done his post-graduation in English from Presidency College, Calcutta. Though Gurudas did not get converted to Brahma dharma, he was quite close to the stalwarts of this new worldview of Hindu religion who believed Vedanta and in one God. In many Bengali homes certain magazines such as Sunday Mirror, Bamabodhini, Sulabh Samachar etc were not welcome for their modernist and Western ideas ; however, Kishori Mohan and his friend Anadinath not only read them at Calcutta, but also brought them to Panihati as well for circulation among the younger generation.  They introduced such Bengali magazines as Bangadarshan, Sahitya Sankranti, Samvad Sadhuranjan etc magazines in to the cultural circle of Panihati. During his anti-malaria campaign days, Kishori Mohan worked as a correspondent for Hindu Patriot news magazine.