Thread by @dikgaj

(1) At least caste is no bar in journalistic “how to make stories” per agenda by careful amnesia as both Dilip Mondal and Sarvesh Tiwari indicate. Bamman Asutosh Mukhujjye selected Saha for his first lectureship(1916), and created a special chair of physics for Saha(1921).

https://twitter.com/Profdilipmandal/status/1494018915797651457

(2) It was not Satyendranath Basu but Saha who was awarded the Premchand Raichand scholarship by caste repressors, (Bose wd be by Dilip Mondal’s reality, a “caste oppressor” of Saha) although Bose had scored topped in academic exams where both competed (they wr year mates).

(3) I am delighted to know that Dilip Mondal has investigated to find Imperial College labs in UK and Nernst’s labs in Berlin to hv been primitive in 1920’s, as also that there were modern labs in India to which caste repressors like Bose and Raman had access to, but Saha didn’t

(4) caste repressor Bose had access to such great funding and modern labs that he insisted his students assemble and fabricate their instruments with local expertise and material, while the lab conditions over 15 odd years spent by Saha at Allahabad remained primitive.

(5) it was again another Bamman (son of the prev one) Shyamaprasad Mukhujjye who helped him found the institute of nuclear physics (renamed SINP). I hope that Dilip Mondal may research and find the Mukherjees and the scholarship selectors to hv been repressed caste and not Bamman

(6)That there was a wonderful personal dynamic between Saha, Raman, Bhabha, Nehru over India’s nuclear prog whereby Bhabha sidelined Saha/Raman is not due to caste(That is I am not sure Mondal will dare go there just as Tiwari doesn’t walk where his own idols are concerned)

(7) an anecdote, and I stress, it’s entirely unconfirmed, that the scholarship selectors decided Bose who was newly wed, wd spend the schol on buying jewellery for his wife, so better to give it to Saha. From my experience, decision makers are very clever at hiding real reasons.

(8) so I doubt any in that committee ever actually shared openly that opinion even if they held it in private. But it’s more likely that if there ever was any real discrimination ( which wd be surprisingly common) it was out of envy for a student who was simply too brilliant.