“In an age when most Indian women didn’t make it past high school, Janaki Ammal didn’t just obtain a PhD at one of America’s finest public universities, she went on to make seminal contributions to her field.”
A true statement for Indian scenario in early
1900, but the determination of this scientist was much stronger than this
truth. We are talking about Dr. Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal whose life and
work still, and will always be, a great source of inspiration for Indian women.
Janaki Ammal was born on November 4th,
1897 in Kerala (India). She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Queen Mary’s
College and honours in Botany from Presidency College Madras (now Chennai) in
1921. She went on to obtain her master’s (1925) and doctoral degree (1931) from
the prestigious University of Michigan, USA. She was the first Oriental Barbour
Fellow at the university. She was the first Indian to obtain a PhD in botany,
that too from one of the most prestigious universities of that time. Her doctoral
thesis was titled “Chromosome Studies in Nicandra Physaloides”. During
her doctoral training, she specialized in breeding interspecies hybrids
(produced from plants of a different species) and intergeneric hybrids (plants
of a different genera within the same family). She is one of the very few Asian
women to be conferred a D. Sc. (honoris causa) from University of Michigan.
After returning to India, she joined as a faculty of botany at Maharaja’s
College of Science and served from 1932-34. After resigning form this position,
she joined as a geneticist at Sugarcane Breeding Institute at Coimbatore. At
the time when she joined the sugarcane institute in Coimbatore, the sweetest
sugarcane (Saccharum officianarum) was found in Papua New Guinea. India
imported this variety from South-East Asia. To minimise the dependence of India
importing the sugarcane, she took up the challenge to develop a high-yielding
hybrid variety that could thrive on Indian soil.
“By manipulating polyploid cells through cross-breeding of hybrids
in the laboratory, Janaki was able to create a high yielding strain of the
sugarcane that would thrive in Indian conditions. Her research also helped
analyse the geographical distribution of sugarcane across India, and to
establish that the Saccharum Spontaneum variety of sugarcane had originated in
India.”
In the process of her research to find sugarcane
varieties suitable to Indian soil and climate, she also developed few more
hybrids from crossing various genera of grasses: Saccharum-Zea,
Saccharum-Erianthus, Saccharum-Imperata and Saccharum-Sorghum.
Dr. Janaki Ammal was selected as a fellow of
Indian Academy of Science in its year of inception (founded by Nobel Laureate Dr.
C. V. Raman) in 1935. However, even such an accomplished researcher also
encountered caste and gender discrimination that was widely prevalent in India
at that time. Facing such discrimination, she left for London and joined John Innes
Horticultural Institute as an assistant cytologist in the year 1940. She worked
with Cyril Dean Darlington who was a renowned geneticist of that time. Though
being an eugenicist, Darlington let Ammal work on plants. After five year of
research collaboration, they co-authored “Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated
Plants”, which is still considered a key text for scientists working on
plants.
“Unlike other botanical atlases that focused on botanical
classification, this atlas recorded the chromosome number of about 100,000
plants, providing knowledge about breeding and evolutionary patterns of botanical
groups.”
Following her brief stint of five years at John
Innes Horticultural Institute, Dr. Ammal joined Royal Horticultural Society at
Wisley in 1945 as a cytologist where she became the first woman to be conferred
a salaried staff position. At Royal Horticultural Society, she studies the
application of colchicine, a drug that could double the chromosome number and
result in faster and larger growth of plants. She worked there till 1951. India
got independence in 1947 and the country witnessed a massive famine a few years
back in Bengal in 1943. The then Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru
invited Dr. Ammal back to India so that she could improve the botanical base of
Indian agriculture. She joined Central Botanical Laboratory at Allahabad in
1952. She was also given additional task to reorganize Botanical Survey of
India. She was appointed as the Officer on Special Duty at Regional Research Laboratory
at Jammu. She went on to serve as the Director-general of BSI.
“Due to her expertise and influential scientific accomplishments, she
was invited to the landmark international symposium on environmental history,
“Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth” organized by the Wenner Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research at Princeton in 1955 (one of only two
Indians, the other being Radhakamal Mukherjee). She was the only woman invitee to that symposium.”
After her tenure at BSI, she also worked for
a brief period at Bhabha Atomic Besearch Centre, Trombay and finally settled
down in Madras (now Chennai) in 1970 as an Emeritus Scientist at the Centre for
Advanced Study in Botany, University of Madras. She worked at centre’s field
laboratory near madras till 1984. While at this centre, she worked and
documented a lot on medicinal plants. This highly dedicated soul left for the
heavenly abode on February 7th, 1984, while working in her
laboratory.
With her dedication for science, she
accomplished a lot that helped the botanical world. For her contributions,
University of Michigan conferred honorary LLD on her in 1956. Dr. Janaki Ammal
awarded the Padma Shri in 1977 for her exemplary contribution to science in
India. In 2000, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Government of India
created the National Award of Taxonomy in her name. A herbarium with over
25,000 species in Jammu Tawi that is named after this pioneering botanist. It
is also a matter of extreme pride that John Innes Horticultural Centre, UK,
announced a new scholarship on her name for the post-graduate students form the
developing countries who wish to study plant and microbial science. There are
eighty-eight scholarships under this scheme. The announcement was made just a
fortnight before International Women’s Day. Her niece, Geeta Doctor, has written
and spoken a lot about Dr. Ammal. Dr. Ammal’s dedication towards science can be
sensed from this small extract:
“In a 2015 article remembering her aunt, Greeta Doctor wrote that
Ammal never liked to talk about herself. Rather, Ammal believed that “My work
is what will survive.” She was right: though she is relatively unknown in her
country, her story is out there, written in the pages of India’s natural landscape.
From the sweetness of India’s sugar and the enduring biodiversity of the Silent
Valley to Wiseley’s blooming magnolias, Ammal’s work does not just survive, it
thrives.”
Leaving behind all the adversities, Dr. Ammal
achieved what she strived for. It can be seen from her life that she worked at
different places but did not stay for very long at any particular place. Yet,
in her short stint with an institution, she made significant contribution to
her field of research. We all can learn from her that though science needs
time, it is not the ultimate truth. A dedicated mind can achieve great
milestones even with short duration of research. Science does not know boundary,
science knows dedication.
References:
https://scientificwomen.net/women/ammal-janaki-111
https://www.iiim.res.in/herbarium/edavaleth-kakkat-janaki-ammal.htm
https://www.thebetterindia.com/75174/janaki-ammal-botanist-sugarcane-magnolia/
https://www.ias.ac.in/public/Resources/Initiatives/Women_in_Science/Janaki.pdf
Excellent read sir! Huge inspiration!!! Keep this going sir😇💯
ReplyDeleteThanks Karthik.
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