He was an academician, historian, and philanthropist. He
was mentioned as “The Saint of Science”. Known as the “Father of Indian
Chemistry”, Prof. Prafulla Chandra Ray, popularly known as Aacharya Prafulla
Chandra Ray, was the founder of India’s first pharmaceutical company which is
Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Limited.
Born on August 2, 1861 to Sri Harish Chandra Ray in
Raruli-Katipara village in Khulna district (now in Bangladesh), Aacharya Ray
completed his education is his village school till the age of 9. After
attending the initial schooling at his village, he moved to Kolkata for further
education at Hare School, Albert School, and Metropolitan College (later
Vidyasagar College) where he joined as a Fine Arts student. Though his first
love was literature, he was attracted towards chemistry after attending the
lectures of Alexander Pedler at the Presidency College. After completing his FA
diploma in 1881, he enrolled himself for the Bachelor of Arts course at
University of Calcutta. While pursuing his BA, he qualified Gilchrist Prize
scholarship (for which knowledge of at least four different language was
required) and moved to University of Edinburgh, England, where he earned his B.Sc. and
D.Sc. in chemistry.
An interesting story
says that Aacharya Ray, while pursuing his B.Sc. at Edinburgh, participated in
an article writing competition on the topic India before and after mutiny.
Though his article was not judged the best, but reviewers find the article
nearest to the best. The article consisted of diatribes against the British
rule with added humor to it. Nevertheless, it received unstinted praise from
one of the examiners, Sir William Muir, the Principal of the University. A
reprint of the article was presented to the great Parliamentarian John Bright,
whose sympathetic reply to Prafulla Chandra appeared in all the leading papers
of the United Kingdom under the head-line John Bright's Letter to an Indian
Student. This almost created a stir in the political circle of England at that
time, and may be said to have contributed in no small measure to the extreme difficulties
and inordinate delays he had to experience later on in securing a suitable
employment in the Educational Service of his own country under the British Rule.
(https://www.insaindia.res.in/BM/BM1_6606.pdf)
Completing his B.Sc. in 1885, Prafulla Chandra Ray was
admitted to D.Sc. in 1887 and his research work was titled Conjugated
Sulphates of the Copper-Magnesium Group: A Study of Isomorphous Mixtures and
Molecular Combinations. He was also awarded the Hope Prize scholarship of
the university to extend his research for some more time. Further, he was also
elected as the Vice-President of the Chemical Society of the University of
Edinburgh. He was the first Indian to earn a doctorate in chemistry.
Even with appreciable credentials, he found it very
difficult to land up in an academic job on his return to India in 1888. By the
time his family was in heavy debts and to manage his stays, he stayed mostly
with his friend Prof. Jagadish Chandra Bose. He finally managed to secure a
position of temporary assistant professor of chemistry at Presidency College in
July 1889. In a very short span of time, he famed to be a teacher who made his
lectures very interesting. It is reported that he was of the view that
teaching should not be within the boundary of the prescribed syllabus and was
against the degree-oriented way of teaching.
He was very critical
of university degrees, which under the system of training and examination in
vogue, could in his opinion seldom furnish a proper standard for assessing the
power of initiative and original thinking acquired by the students. In this
connection reference may be made to an interesting incident. At one time when
H. R. James was the Principal of the Presidency College, the I.Sc. and the
B.Sc. results in chemistry of the college for a few successive years suffered
somewhat by comparison with those of some private colleges of the city. On
Principal James's enquiring of Dr. Ray about its probable cause in view of the recruitment
of better class of students to the Presidency College, he replied "because
we teach chemistry and not the syllabus of the Calcutta University". He
held the view that the practice of regarding the university degrees as a
passport for services and a measure of intellectual ability led to an insane
craze for degrees among the Indian youths and a mass production of
degree-holders by the universities with their consequent unemployment. He used
to allege further that the graduates from the universities, owing to the system
of training followed, were seldom better than human parrots or licensed
ignoramuses. (https://www.insaindia.res.in/BM/BM1_6606.pdf)
After his tenure at Presidency College, Prof. Ray moved to
University College of Science, University of Calcutta, at Rajabazar, Kolkata.
He transformed the chemistry research at the department and the centre soon
became one of the best centres for chemistry research in India. For his
outstanding contribution to the education and research in chemistry, the British
government conferred him the Knighthood in 1919. He founded the Indian Chemical
Society and it is said that he donated Rs. 12,000 from his salary and savings towards
creating the society. A glimpse of his dream towards a scientifically advanced
India can be witnessed in his reply to the congratulation message sent by the
president and council of London Chemical Society, he mentioned
"More than forty
years ago while a student at Edinburgh, I almost dreamt a dream that, God
willing, a time would come when modern India will also be in a position to
contribute her quota to the world's stock of scientific knowledge, and it has
been my good fortune to see my dream materialize."
His major research contributions in chemistry research are first
report of synthesis of mercurous nitrite which was a serendipity. Other remarkable
contributions were the synthesis and study of ammonium nitrite, alkylammonium
nitrites, organic sulphur compounds, and few remarkable contribution to the
chemistry of transition heavy metals. In fact, synthesis of stable crystal
ammonium nitrite is still considered one of his best accomplishments. This
compound, before that remarkable synthesis, was known to be highly unstable. He
worked so extensively on nitrites that he is also sometimes known as “Master of
Nitrites”. By 1920, he published 107 scientific articles.
Prof. Ray was so dedicated towards academics and research
that on his 60th birthday in 1921, he donated his entire salary till
retirement to the University for improving research Infrastructure. The total
amount received was around Rs. 1,80,000 in 1936, the year when he retried form
University. Other than this, he made two endowments of Rs. 10,000 (research
prize in chemistry) in 1922 and another Rs. 10,000 (research prize in zoology
and botany) in 1936 towards scholarship prize named after Nagarjuna and Sir
Asutosh Mookerjee respectively.
Besides being an outstanding academician and researcher,
Aacharya Ray was a great supporter of industrialization and he was the founder
of India’s first pharmaceutical company called Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals
Limited in 1901 that started as a chemical company called Bengal Chemical Works
that started operation in 1892. Though he retired from academic services in 1936,
he continued to serve as Emeritus Professor in the University till his last
death. He took his last breath on June 16, 1944. In 2011, Royal Society of
Chemistry honored Prof. Prafulla Chandra Ray on his 150th birth
anniversary with a Chemical landmark Plaque which is the first ever Landmark
Plaque bestowed outside Europe.
References:
1. https://www.insaindia.res.in/BM/BM1_6606.pdf
2. https://www.isical.ac.in/~amartya/apc1reprint.pdf
3. https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/006/01/0042-0049
4. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed022p324
5. https://bengalchemicals.co.in/our-founder-history/
6.https://www.hindustantimes.com/kolkata/india-s-oldest-pharma-company-makes-profit-after-six-decades/story-xOYRYfMI1DOtVFSuIYKIsK.html
7.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/royal-society-honour-for-father-of-indian-chemistry-p-c-ray/articleshow/10183387.cms
8. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780792315186
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