India's indirect contribution to Western Science

In England the law of primogeniture (all property to the eldest heir) prevailed, so the younger sons were left to fend for themselves. England being a small island, colonialism became inevitable to extradite  the surplus population. Also as Stendhal's classic novel's title "The Red & the Black", itself says, the choice of professions for the middle class was restricted to the army (& navy) & the Church. But the silver lining was that the affluent educated remaining at home had enough leisure to think constructively & a lucky few came up with epoch-making inventions like James Watt's steam engine, William Harvey's circulation of blood, Joseph Lister's sterilisation (antiseptic) to reduce deaths during surgery & many others.

Added to this wealth being concentrated in few hands, wealth also poured in from the colonies, sent by the extradited surplus population of younger sons. Adam Smith, the Scottish economist writes in his seminal work "The Wealth of Nations" that the conduct of the servants of the erstwhile East India Company in India became a subject of parliamentary enquiry. So as a result, in 1773 new regulations were formed, not withstanding which their depredations over a vast accession of the most fertile & richest areas of India continued.

So this pre-eminence in path-breaking scientific inventions, occurring during the period of colonisation, gave a flying start to the British prosperity, mainly fuelled by the wealth transported from India, which replaced North America (which declared itself as independent in 1783) as the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire. So India may be viewed as the (unwilling?) venture capitalist to British enterprise.

Kew Gardens & Lal Bagh: an Umbilical Link

The Kew Gardens in London is the best known botanical garden in the world. It is also a research centre & produces world class books. One such publication is "Botanicum" which gives a bird's eye view of the complete world of plants. Text written by Prof. Kathy Willis, of Kew Gardens, illustrated by Katie Scott by pen & ink & coloured digitally, & edited by yet another Katie Haworth, the unbelievably large volume is a veritable feast for the eyes.

Lal Bagh of Bengaluru, the founding of which is ascribed to Tipu Sultan, a passionate lover of gardens. Such was his passion that he sent his ambassadors to France, (a friendly country to him to oppose the British) to bring back rare plants. Though they did, he was not satisfied with the results & had the unfortunate ambassadors executed.

Lal Bagh was modernised during the British rule, all the earliest directors being trained at Kew Gardens. The comprehensive history & evolution of Lalbagh is presented for the first time in the book "Bangalore's Lal Bagh" by Suresh Jayaram, who underlines the contribution of the Kew trained horticulturists in the evolution of the present day Lalbagh. The book, replete with rare maps & diagrams, also gives the history of the various landmarks in Lal Bagh. This volume, though scholarly in content, contains many evocative photos & Rumale's celebrated paintings, to make it reader-friendly. Mention must be made of the layout of the pages & overall design of the book, which are of international standard.

Christine de Pizan & Sanchi Honnamma

Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) was the first French female writer who earned her living by her pen. The earlier writers like Hildegard of Bingen were nuns who had no need to earn their living. Deeply pained by the misogyny of her times, she wrote "The Book of the City of Ladies" where she refuted the allegations of the misogynists point by point & listed the woman achievers both past & present.

Sanchi Honnamma, who lived in a King's court in the seventeenth century in Karnataka, was one of the first poetesses in Kannada, the earlier one like Akka Mahadevi in twelfth century being basically a renunciate like Hildegard above. Honnamma was also hurt by the misogynists of her time & composed a famous poem which roughly translates as below:

"Was it not a woman who bore you?

Was it not a woman who brought you up?

Then why do you denigrate women

You blind men?"

It has to be noted that Christine, "far from inciting her contemporaries to resist the limitations placed on them by society, recommends traditional virtues to them: tolerance & humility to wives, modesty & obedience to virgins, & courage & dignity to widows." (Rosalind Brown Grant).

Similarly in "Hadibadeya Dharma", Honnamma preaches exactly the same virtues as mentioned above by Christine. So both Christine & Honnamma can be viewed as spiritual sisters seperated by space & time.