A century of scientific thought in India — in a 2,000-sq ft space in Bengaluru

This archives centre, spread across 2,000 square feet in the NCBS eastern lab basement, was once the laboratory-cum-office of Obaid Siddiqi, the NCBS co-founder. Today, it has become a place where historians, storytellers and researchers converge.

The centre houses 24 collections comprising more than 150,000 painstakingly arranged objects — paper-based manuscripts, negatives, photographs, books, fine art, audio recordings, scientific equipment, letters, and field and lab notes.

Last month, it received a $440,000 grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund that supports the preservation of cultural heritage and environment. This was for a three-year project to collect, preserve and make available online cultural artefacts pertaining to the history of science in the country.

Prof Satyajit Mayor, Centre Director of NCBS, says such an initiative can help them understand the genesis of scientific ideas. “The archives centre was started with a vision of being a place where we could maintain an archive of scientific lives and trajectories, achievements, discussions and dialogues around the life sciences in the country, which could be useful for researchers in the future,” he says.

In addition to collections such as the Ravi Sankaran Papers (Sankaran was an ornithologist) and the Obaid Siddiqi papers, the centre also houses the papers of TSG Sastry, a physicist who worked on the Thumba rocket programme, Leslie Coleman, an early 20th century agricultural scientist in Mysore state, and Swaminathan, the renowned agricultural scientist.

Documents and photographs inside the archives. NCBS

In 2022, NCBS launched a project to archive more than 80 years of research conducted by Swaminathan. More than 48,000 archival objects, which include his correspondence, field notes, photographs, writing, and press coverage, are treasured here.

One of these documents is a letter dated April 15, 1986 from former prime minister Manmohan Singh, then the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, expressing support for Swaminathan after the  publication of an article, The Great Gene Robbery, by Claude Alvares.

“Many thanks for your letter of 10th April, 1986. All of us were deeply pained by the malicious and defamatory article which appeared in the Illustrated Weekly of India. All those who have any knowledge of India are fully aware of your contribution to the development of Indian agriculture. The fact that India is today self-sufficient in foodgrains is a tribute to the dedication of our agricultural scientists of whom you happen to be the foremost leader,” the letter says.

Then there is a handwritten letter by Dr Verghese Kurien to Swaminathan, dated April 30, 1989: “I am delighted to learn from your letter dated 25th April, importantly that I have been selected for the 1989 World Food Prize. It is indeed a very high honour embodied by the fact that few were its first awardee. Many have helped me in my work and you were one of the important ones.”

Anjali J K, an archivist at the centre, shows the field notes of Ajith Kumar from 1982-83, written on Braille paper sourced from a church in the US. “It was a good non-blotting paper. The notes are for studies on how four species of tree living mammals — Bonnet monkey, lion-tailed monkey, Nilgiri langur and giant squirrel co-exist and compete for the same resources in the Anamalai Hills, Tamil Nadu,” she says.

In one of the recordings preserved at the archive centre, Kumar explains the reasons for using Braille paper: “There were no A4 size papers then, 30-40 years ago. We used to get long papers which used to be costly. For us, nothing was cheap. I mean, my monthly budget at that time was Rs 2,500 and one field assistant used to accompany me to the forest. The hostel where I was staying when I was pursuing MSc, there were blind students who used to get Braille papers. These were good non-blotting papers. The papers available in the market were blotting papers.”

Anjali says: “We accept materials from scientists and their family members trying to understand the evolution of science in India. The oldest archival material we have here is of Leslie Coleman which dates back to 1913. We have the documents and pictures taken by him.”

Explaining the process to preserve the documents, she says: “It is essentially categorising and classifying the documents. The Leslie Coleman papers were given to a professor at GKVK. The professor donated it to the NCBS. Since Coleman founded the Entomology Department there he is very fondly remembered.”

“I need to arrange the materials in a way so that it will be more accessible to researchers and the general public. If I arrange all the letters into a category called correspondence and a researcher or your general public coming in to see them would find it easy to access them. They need to have to find one letter in one box and another in some other,” she says.

The materials are stored in special boxes in the temperature-controlled room. “Humidity levels are closely monitored. We have dehumidifiers here. The boxes in which materials are kept are specially made archival boxes. They are non-acidic,” Anjali says.

Dhatri S, from the public engagement team at the archives centre, says the main aim of the archives centre is to encourage research into the history of science in India.

“For example, if you want to know anything about the Green Revolution this is the place where one can come to. The MS Swaminathan papers were given to us a year and half ago by the MS Swaminathan Foundation,” she says.

Prof Mayor says the centre now plans to collect, preserve and digitise artefacts, including manuscripts, photographs, oral testimonies and histories of individuals and groups who have played a vital role in the development and dissemination of knowledge and practices in ecology and conservation. “The first year of the (Arcadia) project focuses on diverse histories of ecology and conservation, including indigenous communities and organisations involved in grass-roots conservation. This focus will subsequently be expanded in the second year to include other scientific fields under the umbrella of the project.”

The project funded by Arcadia, he says, will help create and maintain an interest in science among the public. “These stories are life stories — about people and events. It creates a social connection and also builds more awareness about the process of science, which often seems very obscure. The idea behind an open public archive of science is about bringing more people into its journey.”