Physics in Colonial India through the lens of C.V. Raman and S.N. Bose

How did modern physics establish itself in India—a British colony—in the 19th and 20th century? Who were the key actors and why did they facilitate this process of scientific development in a colonized country far away from a European metropole? By using the case studies of Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman and Satyendranath Bose, this talk will explore their physics, nationalism and social identity as “well-mannered intelligentsia” (bhadraloks) who played a key role in the making of modern physics in a country still under colonial domination. Finally, it will be argued how the local and the global were entangled in the worldview of these South Asian colonial intellectuals and one needs an approach from physics and history to engage with the history of Indian physics in early twentieth century.