‘Homi J Bhabha: A Life’ by Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy chronicles the life of the high priest of science and art

Dinesh C Sharma

HOMI JEHANGIR BHABHA is arguably the best-known Indian scientist-administrator of the post-Independence era. He initiated scientific work on exploiting nuclear energy for power generation as well as future strategic purposes almost at the same time that India gained freedom. This resulted in the creation of a string of institutions — Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Atomic Energy Establishment (renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre or BARC after his death), Department of Atomic Energy, Electronics Corporation of India Limited, etc. Space research had been a part of the atomic establishment for a decade, before being spun off as the Indian Space Research Organisation helmed by Vikram Sarabhai.

Bhabha’s closeness with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his charming ways, his penchant for art and his untimely death in an air crash all make for a gripping story. Several books in the past have tried to capture different facets of his life and the institutions he created and nurtured. The latest in this series comes from Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy, who has earlier written biographies of JRD Tata, Zubin Mehta and Salar Jung (Diwan of princely Hyderabad).

This book on Bhabha covers a vast canvas — his early life, scientific experiments, institution building, and his role as an administrator and patron of art and culture. It could easily be the most comprehensive book on the scientist, drawing from archival material, secondary research and the work done by researchers like Indira Chowdhury.

The closeness between Bhabha and Nehru was legendary, but the circumstances under which the two met for the first time have not been clear to historians so far. This question is important because Bhabha was not an active participant in the unique planning exercise that the Indian National Congress initiated under Subhas Chandra Bose and Nehru in 1938, yet his plan to develop atomic energy was prioritised soon after Independence. Bhabha also remained aloof to the freedom struggle, which was at its pinnacle in the early 1940s. At the time, he was eagerly waiting for the Second World War to end so that he could join a top university in England or America like Harvard or Princeton. His decision to stay on in India was ‘more pragmatic than ideological’, according to the book. Dadabhoy quotes a letter Nehru wrote to VK Krishna Menon in 1938 to get in touch with Bhabha, who was in Cambridge then, conjecturing that Bhabha and Nehru must have known each other before this date.

The chapters covering the foundation and growth of TIFR narrate the challenges of developing a new centre for fundamental research in India in the 1940s — from finding funds and a suitable place to building scientific teams and research programmes. Though Bhabha had close ties with the Tatas and Tata Trusts, finding necessary resources to develop TIFR was not a cakewalk for him, as it is sometimes made out to be. Bhabha put to use all his Indian and international connections to build TIFR. For instance, he knew Otto Koenigsberger, the chief architect and planner of Mysore state, from his Bangalore days. So, Bhabha invited Koenigsberger to develop initial plans for the TIFR building in Colaba, Bombay. Koenigsberger later became a much sought-after planner who designed new cities like Faridabad and Bhubaneswar. Bhabha finally hired Helmuth Bartsch from an American architectural firm that had designed the buildings of the US Atomic Energy Commission.

Bhabha envisaged scientists at TIFR not just as leaders in their respective fields of research, but also as ‘connoisseurs capable of holding conversations with the world’. He gave art the same importance as his research laboratories. He would acquire paintings and sculptures made by leading contemporary artists and even tried to get Pablo Picasso to paint a mural at TIFR. Eventually, MF Husain did the mural. The chapter on art and culture has a short section on Pipsy Wadia, described as Bhabha’s ‘friend, companion, partner and muse’.

Dadabhoy has done a great job in putting together vignettes from the life of Bhabha in a cogent and accessible manner. Though historians of Indian science may not find any new revelation in the book, it will certainly interest anybody keen to learn about the history and sociology of an important era in Indian science and atomic energy as well as the man responsible for its genesis and development.