Scientist of India

1891-1949 India of Scientists fossils, and during his vacations took of Benares and for another year was him on excursions to the Himalayas and Professor of Botany in the University of other places. Punjab. ROF. Birbal Sahni, the greatest Birbal had his early education at The turning point in Birbal Sahni’s Ppalaeobotanist India has ever Lahore, fi rst at Mission and Central life came in 1921 when he took charge produced, pioneered research in Model Schools and then at the of the newly opened Botany Department palaeobotany in India. He founded the Government College. After graduating of Lucknow University as its fi rst Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow, from Cambridge in 1914 he worked Professor. Very soon he had established now named after him, which is the only under Prof. A.C. Seward. Sahni began that apart from being a keen researcher, one of its kind in the world. So intense his research work at Cambridge he was also a teacher par excellence. His was his love for paleobotany that he with conventional investigations of reputation as a teacher and his fame as contributed his entire life’s savings for morphology and anatomy of living an investigator attracted students from setting up the institute. plants, but before long he took up study all over India to his department. But Birbal Sahni was born on 14 of fossil plants. For his research on Birbal Sahni had long realised that a November 1891 at Bhera, now in fossil plants he was awarded the D.Sc. student of botany cannot do justice to Pakistan, into a family which was degree of London University in 1919. paleobotanical studies without adequate unusually enlightened and which held The University of Cambridge recognised background of geology. It was this education in high esteem. His father, his work by the award of ScD. in 1929, belief that led Sahni to make untiring Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni, was himself a said to be the fi rst awarded to an Indian efforts to set up a Department of scholar and a Professor of Chemistry. scientist. Seven years later he was Geology at Lucknow University in 1943. It was Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni who elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He became its fi rst head of department unwittingly helped young Birbal embark Sahni’s fi rst introduction to the and taught dynamic geology and on his palaeobotanical profession that rich stores of fossil plants in India was palaeobotany. would take him to fame. He encouraged in 1917 when he joined Prof. Seward in During the last ten years of his the boy to collect plants, rocks and the production of a `Revision of Indian life Sahni relentlessly pursued an Gondwana Plants’. In 1919, Sahni idea—that of establishing an institute Birbal Sahni’s returned to India. He held for one year devoted to palaeobotany. Birbal Sahni reputation as a the chair of Botany at the University and his wife provided most of the funds, teacher and his fame as an investigator attracted contributions from various donors were added from time to time, and grants were students from all over India to his department. But received from the Government of India Birbal Sahni had long realised that a student of botany and from the Provincial Government of cannot do justice to paleobotanical studies without Lucknow. On 3 April 1949 Pandit Nehru adequate background of geology. laid the foundation stone of the Institute of Palaeobotany. The foundation stone was itself quite unique. Designed by Sahni himself it was a mosaic of plant fossils collected from various continents of the world. Birbal Sahni Ironically, Sahni did not live to see Institute of his dream come true. Five days after the Palaeobotany. foundation-laying ceremony, Sahni had a severe heart attack and died on 10 April 1949. 53 SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2013.

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