Atomic state : big science in twentieth-century India / Jahnavi Phalkey.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 310-322) and index.

Tables and Figures ix;
Series Editors' Preface xi;
Acknowledgements xv;
Introduction 1;
1 At Home In The World 11;
The Not-so-Long History of Physics in India 12;
Nuclear Physics, State Formation, and Development in India 1945-1959 26;
The Organization of Nuclear Research in India 34;
2 Give Science A Chance 52;
Science-based Industrialization at the Outbreak of War 52;
National Planning Committee 61;
On the Necessity of a Disjunction 64;
Archibald Vivian Hill 66;
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark 72;
The Nuclear Question 76;
The Commonwealth of Science 79;
A New India 83;
3 A Question Of National Importance 98;
C.V. Raman and Nuclear Physics 100;
"Mecca of Physis for the Empire" 101;
Nuclear Physics at the Cavendish 102;
Krishnan and Wartime Transformation of the Cavendish 105;
Raman and the Establishment of Nuclear Physics in Bangalore 108;
Homi J. Bhabha and Cosmic Ray Physics in Bangalore 109;
A Scheme for Power Production from Uranium Fission 112;
June 1945: Proposal for the Expansion of the Physics Department 116;
August 1945: Krishnan and the Atomic Bomb 118;
Early 1946: Call to Propose a High Voltage Generator 119;
September 1946: Sharing the High Voltage Engineering Department Generator 121;
January 1947: The Last Proposal 124;
January 1947: The Last Proposal 127;
Nip it in the Bud! 130;
Committee on the Question of a Nuclear Physics Laboratory 132;
September 1947: The Bhabha-Taylor Report 134;
Raman and Krishnan Respond 141;
4 Not Only Smashing Atoms 161;
University Science College (USC), Calcutta 164;
Meghnad Saha and Nuclear Physics 165;
An Indian in Berkeley 168;
1940-1944: Beginnings of the Calcutta Cyclotron 170;
Nag Comes to Calcutta 177;
Organization of the Cyclotron Group 178;
Organization of Other Groups in the Palit Laboratory 180;
1944-1945: Saha as a Member of the Indian Scientific Mission 181;
1945-1950: Atomic Energy Research Committee and Board 183;
1947-1948: Towards in Atomic Energy Commission of India 186;
1946-1950: An Institute of Nuclear Physics 190;
Saha in Parliament 201;
A Working Cyclotron 205;
5 The Importance Of Being Nuclear 229;
1944-1945: Bhabha Goes to Bombay 229;
1945-1946: The Founding of the TIFR 232;
1946-1947: A National Laboratory for the AECI 233;
Research at the TIFR 238;
1948-1949: The Atomic Energy Act of India 240;
1950: Elementary Particle Physics Meeting 249;
1951-1955: A Particle Accelerator Programme for the TIFR 250;
The Three Accelerator Groups 254;
1953: A Philips Cascade Generator 256;
1955: No Large Machine 257;
1955: An Indian Delegation to Atoms for Peace 261;
1955: Atoms for Peace 263;
The Crisis of 1959 266;
Conclusion 289;
Coda 299;
Note on Sources 304;
Select Bibliography 310;
Index 323.

In 1974 India conducted what it called “peaceful nuclear tests.” These demonstrated that the country possessed the technology required to make atom bombs. In historical accounts, this explosive achievement has come to be seen as the culmination of a state’s efforts at capacity building and self-reliance through “big science.”

Questioning the received wisdom, Jahnavi Phalkey provides a fascinatingly different history. Mining new data from personal and institutional archives, she contradicts persistent nationalist notions about early atomic science in India as the starting point of bombs. She shows that the emergence of the country’s nuclear science infrastructure was in fact tenuous, contradictory, and rich in faction fights which frequently determined outcomes and directions.

Phalkey traces the academic roots of India’s nuclear research to universities, industrial philanthropy, leading scientists, and laboratories: C.V. Raman, Meghnad Saha, Homi Bhabha, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, and Jawaharlal Nehru are among her book’s major protagonists; and Calcutta, Bombay, and Bangalore the institutional centres. Big science in India is located via three transitions: of nuclear physics from table-top experiments to electronic equipment systems; of India from imperial rule to independence; and of international relations from imperialism to the Cold War.

A brilliant contribution to its field, this book makes us rethink the place of science in India’s history, as well as the frameworks deployed for writing contemporary history.