Name: Homi Bhabha A Multifaceted Personality
Uploaded: 2022-01-25
Duration: 2 min 20 s
Description: 25 January 2022. Homi Bhabha: A Multifaceted Personality.

25 January 2022. Homi Bhabha: A Multifaceted Personality. 

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Born in Mumbai in 1909 Bhabha was educated at Mumbai and Cambridge. He was a student of a famous Kings College in Cambridge where he worked for his doctorate. He conducted research in Cosmic Ray Physics. If he had continued his research career he would have certainly reached to the level of Nobel Prize.

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The world knew about the power of Atomic energy in 1945. Since then he has been thinking of using this energy for peaceful purposes. As India stood on its own feet he convinced then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to set up Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). There was a great opposition to this idea. People said let us worry about providing food and education to our people rather than spending money in atomic research. Nevertheless, Bhabha went further as he could visualize the utility of Atomic research in the development of the country.

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Bhabha visualized Department of Atomic Energy as an umbrella for scientific and technological development in India like Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CSIR). DAE now has three wings: Research institutes like BARC, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Industrial Units like Nuclear Power Corporation Limited (NPCL) and Aided institutions like TIFR Mumbai, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics Kolkata, Tata Memorial Mumbai, Institute of Physics Bhubaneswar, etc.

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After returning from Cambridge Homi Bhabha took up a job in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Realizing the meager research facilities available there he had decided to leave.  He had communicated his willingness to J.R.D. Tata who pursued him to stay here and set up an institution of international repute. With the help of Tata Trust, Govt. of Mumbai State and Central Govt. he could set up the famous Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945.

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Using the S & T base created at TIFR he went further to set up Atomic Energy Establishment dedicated for conducting R & D work in Nuclear Science. Realizing the growing importance of Space Science he took initiative in starting space related research in 1962. Both the Department Atomic Energy (DAE) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have brought laurels to the country.

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TIFR and DAE needed people to undertake new challenges. Homi Bhabha continued to spot creative people all over the world, invited them to India and gave all the facilities possible. Against the traditional method of setting up a department and recruiting a person for it he followed the method of identifying a person and building a group around him/her. Bhabha often said “Let the group of innovative people come together and start work, buildings can come later”.

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In 1960s the work of setting up CIRUS reactor was going on. He could see that people were working day and night to meet the deadline. The place was away from the city. With a view to providing dedicated transport facility to the staff he wrote to Delhi for the vehicle. Soon came the reply “There is no precedence to giving vehicles to transport government employees”. Bhabha wrote to Pandit Nehru pointing out that “There was no precedence to Atomic Energy in India”. Nehru intervened and provided the much needed transport facility to DAE employees.

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DAE units are established in remote parts of the country. Bhabha went to set up hospitals to ensure that DAE staff members get best medical facility at the site itself. He was also concerned that the children of DAE employees get the best possible education. Hence he came up with an idea of having a dedicated education society namely Atomic Energy Education Society (AEES) which runs schools and junior colleges within the campus.

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Anyone who has visited DAE units in the country would appreciate good gardens and lawns maintained there. This culture of maintaining closeness to the nature has came from its leader Homi Bhabha. He himself was nature lover and ensured that the working place should be pleasant enhancing creativity among the researchers.

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Homi Bhabha loved music and paintings. His busy schedule hardly permitted him to spare time for his hobbies. Nevertheless, he would squeeze some time to engage himself in music and painting, the activities that gave him pleasure. If you visit TIFR, located on the bank of the Arabian sea in Colaba, you would be able to see some of his paintings drawn by Bhabha himself.

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Homi Bhabha was not a loner. He liked interacting with people from all walks of life all over the world. He had god contacts with all the main scientists working in first half of the 20th century. Many of them gladly agreed to visit and become honorary fellows of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Reserch.

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Bhabha died in 1966 in a plane crash that took place on a foreign soil. It was a great loss to the country. He is still remembered by the institution he had set up.  Atomic Energy Establishment in Trombay was named after him. We now know it as Bhabha Atomic Research (BARC).  A section devoted to conducting research in science and mathematics education established in 1974 was named after him. It is known as Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE).

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Let me salute the great son of mother India on the occasion of his birth centenary

Homi Bhabha A Multifaceted Personality

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