Anna Mani: A Scientist?

Who is a scientist? I know we have already lingered on this question before, and we did find out that 'Scientist' (a gender neutral term) was first coined to describe a woman (Mary Somerville). But here's my question: Who do you think qualifies as a scientist? If your answer is anyone who studies science, well then, even a 6-year-old studies science. Would they qualify as a scientist? If your answer is anybody with a doctorate in science, then you're in for a surprise. Michael Faraday, renowned for his contributions to electromagnetism and electrochemistry, never had a formal PhD. There is more. A P J Abdul Kalam became a scientist first, and then, only later, received numerous honorary doctorates from various universities. So again, who is a scientist? Although being a scientist is a widely recognised profession today, there is no formal process to determine who is a scientist and who is not. Anyone can be a scientist in some sense; anyone who systematically investigates the natural world to understand it, is a scientist. By that measure, Anna Mani was every bit a scientist, though she never held a PhD, and her name remains absent from most textbooks.


Anna Mani: "Weather Woman of India". Made on Canva


Born in 1918 at Peermade, Kerala, to a Syrian Christian family, Anna Mani grew up in India still under colonial rule. She was an avid reader. By the time she was 12 years old, she had read almost all of the Malayalam-language books available at her local library. She turned down her family’s traditional diamond earring gift for her eighth birthday and requested a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica instead, signalling early that she craved something outside of the traditional expectations.

Mani earned a B.Sc. with honours in physics and chemistry from Pachaiyappas College in Chennai (then Madras) in 1939. She was awarded a research scholarship in 1940 from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. There, she studied the spectroscopy of rubies and diamonds, working with Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman. Her work led to the publication of five research papers that studied the temperature dependence and polarisation effects of over 30 different diamonds. In addition, she wrote a PhD dissertation at the University of Madras for a formal degree; however, she was denied due to her lack of a master's degree. Undeterred by this, she went on to do an internship at Imperial College, London, with a government scholarship. However, the scholarship wasn't to study physics but meteorological instruments, as India needed expertise in this area at the time. Mani embraced the opportunity and travelled to the UK on a troopship. She spent the next three years studying all aspects of weather instruments.

She returned to India in 1948, a year after the country won independence, and joined the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) at Pune. She took charge of the instruments division and led a team of 121 men. They standardised the drawings for nearly 100 different weather instruments and started their production, making India self-reliant in weather instruments. More impressively, Mani ventured into two unexplored fields in India at the time: solar energy and wind power. She established a small workshop in Bangalore where her team produced tools for measuring solar energy and wind speed. In 1964, long before climate change became a discussion topic, she invented an instrument, the ozonesonde, to measure the ozone layer. The instruments and research developed by Mani and her team helped India predict the weather with precision, as well as expand its meteorological capabilities.

Anna Mani retired as Deputy Director General of the IMD in 1976. In 1994, she suffered a stroke and died on 16 August 2001, at age 82. Her career was a product of her curiosity and rigour, but also of the times she lived in—the needs of a young nation and the ideals of self-reliance. In a way, she reminds us that scientists are never shaped by intellect alone; they are shaped by the social fabric, the political climate, and the shared dreams of the people around them. Today, in an era where climate change and renewable energy dominate global conversations, it's worth remembering the  "Weather Woman of India", Anna Mani.

Written by Parvathy Ramachandran and edited by Janaky S.  

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Mani

2. https://byjus.com/current-affairs/anna-mani/
3. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67634192
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkCtkZ4QwWo
5. https://astron-soc.in/wgge/lecture
6.https://www.discovermagazine.com/who-was-anna-mani-and-how-was-she-a-pioneer-for-women-in-stem-45442
7.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts#:~:text=Michael%20Faraday%2C%20a%20chemist%20and,in%20the%20history%20of%20science.

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