In the decades following independence, science was a necessity for nation-building. It was seen as a strategic tool—science for defence, to secure sovereignty in a fragile geopolitical landscape; science for progress, to modernise agriculture, industry, and infrastructure; science for social well-being, to combat disease, hunger, and poverty; and science for economic growth, to reduce dependence on imports and build indigenous capability. But, at the same time, science was still nascent. The Department of Science and Technology under the Government was yet to come, and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) was in the formative stage. Laboratories were few, resources were scarce, and institutional support for scientific inquiry was limited.
Science also occupied a complicated moral and political space. It was expected to be modern yet rooted, universal yet national, progressive yet attentive to indigenous traditions. Scientists stood at the intersection of nationalism, inherited systems of knowledge, and a global scientific order shaped largely by the West. Against this backdrop, conducting research was challenging for reasons that extended far beyond academic constraints. Among those who rose to this challenge was Asima Chatterjee, a chemist who bridged the uneasy relationship between traditional knowledge and modern medicine while contributing to the medical infrastructure of a developing country, often relying on personal funds.
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| Asima Chatterjee. Credits: Indian Academy of Sciences |
Born in 1917 in Kolkata, Asima Chatterjee grew up in a household shaped by medicine and education; her father was a physician. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in chemistry at the University of Calcutta and went on to earn a Doctorate in Science (DSc). She was the first woman to receive a doctorate at an Indian University in 1944. As a doctoral student, she worked on the chemistry of plant products and synthetic organic chemistry with the renowned chemist, Prafulla Chandra Ray (known as the father of chemical science in India) and Satyendra Nath Bose, the famous physicist. She went on to work with Lásló Zechmeister at the University of Wisconsin and Caltech for her post-doctoral research on biologically active alkaloids.
Upon her return to India in the 1950's, she joined the University College of Science at Calcutta as a Reader in pure Chemistry. She continued her research on biologically active compounds found in medicinal plants. Those were trying days for research, particularly in ill-equipped university laboratories with inadequate chemicals and meagre financial assistance. She had to spend her personal money to send samples for analysis abroad, she struggled to get the necessary chemicals and reagents, and there was not enough funding to pay for her students’ salaries. Moreover, there were no NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) or other advanced spectroscopy techniques to analyse the compounds. She and her students relied on old instruments for purifying the minuscule amounts of compounds from the plants. During these difficult times, one might ask, what kept her going? Her dedicated and hardworking team of students, the unstinting support from her co-workers and her husband, a physical-chemist who used to counsel her students, if need be.
Asima worked for almost 40 years on the chemistry of alkaloid compounds and natural compounds. Her research drew deeply from plant-based compounds, long used in indigenous medical traditions, while subjecting them to the rigour of modern organic chemistry and pharmacology. Her work led to the development of a commercial anti-epileptic drug, still in use, called 'Ayush-56'. She also studied vinca alkaloids derived from Madagascar periwinkle plants, which are still used as chemotherapeutic agents. She contributed to the development of synthetic derivatives of antimalarial compounds at a time when malaria was a major public health crisis in India and other tropical regions. She published around 400 papers in national and international journals. Her publications have been extensively cited, and much of her work has been included in several textbooks. She was also the author of a few Science books in English and Bengali.
Asima Chatterjee was a brilliant scientist and one of the very few women scientists in India to get due recognition during their lifetime. She was elected a Fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India in 1960. She is the first lady scientist to be elected as the General President of the Indian Science Congress in 1975. In the same year, she was awarded the title Padma Bhusan (the third-highest civilian award) by the Government of India. She also won the prestigious CV Raman Award and PC Ray Award. She was also nominated to the Upper House of Parliament of India, the Rajya Sabha, from 1982 to 1990.
She passed away peacefully at the age of 90 and passed on the baton of science to her daughter, who also became a chemist. Google honoured Asima with a Google doodle on her 100th birthday. Her legacy endures not only in medicines and publications but also in India’s scientific ecosystem.
References:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asima_Chatterjee
2. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/women-scientists-of-india-dr-asima-chatterjee-indian-academy-of-sciences/qgWhCdKgS8UJIw?hl=en
3. https://medium.com/sci-illustrate-stories/asima-chatterjee-1ca581dc542f
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJyfNQcrwJ4
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