Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar

 

Born: 21 February 1894
Died:1 January 1955
Achievements:: A noted scientist of India, Dr Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar was appointed the first director-general of the prestigious Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He also hold the credit of building 12 national laboratories like Central Food Processing Technological Institute at Mysore, National Chemical Laboratory at Pune and so on.

           Dr Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar was a distinguished Indian scientist. He was born on 21 February 1894 at Shahpur, which is located in Pakistan in present times. His father passed away sometime after the birth of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar. As such, he spent his childhood days with his maternal grandfather who was an engineer and it was here that he developed an interest in science and engineering. Read on this biography to know more about the life and professional history of Dr Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar. 



From his maternal family Bhatnagar also inherited the gift of poetry. In his college days he once wrote an Urdu one-act play, Karamati, and won the first prize in a competition. He in fact, excelled in many spheres, literary, scientific, dramatic and social. During his stay abroad he did excellent research on emulsions and received his D.Sc. from London University in 1921. Apart from his valuable work on emulsions, colloids and industrial chemistry, his fundamental contributions are in the field of megneto-chemistry. He used magnetism as a tool to know more about some chemicals and chemical reactions. The famous Bhatnagar-Mathur interference balance, which he designed and fabricated in collaboration with R. N. Mathur, a physicist, is of immense use in such studies. A British firm manufactured this balance for worldwide sale.

When World War II broke out, the Government of India made Bhatnagar director of what later became the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The purpose of the council was to utilize scientific research done in laboratories, in industries to produce better goods. Here was an opportunity for Bhatnagar to realize his dreams. For the war effort Bhatnagar produced in his laboratory such articles as anti-gas cloth, unburstable countries and plastics from waste.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1943 for his scientific contributions. When the country gained independence, Bhatnagar began to lay the foundation for science and technology with the encouragement of Jawaharlal Nehru. Bhatnagar is responsible for installing oil refineries, plants to produce never metals such as titanium and zirconium and planning surveys for atomic minerals and petroleum deposits.

Before he died on January 1, 1955, Bhatnagar had established twelve national laboratories which provide facilities for young scientists, who have just left the universities, to do research without having to go abroad. In his honour the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awards every year the "Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology," a sun of Rs. 20,000, to scientists for outstanding contributions to science, including engineering and technology.