History of Science Museums in India: 1956-2016: History of Science Museums and Planetariums in India, #3

By Dr Jayanta Sthanapati

The book presents a comprehensive historical and technical account of Science Museums, Science Centres and Science Cities in India covering the period from 1956 to 2016. It is an academic endeavour by Dr Jayanta Sthanapati, an eminent researcher in the history of science, who was a director of National Level Science Museums in India for more than a decade and retired as the Deputy Director-General of the National Council of Science Museums, India. It is believed it to be only of its kind available in the literature. The book will be a perfect link between formal and informal science education for teachers, students and interested readers.  It is the third volume of a series of books on History of Science Museums and Planetariums in India by the same author. The book is an outcome of a project completed under the sponsorship of the Indian National Commission for History of Science of the Indian National Science Academy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr Jayanta Sthanapati
• Release date: Jun 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393176671

Dr Jayanta Sthanapati

Dr Jayanta Sthanapati, son of Mrs Malina Sthanapati and Mr Ananta Bhusan Sthanapati, was born in Kolkata in 1951. After completing schooling at Jadavpur Vidyapith, in Kolkata, he went to Jadavpur University (JU) and studied physics. From JU he received B. Sc. (Physics Honors) and M. Sc. (Physics) degrees. Sthanapati in his college days had earned First prizes from Jadavpur University, Jagadis Bose National Science Talent Search and Birla Industrial & Technological Museum for innovative scientific model making.  During 1973-78 Sthanapati was a Research Fellow in the Department of Magnetism (now Solid State Physics) of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata. Based on his experimental research work in IASC he then earned PhD (Physics) degree from the University of Calcutta.  Jayanta Sthanapati started his career in National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) as a Curator in 1978. He served the NCSM for thirty-three years and held positions of Director, Birla Industrial and Technological Museum; Director, NCSM (Headquarters); and Deputy Director General, NCSM. After his superannuation from regular service in 2011, he wrote a doctoral thesis in the history of science and earned PhD (History) degree from Jadavpur University in 2013.  Dr Sthanapati had worked as a Research Associate with Prof Samarendra Nath Sen during 1990-91 for a research project in the history of science sponsored by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA).  He had further researched on ‘History of Science Museums and Planetariums in India’ during 2013-2016 as a Project Investigator of the research project sponsored by the INSA.     

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Science Museums, Science Centres and Science Cities (1956-2018)

Science Museum is a generic term of museum covering different branches of science and technology. It encompasses Science Museums (traditional), Natural History Museums, Science Centres and Science Cities. We shall briefly discuss the evolution of traditional Science Museums, Science Centres and Science Cities in the following paragraphs.

According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purpose of education, study and enjoyment.[1]

Traditional science museums are primarily exhibit-based institutions concentrating on the collection, conservation, documentation and exhibition of historical artefacts. Science museums in Europe and America set up before the nineteenth century initially had artefacts encased in glass cabinets to showcase the scientific and technological heritage of the country or the human civilisation as a whole.  Several science museums established after that had exhibits which could be operated by pushing buttons and demonstrated basic principles of science.[2]

Museum of the History of Science in Oxford was established in 1683 and had an unparallel collection of instruments related to science, medicine and technology. Science Museum in London was built in 1857 as part of South Kensington Museum but gained independent existence in 1909. It is a technological museum focusing on the history of science, engineering, medicine, information technology since the 18th century. Deutsches Museum in Munich was founded on June 28, 1903, is probably the world's largest museum of technology and science. North America too, had several not so big traditional science museums.

From the middle of the 1960s, museums of science and technology in North America prominently started evolving as science teaching centres, with no resemblance to the conventional science museums like the Deutsches Museum, the London Science Museum in London, or the Museum of History and Technology of Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Mr Frank A. Taylor, Director of Smithsonian Institution, had predicted in 1967 that the science and technology museum of the future will not be in the traditional pattern of today. It will concern itself deeply with education at all intellectual levels and in all cultures, rural and urban. It will employ theatre, television, sound, light, even odours, to appeal to all senses [3] Examples of such new generation centres are the Exploratorium (1968) in San Francisco, USA and Ontario Science Center (1969) in Canada.

Science Centres, according to Dr Saroj Ghose, former Director General of National Council of Science Museums in India, have evolved as activity-oriented institutions with hands-on interactive exhibits, and organised activities, involving visitors in experimentation so that they discover science by themselves. The exhibits of a science centre are created (or fabricated) to supplement formal education in schools, as well as for non-formal education of the public. Science centres further organise extension activities, both in-house and outreach for schools and communities.²

Science City, developed for the first time in Kolkata (1997) by Dr Saroj Ghose and his team is a step ahead of large science centres in the following aspects. In addition to hands-on exhibits of a science centre, a science city introduces minds-on experience through visualisation and simulated situation. A science city is an excellent integration of the outdoor theme park and an indoor science centre.

Birla Museum at Pilani, the first science museum in India, was created in 1956. By the end of the financial year 2015-16, we have four science museums, 49 science centres and three science cities.

Out of these 56 institutions, National Council of Museums has set up two science museums, 40 science centres and a science city. Various other government and private agencies established two science museums, nine science centres and two science cities. The science cities located in Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kapurthala are huge. Seven State Capitals have significantly large science museum and centres. Sixteen medium-sized science centres are also located in State capitals, and the remaining thirty units are small science centres set up in district headquarters and capitals of thinly populated states and union territories.

Historical accounts of all the institutions have been presented in the following pages, chronologically.

References:

[1]  International Council of Museums (ICOM) Statutes, as amended in General Conference on 24 August 2007 in Vienna. (http://icom.museum/statutes.html.)

[2] Saroj Ghose. Science Museum – Science Centre – Science City – What Next? Propagation 1 (2010) 3-12.

[3]  Taylor, F.A. "The Museum of Science and Technology in in the United States" Museum Journal 20 (1967) 158-160.

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Chapter 2

Science Museums (1956-1965)

2.1 Birla Museum, Pilani 

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The Birla Museum at Pilani in Rajasthan is the first science museums set up in India after independence.  It was established in 1956 by Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla (1894-1983), a well-known Industrialist, who had a strong base in Calcutta, Delhi and also at Pilani. Shri Birla had founded the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in 1927. A year later, he had established an intermediate college in Pilani. The Birla Education Trust (BET) was formed, also at Pilani, under his chairmanship in 1929. Then came up, one after the other, a Girls School (1931), a Degree College (1943), a Montessori School (1944) and the College of Engineering (1946), all at Pilani, under the BET before independence. In the early 1950s, a College of Arts (1951) and a Collage of Science (1952) were established. Subsequently, both science and engineering colleges merged to become the Birla Institute of Technology and Science. [Image: Birla museum, Pilani] 

In early 1950s Shri G.D. Birla desired to develop a general museum along with science and technology exhibits at Pilani.  He, therefore, engaged Dr Charles Fabri, a famous art critic of Hungarian origin, to set up a museum at Pilani. As a result, a nucleus of a museum was formed with some specimens of natural history, and a few art objects like miniature paintings, sculptures etc.

In 1952, the trustees of the museum visited the Imperial Institute in London which displayed various exhibits in respect of activities of the British Empire in colonial countries including India. There they found six dioramas on tea garden, rubber plantation, cotton mill, rolling mill, sugar mill and surface colliery very impressive. To display similar exhibits in the Pilani Museum, they placed an order for duplication of the dioramas with a London based model maker M/s Rendal Page. [Image: Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla]

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Unfortunately, the duplicated exhibits got damaged during transportation from London to Pilani. It transpired to the museum authorities that a considerable sum would be needed to get those exhibits repaired by the British fabricators. They, therefore, requested Shri Dhanraj Bhagat, an eminent sculptor and professor of Delhi Polytechnic School of Arts (known as School of Planning and Architecture now) to arrange for repair of the dioramas at Pilani. Prof. Bhagat, in turn, advised Shri Ved Prakash Beri, a young artist of his college to accept the challenge. That was 1955.

Shri V P Beri was born on 8 August 1931 at Sialkot in undivided India, which now is under the Punjab province in Pakistan. He completed his college studies in Delhi. After graduating in science from Hindu College, he received a diploma in fine arts, in the field of sculpture, from Delhi Polytechnic School of Arts. In 1955 he began his career in Pilani Museum, as an assistant to Charles Fabri. However, Fabri, who was stationed in New Delhi, discontinued his association with the project soon. Shri Beri then approached Shri S D Pande, Secretary of the Birla Education Trust and expressed his desire to shoulder the primary responsibility to give the museum an acceptable shape as was envisioned by Shri  G.D. Birla.  Shri Pande valued his confidence and discussed the matter with Shri G.D. Birla. As a result, Shri Beri was appointed as a Curator of the budding museum and sent to Europe for a nine-month study tour of world-famous science museums including Science Museum in London and Deutsches Museum in Munich. The museum project after that was monitored by Shri Lakshmi Niwas Birla, the eldest son of Shri G. D. Birla.

On his return from abroad in 1956, Shri Beri was fully enlightened and seriously focused on the Birla Museum project.  He decided to fabricate all the exhibits of the museum in-house and engaged about a hundred local artisans as technicians. A group of able supervisors supported him. He deployed Shri N G Singh for the fabrication of mechanical parts and Shri M. P. George for developing electrical circuits.  Two .imaginative artists Shri G. D. Ganu and Shri R B Kazi were in his exhibit development team. He was further assisted by a highly skilled carpenter Shri Ramji Lal. A reasonably large workshop was set up and exhibits, such as dioramas, panoramas and models were created to matchless perfection. The working models could be operated with just the flick of a hand and a touch of a few buttons.  The exhibits covered subject areas like agriculture, irrigation, metallurgy, nuclear science and coal mine; and were also on manufacturing plants or industries like automobile, oil, rubber, tea, sugar, salt, marble etc. [Image:  Shri V P Beri accompanied Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister and Smt. Indira Gandhi through a gallery of Birla Museum in 1961]

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During the initial years, the museum was run and maintained primarily by a team of three permanent staff – Curator Shri V.P. Beri, an Office Assistant, and a Maintenance Assistant. They were further supported by several other temporary staff, such as an Engineer, Two Artists, an Assistant Artist, a Mechanic, an Assistant Mechanic, a Storekeeper and ten Carpenters.

Birla Museum in 1958 used to get about 100 visitors a day. There was a greater rush of visitors in a group on festival days.  The museum at that time was kept open on all days except Mondays from 8 AM to 12:30 PM and from 3 PM to 5 PM. The recurring and non-recurring of the museum during the year were Rs 10,000 and Rs 1,50,000 respectively.

As the museum was growing day by day, a need was felt to house it in its own building of specific design to match its requirements. The majestic Birla Museum building, as we see now, was designed by renowned architect M/s Stien and Polk of Calcutta and its construction was completed in 1964, in the premises of Vidya Vihar, the celebrated educational complex of Pilani. A large number of new exhibits along with the old ones were installed in this building. Some Artists, Interior decorators and Horticulturists, were engaged in making the inner and outer environment of the building graceful.  To add to the beauty of the Birla museum, a sculpture called the 'Cosmic Man' was installed at the entrance to welcome everyone. It was developed by a California based sculptor Shri  Kewal Soni, who followed a design conceived by Shri Beri. [Image:  Indoor water-body exhibit of Birla Museum]

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Shri Lakshmi Niwas Birla donated his collection of the most expensive master paintings and artefacts. An Art Gallery was specially designed on the first floor of the building to accommodate this collection.  Science and technology exhibits of the museum were on metallurgy, transport, space, chemistry, textiles, agriculture, mining, arms, irrigation, nuclear science and so on. [Image:  Diorama of a Blast Furnace] 

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Shri Ved Prakash Beri passed away peacefully at his home in New Delhi in the wee hours on 9 December 2012. The science museum fraternities will always remember him. [Image: Shri V P Beri at his residence in New Delhi in 2012]

Birla Museum, Vidya Vihar, Pilani – 333031, Rajasthan.

Source of Information:

Shri Ved Prakash Beri, interview with Dr Jayanta Sthanapati, Director NCSM (Hqrs) on 18 July 2003.

Dr V.N. Dhaulakhandi, Director of Birla Museum, provided additional information by email on 22 January 2013.

Dr C. Sivaramamurti. Directory of Museums in India, New Delhi: Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs (1959) p133.

Source of Images:

Dr V.N. Dhaulakhandi, Director Birla of Museum, provided all images by email on 31 January 2013.

2.2 Science Museum of National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi

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Prof K.S.  Krishnan, first Director of National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in New Delhi had a great interest to see that India set up some science museum like the Science Museum, London and Deutsches Museum, Munich.  Thus the nucleus of a Science Museum was formed at the NPL due to his initiative in early 1955. He appointed Shri R. Subramanian, a young Indian researcher in the United States, who was keen to shoulder the responsibility to develop a science museum in NPL. Sir Krishnan further brought Dr W.T. O’Dea, a Keeper of London Science Museum to NPL under a UNESCO grant to guide Shri Subramanian. [Image: National Physical Laboratory]

Although Shri Subramanian initially did not have any formal training for setting up a science museum, he during his stay in the USA, and later under a UNESCO grant  studied science museum exhibits at Science Museum, London; Deutsches Museum, Munich; Palais de la Decouverte, Paris; Tekniska Museet, Stockholm; Technical Museum, Vienna and Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  He also visited with great interest the Fels Planetarium of the Franklin Institute and the Hayden Planetarium attached to the American Museum of Natural History, New York.  

In early 1956, Shri Subramanian was allotted a floor area of about 550 square meters, distributed on the ground floor and a mezzanine floor in NPL for establishing the science museum. The primary aim of the museum was to explain the principles of physical sciences through working exhibits. Most popular exhibits under this category were: a sand pendulum drawing patterns, a working model showing automatic line connection in a telephone system, a metal detector which detected concealed metals, a working exhibit showing the common defects of the eye and their correction, display of wave patterns of speech and music, and demonstration of a closed circuit television. Most of these exhibits were fabricated in-house. Dr W. T. O’Dea also helped in getting replicas of early scientific and engineering machines and transportation models from England for the museum. 

The NPL museum further aimed at portraying research and development activities of the National Laboratories of CSIR. To start with, thirty exhibits were set up to highlight the important activities of leading Indian research laboratories. Some of the subjects covered in the gallery were on time measurement through the age, development of electronics, glass technology, development of microscopes and binoculars, economic minerals and ores, crystallography, weather and climate, etc. A varied collection of minerals, ores and crystals, gifts made to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime minister of India, during his visits abroad, were also exhibited. 

The UNESCO had a General Conference in 1956 in New Delhi. A large ‘India and Science’ exhibition was set up to coincide with the session of the conference. Two of UNESCO’s travelling science exhibitions titled ‘Energy and its Transformation’ and ‘Our Senses and the Knowledge of the World’ was on display. Leading planetarium manufacturer, Carl Zeiss had also participated in the exhibition. They donated a planetarium instrument to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who passed it on to NPL to Sir Krishnan, who in turn passed it on to Shri Subramanian. The planetarium was set up in NPL, but only after the construction of a planetarium dome in 1959. We have reported about the NPL planetarium separately in the section on ‘History of Planetariums in India’ as a part of the present study.  [Image: An exhibit draws a Lissajous curve] 

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The museum was open on all days except Saturday afternoon, Sundays and other public holidays from 10 AM to 5 PM. However, there was no entry ticket. The annual number of visitors in 1958 was around 10,000, and about thirty per cent of them were school and college students. There were eight guide lecturers to demonstrate exhibits to the visitors at intervals of 45 minutes. 

During the initial years, activities of the science museum were managed by only seven staff members – Shri R. Subramanian as Officer-in-charge, a Scientific Assistant, two Laboratory Assistants, a Mechanic, two Helpers. NPL provided the annual salary budget of Rs 18,000 and an additional Rs 75,000 towards the purchase and maintenance of equipment, exhibits etc.

Looking at the success of the museum, the NPL authorities in the late 1950s had planned to erect a separate museum building with a floor area of about 2,000 sq. meters to shift the existing museum exhibits and to facilitate its future expansion. However, that had never materialised. 

After the demise of Prof Krishnan in 1961, the museum and planetarium at NPL had passed through a critical situation.  Some of the NPL officials even criticised activities of museum and planetarium, coming up amongst priority areas of academic research of the institution. 

Shri Subramanian at that time came to know that a big planetarium would come up soon in Calcutta under the patronage of Syt. Madhav Prasad Birla, an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Shri Birla knew about his involvement in a science museum and planetarium activities at NPL and shown interest to induct him in planetarium project in Calcutta. As a result, Subramanian took lien for two years from his CSIR service and came to Calcutta to set up the Birla Planetarium. He had been associated with the M.P. Birla Planetarium for more than fifty years.

The Science Museum and the Planetarium of NPL gradually ceased functioning, and today no one knows about them.

Science Museum at National Physical Laboratory, Dr K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi - 110012.

Source of Information:

Prof R. Subramanian, interview with Dr Jayanta Sthanapati on 13 January 2013.

Dr C. Sivaramamurti. Directory of Museums in India, New Delhi: Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs (1959) p110.

Source of Images:

Prof R. Subramanian provided two images of science museum gallery on 24 February 2013.

2.3 Birla Industrial and Technological Museum, Kolkata

Birla Industrial and Technological Museum or BITM, the mother of India science museums, opened the door to the public on 2nd May 1959. The museum since then has created unique exhibition galleries, marvellous travelling expositions, innovative science education programmes and opened several new science centres that inspired most of the science museums in the country to follow. [Image: Façade of the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum in 1959]

Beginning of the Industrial Museum

Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy (B. C. Roy), a great visionary, a legendary physician and Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1952 to 1962, was impressed with Deutsches Museum during a visit to Munich in the early 1950s. He wanted to set up an industrial museum in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the city that pioneered study and research in science, technology and medicine in the country during the 19th century.

Dr Roy who was a house physician of the Birlas for many years approached the family head Syt G.D. Birla for a solution. Shri Birla around that time was seriously considering to convert their residential building on Gurusaday Road in old Ballygunge of Kolkata into an Industrial museum. The vision of Roy and Birla matched, and they took the initiative to give their dream a definite shape.

The premises of BITM, now at 19A Gurusaday Road, Kolkata 700019 was 18 Ballygunge Store Road before 1919. The record shows that Mirza Abdul Karim sold it to the Tagore family in 1898. Syt G.D. Birla bought the property from Shri Surendranath Tagore in 1919 at a price of rupees four lakhs. Surendranath was the son of Rabindranath Tagore’s elder brother Satyendranath. The Birlas then demolished the house used by Tagore and completed construction of a Victorian style building, as we see today, in 1923. Shri G.D. Birla called this residential compound Birla Park. The building had a  beautiful lawn in front and a pond on the eastern side. The same year members of the Birla family shifted from their previous accommodation at 6 Rainey Park in Kolkata to the new building at 19 Gurusaday Road. The members of the Birla family including G.D. Birla’s brothers, sons and nephews lived here until 2nd February 1955, and the family moved to three independent buildings constructed in other parts of Birla Park. In late 1956 Shri G.D. Birla gifted the old building and adjacent land to the Government of India at a simple ceremony held at Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi. [Image: Shri G.D. Birla handed over documents of Birla Park to Shri Jawaharlal Nehru in the presence of Shri M.S. Thacker]

Meanwhile, on 7th December 1954, Shri G.D. Birla sent a proposal, through Dr Roy, to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Union Education Minister and Vice-President of CSIR to donate a significant part of the Birla Park including the three-storeyed building to Government of India to set up and administer an Industrial museum by the CSIR. The proposal was accepted, and Prime Minister Nehru accorded approval of the project.

CSIR constituted a Museum Committee, with Dr B.C. Roy as Chairman to specify the scope and manage finances of the industrial museum, subsequently named as Birla Industrial and Technological Museum. The first meeting of the committee was held on 5th February 1955, at Birla Park under the Chairmanship of Dr B C Roy. Eminent Scientists like Dr K S Krishnan and Dr J C Ghosh were inducted into the committee, though Prof. Krishnan could not attend the first meeting. The additional members of the committee were an administrator, a museologist, and a representative of the Birla family. Generally, Syt Braj Mohan Birla (B.M. Birla), the youngest brother of G.D. Birla attended the meetings.

In one of the early meetings the said committee took an important decision to appoint an adequate number of professionally qualified human resources which would not only contribute intellectually and technically to develop the museum, but also would be able to help sustain its growth and expansion. As the first step in this direction, Shri Amalendu Bose, who was working as Patent Inspector, after completing higher studies in Chemistry in Calcutta and New York, was appointed as Planning Officer of BITM in November 1956.  Shri A Bose realised the importance of inducting right kind of people, having a passion for this profession, and between 1957 and 1963, he recruited some matured officials, experts in respective fields, like Shri P.M. Niyogi, Shri S. S. Ghosh, Shri R.C. Chandra and Shri C.S. Pai. He further recruited Shri Saroj Kumar Ghose, Shri Rathindra Mohan Chakrabarti and Shri Samar Kumar Bagchi, three young engineers with many years to go, who would contribute towards the betterment of science museum for a more extended period.

Making of the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum

The museum planning committee in its meeting in January 1957 approved the draft plan submitted by Shri A. Bose, Planning Officer. It recommended that the museum would portray the recent advances in technology; the contribution of technology to the welfare of humankind; and the application of modern methods of industries in some of the Indian industries. [Image: Shri Amalendu Bose, Planning Officer in BITM]

To achieve this aim the authorities chose a few branches of technology in which the pattern of industrialisation was most reflected. These branches were electrical communication, electric power generation and transmission, nuclear physics, optics, transportation, civil engineering, textile engineering, chemical technology, and mining and metallurgy. The Planning Officer and his team decided to set up museum galleries on subjects covered by these branches depending on the availability of models and also on the available space inside the building.

The immediate necessity was to identify and collect models and artefacts. The museum received several models and exhibits as gifts from industrial houses in India, the UK, West Germany, France, Holland, Sweden and the USA. An important step taken by the planning authority of BITM was to set up a fully equipped workshop for fabrication and repair of exhibits. The BITM engineers engaged persons who had aptitude in model making and fabricated many exhibits in house.

The Planning Commission had allocated a sum of Rs 20 lakhs for meeting the capital and recurring expenditure of the museum during the Second Five-Year Plan period (1956-1961).

The museum building had a floor area of 33,000 square feet, and only 23,000 square feet could be utilised as exhibition space, and the rest was kept for office accommodation, library, auditorium, and so on.  The authorities realised that the area was insufficient for setting up a  moderate size technological museum.  The Planning Committee, therefore, proposed the construction of a multiple-storeyed building in the Third Five-Year Plan period (1961-1966) having an exhibition space of 50,000 square feet. In reality, BITM could erect the Technology Centre adjacent to the main museum building in 1978.

Dream comes true – BITM opens

On 2nd May 1959 Prof. Humayun Kabir, Union Minister for Scientific and Cultural Affairs inaugurated the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum at 19 Gurusaday Road, Calcutta in the presence of Dr B.C. Roy, Chief Minister of West Bengal; Shri M.S. Thacker, Director-General of CSIR; Shri B.M. Birla, representing the Birla Family; and Shri A. Bose, Planning Officer of BITM. Also present at the inaugural ceremony were the academicians, leading citizens, industrial magnates and newspaper reporters. [Image: Inaugural plaque of BITM]

Shri Thacker in his welcome address said that it had been his dream since his childhood to have a museum of his own. He could not own such a museum, but he was proud of getting himself associated with this museum which was the first of its kind in India. He appealed to industrialists and others to help the museum by contributing to its models and exhibits.

While delivering inaugural address, Prof Kabir besides other remarks opined that the BITM was such a facility which would impart scientific knowledge on a mass scale, which was not so easy for a school or a university to do. [Image: Prof Humayun Kabir delivered Inaugural address]

Shri B.M. Birla said that some time ago when some of them were living in the house, a decision was taken to give it up for public use. However, the question was to what best use the house could be – a house in which some of them lived for years. The suggestion came that it could be converted into a hospital or a boarding house or a museum of some sort or an industrial museum.  They, therefore, in consultation with Dr B.C. Roy decided that the house should be transformed into an industrial museum. He further remarked that in Western countries scientific and industrial museums could be found in principal cities. We too need such museums in our country. Along with the scientific and technological progress of the nation, our children should grow up in an environment where they had the opportunity to see various gadgets and instruments. He hoped that by visiting the museum in Calcutta, children would discover how science played its part in their everyday life. [Image: Dr B.C. Roy addressing the audience during inauguration of BITM]

Dr Roy, who presided over the function, said that when Syt G.D. Birla had told him that they intended to gift the property to the Government of India, he felt a pang of remorse. Shri Birla readily accepted his suggestion to set up a museum like the one in Munich in the house. Paying compliments to the Birlas for the gift Dr Roy said that it was true that everyone could not make money and it was also true that everybody who could make money could not have the willingness to give it for a public purpose. The Birlas, however, earned money both in Bengal and elsewhere and they had also donated the same for a public cause. He would, therefore, appeal to industrialists who were present at the function to follow the example set up by the Birlas.

The BITM authorities decided that no entrance fee would be charged thus enabling a larger section of the people to take advantage of the informal science education together with some enjoyment and diversion offered by the museum.

Administrative control shifts from CSIR to NCSM

Six years after establishing BITM, the first science museum in Calcutta, the CSIR in 1965 opened Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum in Bangalore. Work for Nehru Science Centre Bombay; the third science museum began under the aegis of CSIR in the mid-1970s.

In the early 1970s, a committee of enquiry (popularly known as Sarkar Committee) had studied the functioning of the National Laboratories and Institutes (including the existing science museums) of CSIR. The committee in its report appreciated the role and importance of these museums in serving the nonformal educational need of the society and recommended the transfer of the science museums from CSIR to National Council for Science Education.

In 1973 the Planning Commission made up a Task Force to assess the activities of the science museums working under CSIR and recommended the future course of growth and development. The task force saw an immense potential of the science museums in imparting non-formal science education to the public and creating a scientific awareness in the society. The task force felt it necessary to set up science museums all over the country in a three-tier network and to create a specialised agency to coordinate the endeavour. 

On 1 April 1978, the Government of India, in pursuance of a decision of the Union Cabinet decision, de-linked four National Laboratories / Institutes, ten Cooperative Research Associations and three Science Museums from CSIR and transferred them to respective user Ministries. As a result, BITM, VITM and NSC Mumbai were detached from CSIR. A new autonomous society National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) was registered in Kolkata on 4 April 1978, and it took over the charge of these museums. The NCSM then functioned under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Education and Culture. After two-and-a-half years the Government of India on 7th October 1980 decided to re-transfer of said four National Laboratories/Institutes to CSIR. However, in the case of three Science Museums, it was decided that the CSIR would form an appropriate committee to review the question of re-transfer to CSIR or otherwise.  Smt Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister in her capacity of the President of CSIR constituted a Review Committee with Prof Nihar Ranjan Roy, Historian and Professor Emeritus, University of Calcutta, as Chairman. On 15 October 1982, the CSIR notified that as recommended by the committee the science museums need not be transferred to CSIR and they would continue to be with NCSM functioning under the Union Ministry of Education and Culture.

Portraying Science and Technology in Galleries

A significant component of a museum is its permanent gallery. The BITM during the last sixty years has created over twenty-five unique and novel galleries filled with dioramas, scaled models, animated exhibits, working exhibits, hands-on exhibits, actual experiments, artefacts and so on. Some Indian science museums and centres later recreated a few of these galleries and installed in their premises.

From the writing of Shri Amalendu Bose, it transpired that the Planning Committee of BITM in an early meeting had advised the authorities that the museum should portray the contemporary advances in technology, the contribution of technology to the welfare of humankind, and application of modern methods of technology in Indian industries. The Planning Officer and his team, therefore, selected nine branches of science and technology to display exhibits in the gallery that would focus on industrialisation in India. The branches chosen were electrical communication; electric power generation and transmission; mining and metallurgy; chemical technology; nuclear science; optics; transportation; civil engineering; and textile engineering. However, depending on ability to produce exhibits in-house and collect models, objects and exhibits from other sources, the museum opened with the thematic indoor galleries on Electricity; Metallurgy of Copper, Iron and Steel; Petroleum; Nuclear Physics; Optics and Miscellaneous; Electronics and a Television Studio.

Through these indoor galleries, BITM desired to bring vividly before the average citizen the achievements of Science and Technology in various fields. The objectives in view were (i) to depict the development of science and technology historically; (ii) to portray the application of science and technology in human welfare and to the development of Indian Industry in particular, (iii) to inculcate and arouse scientific awareness among our people; (iv) to supplement science education in schools.

We now briefly describe the BITM galleries opened on 2 May 1959.

The Electricity gallery opened in 1959 survived for twenty-five years. It had displayed many actual experiments as exhibits. Volta’s pile, primary and secondary cells, Oersted’s experiment, Sturgeon’s electromagnet, Faraday’s rotor, Arago’s disc, Faraday’s electromagnetic induction, Henry’s experiment, Tesla coil etc were a few to name. The renovated Electricity gallery was inaugurated on 2 May 1984, on the occasion of the celebration of Silver Jubilee of BITM,  by Dr Ashoke Mitra, Finance Minister, Govt. of West Bengal.

The gallery on the metallurgy of Copper, Iron and Steel opened at the time of the inauguration of BITM was upgraded from time to time during the next ten years. The section on Copper displayed various processes leading to the manufacture of finished copper and brass products from the natural ore as found in nature and also the uses of copper and its alloys. Ore samples from various parts of the world were on view. A relief map showed the occurrences of copper deposits in India. Three models explained the mining operations underground as was practised in copper mines in India. A diorama of brass Rolling Mill and a model of a utensil making