Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya
Encyclopedia
Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya (11 August 1895 - 8 April 1981) was an Indian
entomologist and naturalist
known for his pioneering work on social insects
and the role of bacteria
in metamorphosis
. He is the author of bAnglAr kITa-patanga (insects of Bengal
), which won the Rabindra Puraskar
, Bengal
's highest literary award, in 1975.
He is also noted for his work on the popularization of science, especially the three-volume text on hands-on science, kare dekha, lit. kare =do, dekha =see). Over his career, he contributed more than 1000 articles on science to most of the popular Bengali
periodicals of the time.
, (then British India
, now Bangladesh
), to a poor kulin
Brahmin
family. His father Ambika Charan Bhattacharya made a scant living as family priest to the indigent villagers. He also worked from time to time in the estates of the local landowners. Gopal Chandra's mother, Shashimukhi Debi, was a housewife.
After finishing upper school, he enrolled for the Intermediate of Arts (I.A., college entrance) degree in 1913, but was not able to finish the course due to the family's need for funds - he took up a job as a teacher in a school. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in literature, and started writing lyrics for jarigan (elegiac music related to muharram
) and pala gan (songs related to Bengali
folk drama) culture. Around this time, he also published several issues of a handwritten literary magazine.
He had an early interest in nature, and for some time he also experimented on the hybridization of fruits and flowers. In 1918, while he was working as a telephone operator in a mercantile firm, he published the article jaibadyuti (bioluminescence
) in the popular magazine Prabasi. This article attracted the attention of leading scientist
Jagadish Chandra Bose, who obtained a lower position for Gopal Chandra at the newly opened Basu Vigyan Mandir (presently Bose Institute
). Starting with small jobs like instrument repair, sketching, etc. he soon started to work on his own research projects.
He published his first research papers in 1932, on life events in the body of plants. Subsequently, he also published work on bioluminescence and other botany topics, but gradually his interests shifted to entomology. He became an expert photographer, and photographed many varieties of ants, spiders, small bats and tadpoles. In total, he published 22 papers in English, including journals such as the Natural History
of the American Museum of Natural History
. In 1951, he was invited to present his work onon Indian social insect
s at the international circle meeting at Paris. However, throughout his career, he kept facing discrimination because of his lack of academic degrees; on one occasion, another scientist refused to share a podium with him, labelling him as an amateur.
(of Bose-Einstein statistics fame) to
establish the Bangiya Vigyan Parishad (Bengal Science Council), a society for science research.
Along with friends like Pulin Behari Das
, he worked tirelessly for popularization of science. In 1950, he officially became the editor of the Bangiya Vigyan Parishad magazine Jnan o vigyan (lit. jnan=knowledge, vigyan=science), which he had been editing anyhow from behind the scenes. In 1977 he became the chief advisor for the magazine. He was also a member of several groups, including one working on a Bengali encyclopedia, the
Bharatkosh
. It is estimated that he had published more than a thousand articles on popular science across a wide range of magazines and other media.
He retired from his official job in 1965, but continued to work on insects and writing on popular science.
He won the Ananda Puraskar for Bengali literature in 1968, and the highest award for Bengali literature, the Rabindra Puraskar
, in 1975.
Less than three months before he died, this man who never finished college was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science
degree by the University of Calcutta
. In failing health, he died the same year.
in social insects such as ant
s or bee
s, produces other queens, worker
s or soldiers, by appropriately altering the nature of the royal jelly
fed to the larva
e. His observations were based on the Indian variety of ants, Occophylia. He managed to have the ants make nests inside transparent cellophane so that they could be quietly watched, and he noticed how only a special food, certain newly sprouted leaves and buds, induces the formation of queens. This remarkable finding was published in 1940, but the journal was not well circulated abroad during the war years, and it is only now that Gopal Chandra's pioneering work is being recognized.
He was also an early observer of tool use by animals, particularly how hunting wasp
s use small stone chips for closing nest holes. He also observed how earwig
s in the breeding period, grow a muddy ball (like a boxing glove) on its hind legs, which it uses for defending its eggs from predators. If the mud is washed away, the insect promptly places its hind legs into the mud until a new ‘boot’ is formed. This behaviour is not seen outside the breeding season. Since this observation was reported in a Bengali language article in the 1940s, it was not widely known.
Another important observation by Gopal Chandra involves metamorphosis
in amphibian
s. He showed that administering penicillin inhibits certain bacteria in tadpole
s, which then fail to mature into frog
s. This was against the then prevalent notions that bacteria are always harmful (pathogenic), and Gopal Chandra may have been among the pioneers in demonstrating the existence of salogenic i.e., health giving, bacteria. This pioneering study was later published by his associates in Science and Culture, a Kolkata-based journal.
His magnum opus, bAnglAr kiTa-patanga (1975), which collects these and many other observations, has yet to be translated.
instituted an award for science popularization in his name, the Gopal Chandra Bhattacharyya Smriti Puraskar. In 2005, the entomologist Debashis Biswas was awarded this prize for writing several books that describe the biology of mosquito
es and malaria prevention through stories.
Research dissertation:
in the contraction of its pulvinus.[Co-author B. Banerjee & D. M. Bose B.R.I.Transactions,Vol.XVI,1944-46.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
entomologist and naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
known for his pioneering work on social insects
Eusociality
Eusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification....
and the role of bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
in metamorphosis
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation...
. He is the author of bAnglAr kITa-patanga (insects of Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
), which won the Rabindra Puraskar
Rabindra Puraskar
The Rabindra Puraskar or the Rabindra Smriti Puraskar is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is administered by the Government of West Bengal under the aegis of the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy , Kolkata.The award is given for creative...
, Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
's highest literary award, in 1975.
He is also noted for his work on the popularization of science, especially the three-volume text on hands-on science, kare dekha, lit. kare =do, dekha =see). Over his career, he contributed more than 1000 articles on science to most of the popular Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
periodicals of the time.
Life and career
Gopal Chandra was born in the village of Lonsing, ShariatpurShariatpur District
-Upazilas:7 upazilas under this district are:#Shariatpur Sadar Upazila#Naria Upazila#Zanjira Upazila#Damudya Upazila#Bhedarganj Upazila#Gosairhat Upazila#Shakhipur Upazila-Geography & Demography:...
, (then British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, now Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
), to a poor kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
family. His father Ambika Charan Bhattacharya made a scant living as family priest to the indigent villagers. He also worked from time to time in the estates of the local landowners. Gopal Chandra's mother, Shashimukhi Debi, was a housewife.
After finishing upper school, he enrolled for the Intermediate of Arts (I.A., college entrance) degree in 1913, but was not able to finish the course due to the family's need for funds - he took up a job as a teacher in a school. By this time, he had developed a strong interest in literature, and started writing lyrics for jarigan (elegiac music related to muharram
Muharram
Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fighting is prohibited...
) and pala gan (songs related to Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
folk drama) culture. Around this time, he also published several issues of a handwritten literary magazine.
He had an early interest in nature, and for some time he also experimented on the hybridization of fruits and flowers. In 1918, while he was working as a telephone operator in a mercantile firm, he published the article jaibadyuti (bioluminescence
Bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Its name is a hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in...
) in the popular magazine Prabasi. This article attracted the attention of leading scientist
Jagadish Chandra Bose, who obtained a lower position for Gopal Chandra at the newly opened Basu Vigyan Mandir (presently Bose Institute
Bose Institute
Bose Institute is a research institute in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Plant biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Animal physiology, Immunotechnology and Environmental science. The institute was established in 1917 by Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose, who was the founder of modern...
). Starting with small jobs like instrument repair, sketching, etc. he soon started to work on his own research projects.
He published his first research papers in 1932, on life events in the body of plants. Subsequently, he also published work on bioluminescence and other botany topics, but gradually his interests shifted to entomology. He became an expert photographer, and photographed many varieties of ants, spiders, small bats and tadpoles. In total, he published 22 papers in English, including journals such as the Natural History
Natural History (magazine)
Natural History is an American natural history magazine. The stated mission of the magazine is to promote public understanding and appreciation of nature and science.- History :...
of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
. In 1951, he was invited to present his work onon Indian social insect
Eusociality
Eusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification....
s at the international circle meeting at Paris. However, throughout his career, he kept facing discrimination because of his lack of academic degrees; on one occasion, another scientist refused to share a podium with him, labelling him as an amateur.
Science popularization
In 1948 he worked with Satyendra Nath BoseSatyendra Nath Bose
Satyendra Nath Bose FRS was an Indian mathematician and physicist noted for his collaboration with Albert Einstein in developing a theory regarding the gaslike qualities of electromagnetic radiation. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation...
(of Bose-Einstein statistics fame) to
establish the Bangiya Vigyan Parishad (Bengal Science Council), a society for science research.
Along with friends like Pulin Behari Das
Pulin Behari Das
Pulin Behari Das was an Indian revolutionary and the founder-president of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti.- Early life :...
, he worked tirelessly for popularization of science. In 1950, he officially became the editor of the Bangiya Vigyan Parishad magazine Jnan o vigyan (lit. jnan=knowledge, vigyan=science), which he had been editing anyhow from behind the scenes. In 1977 he became the chief advisor for the magazine. He was also a member of several groups, including one working on a Bengali encyclopedia, the
Bharatkosh
Bharatkosh
The Bharatkosh is a general Bengali language encyclopedia in five volumes published by the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. In 1959, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad with financial help from Government of India and Government of West Bengal started compiling the Bharatkosh. The fifth and the final volume was...
. It is estimated that he had published more than a thousand articles on popular science across a wide range of magazines and other media.
He retired from his official job in 1965, but continued to work on insects and writing on popular science.
He won the Ananda Puraskar for Bengali literature in 1968, and the highest award for Bengali literature, the Rabindra Puraskar
Rabindra Puraskar
The Rabindra Puraskar or the Rabindra Smriti Puraskar is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is administered by the Government of West Bengal under the aegis of the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy , Kolkata.The award is given for creative...
, in 1975.
Less than three months before he died, this man who never finished college was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
degree by the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
. In failing health, he died the same year.
Scientific findings
In 1940, possibly before the fact had been established among naturalists, Gopal Chandra published an article in the Transactions of the Bose Institute of Calcutta, outlining how the queenQueen bee
The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of most, if not all, the bees in the hive. The queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature...
in social insects such as ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s or bee
Bee
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s, produces other queens, worker
Worker bee
A Worker bee is any female eusocial bee that lacks the full reproductive capacity of the colony's queen bee; under most circumstances, this is correlated to an increase in certain non-reproductive activities relative to a queen, as well...
s or soldiers, by appropriately altering the nature of the royal jelly
Royal jelly
Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of worker bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony....
fed to the larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e. His observations were based on the Indian variety of ants, Occophylia. He managed to have the ants make nests inside transparent cellophane so that they could be quietly watched, and he noticed how only a special food, certain newly sprouted leaves and buds, induces the formation of queens. This remarkable finding was published in 1940, but the journal was not well circulated abroad during the war years, and it is only now that Gopal Chandra's pioneering work is being recognized.
He was also an early observer of tool use by animals, particularly how hunting wasp
Wasp
The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
s use small stone chips for closing nest holes. He also observed how earwig
Earwig
Earwigs make up the insect order Dermaptera, found throughout the Americas, Africa, Eurasia, Australia and New Zealand. With 1,800 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders...
s in the breeding period, grow a muddy ball (like a boxing glove) on its hind legs, which it uses for defending its eggs from predators. If the mud is washed away, the insect promptly places its hind legs into the mud until a new ‘boot’ is formed. This behaviour is not seen outside the breeding season. Since this observation was reported in a Bengali language article in the 1940s, it was not widely known.
Another important observation by Gopal Chandra involves metamorphosis
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation...
in amphibian
Amphibian
Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...
s. He showed that administering penicillin inhibits certain bacteria in tadpole
Tadpole
A tadpole or polliwog is the wholly aquatic larval stage in the life cycle of an amphibian, particularly that of a frog or toad.- Appellation :...
s, which then fail to mature into frog
Frog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
s. This was against the then prevalent notions that bacteria are always harmful (pathogenic), and Gopal Chandra may have been among the pioneers in demonstrating the existence of salogenic i.e., health giving, bacteria. This pioneering study was later published by his associates in Science and Culture, a Kolkata-based journal.
His magnum opus, bAnglAr kiTa-patanga (1975), which collects these and many other observations, has yet to be translated.
The Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya Award
In 2005, the government of West BengalWest Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
instituted an award for science popularization in his name, the Gopal Chandra Bhattacharyya Smriti Puraskar. In 2005, the entomologist Debashis Biswas was awarded this prize for writing several books that describe the biology of mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
es and malaria prevention through stories.
List of works
- Adhunik avishkar(Modern Inventions)
- bAnglAr mAkaRShA (Spiders of Bengal, 1949)
- banglAr kITa-patanga (Insects of Bengal, 1975)
- kare dekha (Do and see)
- Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose(Biography) 1963.
- mane paRe (Reminiscences) 1977.
- pashu-pAkhi jIbjantu (Plants and animals)
- bigyAner Akasmik AviShkAr(Accidental Discoveries of Science).
- Translation works on The Atom Bomb, Space Journey.
Research dissertation:
- Fish-eating spiders of Bengal. Bose Research Institute Transactions Vol. VII 1934.
- Peculiar habits of an antmimicking spider,Amiciaea forticeps,Camb.B.N.H.S.,VolXXXVII,NO.I.1934
- Lizard eating spiders of Bengal,Scientific Monthly(U.S.A),Vol.XXXIX.Aug,1934.
- A gregarious spider of Bengal,mimicking Camponotus compressus,Science and Culture,Vol.I No.3,1935
- A new spider of Bengal that mimicks the ant (Ecophylla smaragdina)B.N.H.S.' VolXXXVII,No.4.1935.
- Diving spiders of Bengal,Natural history magazine,New York Vol.XXXVII,No.I,1936.
- Tadpoles of Rana tigrina feeding on mosquito larvae,Current Science,Vol.V No.48.1936
- Some peculiar habits of Marpissa melangostictus,B.N.H.S,Vol.xxxix,1936.
- Description of habits and nuptial flight Diacamma vagans,Smith ,Current Science,Vol V No.8,1937.
- On the moulting and metamorphosis of Myrmarachne plateleods,Camb,B.R.I.Transactions,Vol.XII,1936-37.
- Moulting process of Myrmarachne plateleoids.Bombay Natural History Magazine Society,April,15,1937.
- Fighting of agrresive red-ants (Ecophylla smaragdina)Fabr.Wildlife(Agra)1937.
- The life cycle of butterfly,Modern Review,April,1937.
- Reproductive role of Diacamma vagans,Smith,B.R.I.Transactions,Vol.XIII,1937-38.
- The death expedition of Hibicus Caterpillars,B.N.H.S,Vol.XLII,No4,1941.
- The food habits of H.Venatoria,Linn,B.N.H.S.,Volxlii,No4, 1941
- Heteropoda venatoria preying on pipistrella bat,Current Science,Vol.10,No3,1941.
- Reproduction and Caste differentiation in agrressive red -ants(Ecophylla smaragdina)B.R.I.Transactions,Vol.XV.1942-43.
- On the chemical nature of substances which are(i)effective in the transmission of excitation in Mimosapudica and(ii)Active
in the contraction of its pulvinus.[Co-author B. Banerjee & D. M. Bose B.R.I.Transactions,Vol.XVI,1944-46.
- Retardation of metamorphosis in tadpoles by antibiotic treatment,Science and Culture,Vol.11,May,1954.
- On the action of penicillin in the retardation of metamorphosis of tadpoles,Science and Culture,Vol.22,Sept,1956.
- Induced metamorphosis of tadpoles(Bufo melanostictus).Science and Culture,Vol.22,Jan 1958.
Awards and citations
- 1951-Invited to conduct the Indian delegation at the International Union Of The Study On Social Insects.
- 1968-Ananda Purashkar
- 1974-Felicitation at Bose Institute of Science.
- 1974-Acharya Satyendranath Bose Award
- 1975-Rabindra Purashkar
- 1979-Jubilee Medal on the Diamond Jubilee Celebration Of The Bose Institute.
- 1980-Honourary D.Sc degree by Calcutta University.