The Uncertainty Principle

Vikram Sarabhai was a living negation of C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ theory. His biographer captures his science and his times.

In a country depressingly indifferent to history and conspicuously deficient in the art of biography, this book on the life and times of one of independent India’s outstanding scientists comes as a welcome surprise. Vikram Sarabhai (1919-1971) was the visionary pioneer of this country’s space programme; legendary Homi Bhabha’s successor as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission; and a complete negation of C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” theory. His interests were vast and varied. Married to the classical dancer, Mrinalini (Swaminathan), he was as at home in the world of the arts as in his favourite laboratory. Before serving as head of both India’s space and nuclear establishments, he had expanded the family business and built some first-rate institutions. But for his premature death, he was also an exceptionally lucky man — born into an extremely wealthy family and blessed with sharp intellect and striking good looks (above, extreme right, with S.S. Bhatnagar, Homi Bhabha, C.V. Raman). In short, an ideal subject for a biographer.

Amrita Shah says that her curiosity about Sarabhai was triggered at the age of nine, primarily because of her mother’s grief at the news of the sudden death of such a distinguished and young scientist, that too at a time when the country was still celebrating the liberation of Bangladesh. Under the circumstances, it is to her credit that, far from producing a hagiography, she has done a commendably professional job. No wonder she’s riled by too many people asking her, in the mistaken belief that the biography was commissioned by the Sarabhai family, “Did you get paid well?”

Shah has brought to life both the personal and professional personas of the almost forgotten scientist. Her immense liking for her immensely likeable subject comes through, as does her sympathy with the views and values he held, but at no stage does she let go of objectivity. She has also been refreshingly candid, even on the sensitive subject of Vikram’s love life. As she puts it, Sarabhai had “a wife (Mrinalini) and a mistress (Kamla Chowdhry). Two lives, two homes. And he appeared to believe that he did not have to make a choice.” But such triangles cannot be free from pain. Mrinalini felt “betrayed”. Kamla, too, had cause to “complain”. Above all, it took years before his daughter Mallika’s “unforgiving coldness towards her father” began to “thaw”, but it did not melt.

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On Sarabhai’s professional life, including controversial nuclear issues, especially his “grave reservations” about the policy of “weaponising” the nuclear programme, Shah has done painstaking research — some primary, especially in relation to Vikram’s hand-written notes — that is truly remarkable. And although she is convinced, approvingly, that Sarabhai wanted neither the production of nuclear weapons nor even a peaceful nuclear explosion, she dutifully cites also the evidence that tends to question her conclusions.

But she seems to be inadequately aware of the deviousness, complexities and contradictions of the world of nuclear policy making, and of the surfeit of misinformation, disinformation, half-truths and downright falsehoods on this sensitive subject. This alone can explain the one flaw in the book, an apparent attempt to belittle Homi Bhabha. For instance, the statement that “contrary to his colossal reputation at home, Bhabha had a very different image in the western mind” is accurate only to the extent that his western contemporaries knew him to be “arrogant” and inclined to “keep the white man waiting”. This surely cannot diminish the towering stature as a scientist of the man unanimously chosen to preside over the first UN conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy in 1957. Sadly, Nobel Laureate S. Chandrasekhar’s allegation that Bhabha made “Wolfgang Pauli”, the eminent physicist, also a Nobel Laureate, and other distinguished western guests travel by bus, while himself driving in a “limousine”, is false. Raja Ramanna categorically contradicted it publicly and personally confronted Chandrasekhar, whose lame reply was, “we are all old men; memory sometimes plays tricks”.

However, that is a relatively minor matter when the subject is Vikram, not Homi. Shah’s book is not a definitive biography of Sarabhai, but it is the best so far, and is unlikely to be bettered anytime soon.