The Story of a forgotten stalwart naturalist

[Guest guest]

*This man must surely rank with the likes of entomologists like Edward

Wilson, Eugene Marais or Jean Henri Fabre.*

 

**

 

*Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya*

 

*One Who Observed Insects*

 

*Amit Chakraborty**

 

*In the world of ants and bees, the queen’s position is unique.*

 

*She produces workers and soldiers. In the absence of queens, bee larvae fed

on Royal Jelly, a special kind of food, are expected to grow as queens.

Otherwise,they would turn into workers. The same phenomenon was first

observed in ants by an unknown Indian entomologist, Gopal Chandra

Bhattacharya, way back in early 1940’s. The keen observer was watching

an Indian

variety of ants known as Occophylia. He persuaded the ants to make nests of

transparent cellophane so that he could silently watch their activities and

noticed that only a special food, the newly spouted leaves and buds, induces

the formation of queens. This remarkable finding was published in the

Transactions of the Bose Institute of Kolkata.Unfortunately, because of

World War II, the journal was not well circulated abroad the Gopal Chandra’s

work remained unknown to the West.*

 

*Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya was born in Lonsing, a remote village in

Faridpur district (now in Bangladesh) on August 1, 1895. His father was a

village-priest whose untimely death compelled the five-year-old boy to take

up his father’s profession for maintaining the family. He continued his

school education and passed the Matriculation examination with a first

division. However, his financial poor compelled positionhim to forgo the

academic career and take up the job of a schoolteacher to maintain his

family.*

 

*Gopal Chandra was an observer of nature right from his childhood. He wrote

an article on ‘bio-luminescence’, which was published in Prabashi, the then

famous Bengali periodical and drew attention of Sir J. C. Bose. He offered

him a job in his Bose Institute. This event that marked a turning point in

Gopal Chandra’s career. He joined the institute as an assistant and had to

do odd jobs like instrument repair, drawing etc. However,within a short time

he was allowed to start his own research.*

 

*Sir J. C. Bose himself directed him to work in the field of entomology. Gopal

Chandra started observing the behaviour of variousinsects, e.g., ants,

spiders and tadpoles. He was an expertphotographer. He could pohotograph

spiders, hunting fishes or even small bats. Based on his observation he used

to write popular articles in Bengali, which were published, among others, in

the popular science magazine Gyan-O-Bigyan,founded by Prof. S. N. Bose.*

 

*For a long time it was believed that man was the only tool using and the

tool-making animal. In the nineteenth century it was discovered that

chimpanzees in Tanzania use tools and weapons. In their search for food,

they drum with sticks on hollow tree-trunks, poke straws or twigs into

termite holes,and then eat the insects that have seized hold of them.

They sometimes

prepare the twigs for this purpose, virtually making tools. The chimpanzees

of certain populations attack and batter enemies with branches up to 2 metre

long. Swiss zoologists have recently discovered that these anthropoid apes

crack nuts with hard objects. This behaviour was found in certain variety of

birds. When an Egyptian vulture discovers an unguarded ostrich egg, it picks

up a stone and bangs it against the egg until the hard shell cracks. We

learn from Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya that even the lowly insect is a tool

user. He observed hunting wasps grasping small stone chips and using the

same to close a nest hole. He also discovered an interesting feature of

earwigs well known for protecting their eggs. During the breeding period, he

observed, the earwing carries a muddy layer on his hind legs. The dried up

mud forms a ‘heavy boot’ used for protecting 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. Once the hatching is complete this behaviour

pattern also vanishes. This rare finding was again published a in popular

Bengali language magazine and thus never reached the international scientific

community.*

 

*After the demise of Sir J. C. Bose, D. M. Bose, the physicist director of

Bose Institute, opened a new line of research for Gopal Chandra

Bhattacharya. He started working with ants and tadpoles and observed the

effect of antibiotics on them. It is known that tadpoles become frogs after

a specific period, which is usually a few days, by a process known as

metamorphosis.

Gopal Chandra discovered that administration of penicillin prevents

metamorphosis. He showed that penicillin destroys or inhibits certain

bacteria present in tadpoles and they do not develop into frogs. The common

idea that bacteria are always pathogenic i.e., disease producing, was proved

to be wrong. Gopal Chandra established 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, which again had

almost no international circulation.*

 

*Gopal Chandra was a field researcher for more than five decades. Despite

his 22 original papers published in English,two of which were published in

US based Scientific Monthly and Natural History Magazine he remained unknown

even toIndian scientists primarily because he concentrated on writing in

popular language. He wrote more than 800 popular science articles many of

which were based on his observation. In 1975 he received the Rabindra Award,

highest of its kind for Bengali writing, for his book on insects of Bengal.*

 

*Gopal Chandra did not have formal academic education and that is why he was

not accepted as a scientist by many of his colleagues. In 1977, this author

was producing a series of radio-features based on interviews with senior

scientists of Bengal. Dr. J. N. Mukherjee, a well-known scientist of

the yesteryears,

refused to given an interview when he came to know that Gopal Chandra

Bhattacharya was included in the panel of scientists. He flatly remarked

that Gopal Chandra could at best be considered as a popular science writer

but never as a scientist because he never entered a college for

studying science.

Gopal Chandra knew about this attitude of contemporary scientists and he

felt sad. The University of Calcutta however, conferred Honourary D.Sc. on

him on January 21, 1981, less than three months before he died.*

 

**Dr. Amit Chakraborty was with All India Radio and Doordarshan. He is a

recipient of NCSTC National Award for S & T popularisation.*

*Amit Chakraborty (September 2002). " Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya: One Who

Observed Insects " . Dream 2047: Monthly newsletter of Vigyan Prasar 4:12: 19.

**http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/dream/sept2002/english.pdf*<http://www.vigyanpr\

asar.gov.in/dream/sept2002/english.pdf>

*. *