By Juhi Wagle
Dr. J. C. Bose began research on radio waves, followed by electrographic responses of “living” and “non-living” matter. He developed many instruments to record these responses, the finest of which was the crescograph, which has a magnifying power of 10 million. Dr. Bose subjected animal skins, plant skins, and metals to various stimuli (light, temperature, plucking, pricking, drugging) and found little difference between the responses. In 1902, he published a paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living,” where he made a controversial conclusion that the distinction between living and non-living beings is arbitrary and quoted from the Rig Veda, saying that this truth was known to his ancestors all along.
This, however, led many scientists to question his integrity as a scientist. During Bose’s time India was under British rule. Britishers believed that while Indians were adept in languages and metaphysics, they had no aptitude for science; that Indians did not possess the requisite temperament for exact sciences. And this notion spread. Many felt that Bose’s deep philosophical convictions "possibly motivated him to take mental leaps to arrive at some of his scientific conclusions." Bose’s quoting of the Vedas is seen as "perhaps the most pointed evidence" attesting to his philosophical bias. He was accused of "allowing his metaphysics to intrude upon his scientific writings." Some went so far as to declare his conclusions more poetic than scientific.
This criticism, along with the desire to prove to the world that Indians were capable of modern scientific research, led Bose to be cautious in his conclusions and writings. In the last phase of his research, he focused solely on plants. He saw that life and death responses of animals and plants were the same; that love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless other responses are as universal in plants as in animals. But he intentionally shunned publishing any conclusion that could be mistaken as metaphysical. Evidence of this appears in his 1924 speech, “Do plants feel?” Bose distinguishes between metaphysical speculation and scientific investigations. He says that these results "could" imply that "it by no means follows that a brain is indispensable to consciousness," and thus consciousness "accompanies the nervous system down its whole descent," and immediately qualifies this conclusion as having a metaphysical basis. He further adds, "I have, however, to do, nothing with metaphysical speculations, but only with the behavior of plants, and their muscular and nervous mechanisms."
One wonders what conclusions Bose would have drawn had he been unimpeded by the public criticism he received. Would he have included the theory of the “mind” as distinct and separate from the “brain” and the controller of the gross body? Would he have tried to show a universal Consciousness? Although there is no evidence to such in his writings or talks, there is evidence showing that Bose was extremely dissatisfied with the limits he had to set on himself. According to Bose, the intuitive and synthetical Indian understanding of life allowed Indians to develop more sensitive approaches to their subject matter than western scientists, "whose approach was aggressive and crudely materialistic, and whose tendency constantly to subdivide scientific fields precluded them from seeing the underlying unity" (Arnold, 2000). Bose had often blamed this excessive specialization of western scientists for his struggles in winning them over to his insights on the unity of life.
References:
https://ecologise.in/2018/11/13/j-c-bose-response-living-non-living-1902/
https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=relig_faculty
http://www.ebdir.net/enlighten/bose_yogananda.html#2ref
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Response_in_the_Living_and_Non_living/wp0-AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://people.ucsc.edu/~jbowin/Ancient/place1956.pdf
Arnold, David. 2000. Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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