Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam

by Vivek Agnihotri

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) ranks number one in India and it is one of the top ten specialized universities of the world. Once, the father of Indian industry, Jamshedji Tata, while travelling in a ship, had a chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda and they discussed various ideas, including Tata’s plan to bring the steel industry to India and Vivekananda’s quest for bringing scientific research to India. Many years later, Tata wrote a letter to Swami Vivekananda: ‘I trust, you remember me as a fellow traveller on your voyage from Japan to Chicago. I very much recall your views on the growth of the ascetic spirit in India, in connection with my scheme of a research institute of science in India.’ In the letter, he requested Vivekananda to guide him in this endeavour. Jamshedji Tata conceived of a university in 1896 that would work for India’s scientific development and at the behest of Vivekananda, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, donated three hundred and seventy acres of land in Bangalore. Since then, IISc has been headed by some of the best scientific brains of the world, such as Nobel Laureate CV Raman, Satish Dhawan, C.N.R. Rao, just to name a few.