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The predicaments of institutional legacy: Archival oral histories of TIFR and what they tell us

Indira Chowdhury, Centre for Public History, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore
Speaker
Indira Chowdhury, Centre for Public History, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore
When Mar 15, 2016
from 03:30 PM to 04:30 PM
Where LH006
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Abstract: The history of science in India has not focused on the nature of legacy of scientific institutions. This talk takes up for analysis the history of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, a premier scientific institution that was founded by Homi Bhabha in 1945. Overly absorbed in critically evaluating Bhabha’s scientific leadership of India’s Atomic Energy Programme, historians of science in India have not paid attention to Bhabha’s institution-building practices at TIFR, the older and more significant Institute he had founded. As a result there has been very little historical understanding of the nature of Bhabha’s legacy. What elements of that legacy defined TIFR as an institution? This talk will reflect on the nature of the Nehruvian scientific vision as well as the nature and significance of institutional practices that Bhabha put in place at TIFR by analyzing archival records and oral histories.  Through the excavation and analysis of stories of institution building this talk will offer alternative ways of understanding histories of scientific institutions. 

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