Sometimes one wonders if cities and civilisations are pretty much the resultof an accident. When you look at their genesis there is always the temptation toput your finger on one, or at the most two things, and say: If this werenot to happen, then the rest would not have followed. This may not be ahistorically accurate method to determine the origins, but is certainly the mostpopular way of lore-making and an irresistible element in a compellinggenealogical narrative. I now feel pressured to illustrate this theoreticalprecept with an example.
Would there have been a Bangalore you know today if the Indian Institute ofScience (IISc) had not been set up here a hundred years ago? Hasn't IISc beenthe most important reason for Bangalore's progress and its most dominantidentity as a science capital and technology hub? IISc not only provided theintellectual capital for most science and technology institutions, including theIITs, in post-Independent India, but the dozens of research institutes,technical education centres and public sector units would not have come or comeup in Bangalore had there not already been an IISc.
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Arguably, besides the weather, the IT industry struck roots in Bangalorebecause IISc's overarching presence had ensured a sophisticated technologicalambience and a positive science culture. I wouldn't say that the IISc had amagnetic field that arranged people and institutions around it, but one has toacknowledge that its benign emissions of knowledge over years and decadesnaturally created a fertile landscape around it. It was out of this fertilitythat modern Bangalore was born.
IISc set the benchmark for all kinds of discourse, including the politicaldiscourse in Karnataka. At least two most progressive chief ministers of thestate, Devaraj Urs and Ramakrishna Hegde, are said to have remarked that thediverse spectrum of engagement for someone who rules the state encompassed atthe one end an erudite professor at IISc and at the other a marginal farmer inan impoverished North Karnataka district. They felt a successful chief ministerwas one who knew the gap that existed between the two and used one to redeem orenlighten the other. Interestingly, Gandhiji, after his visit to the IISc inJuly 1927 reproduced the speech he made there in Young India and hadsomething similar to say: "I was told by your professor that the propertiesof some of the chemicals will take years of experiments to explore. But who willtry to explore these villages? Just as some of the experiments in yourlaboratories go on for all the twenty-four hours, let the big corner in yourheart remain perpetually warm for the benefit of the poor millions."
It is another matter that after Urs and Hegde, the CMs of the state replaced theproverbial IISc professor with a captain of the IT industry and more or lessforgot the poor farmer. IISc has always been visualised, right from thebenevolent royalty of Mysore till the present, as integral to the pride, and amarker of progressiveness, of the city as well as the state.
As the IISc completes its 100 years, we have naturalised its place in thegeography of Bangalore. We assume that it was meant to be born in Bangalore andit was planned for Bangalore. IISc as part of Bangalore is perfectly integratedin our memory and mindscape. But the papers in the institute's archives put outa different story. Way back then, Bangalore had to actually compete with Roorkeeor 'Rurki' to get the institute. Roorkee by then already had the firstengineering college in the sub-continent -- the Thomason College of CivilEngineering. It was in fact the first temple of technical education in all ofAsia, which celebrated its sesquicentenary year in 1996. India's first raillocomotive ran between Roorkee and Kaliyar at the time and the first irrigationworks in north India had begun in the city.
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Compared to this, Bangalore at that time was quite literally a city of'boiled beans' (Bendakaluru). All its reputation came from either its proximityto Madras (now Chennai) or Mysore, the capital of the visionary Wodeyar kings.
I found an interesting comparative study made of the two cities on six counts byone Professor Orme Masson and Lt-Col J. Clibborn, who were involved in theconsultation process of setting up the institute, around December 1901. The sixparameters were climate, health, situation, sites, support and scientificinstitutions. The remarks for the two cities against these parameters were asfollows:
"Climate:
Bangalore - Equable, but enervating and unsuitable for continued active work inlaboratories.
Rurki - Bracing for five months. Subtracting three months' vacation there wouldbe two to three months' hot and trying weather.
"Health:
Bangalore - Plague and fever prevalent.
Rurki - Specially good.
"Situation:
Bangalore - In the Mysore state. Rather out of the way of government inspectionand trade. Specially convenient for Madras. 36 hours' rail from Bombay.
Rurki - In the British territory. On the railway route Calcutta to Simla.Conveniently central for Bengal, North-West Provinces and Punjab. 48 hours' railfrom Bombay.
"Sites:
Bangalore - An excellent site, about 5 miles out, available free of cost. Mightbe made British territory before it is accepted.
Rurki - An excellent site within 2 miles, now partly under cultivation andpartly waste. Might be taken up by government.
"Support:
Bangalore - The Mysore government offers 5 lakhs for initial expenses, besidesthe site and possibly other support.
Rurki - None promised. Is it obtainable?
"Scientific institutions:
Bangalore - Agricultural and bacteriological laboratories. The geological surveyof Mysore state. Educational institutions of Madras within reach.
Rurki - Roorkee engineering college and headquarters of Bengal Sappers andMiners in the station. Pasteur Institute at Kasauli, bacteriological laboratoryat Muktesar, Forest School and Great Trignometrical Survey Station at Dehra, andLahore and Allahabad Universities within reach."
It is apparent from these comments that at the turn of the century when Roorkeeand Bangalore were being compared, there was nothing particularly going infavour of Bangalore as a site for IISc, except for the 'support' offered by theMysore state. Was it this 'support' that clinched the deal? Quite possibly, butthat is a question that has to be handled by a professional historian. However,this debate about the city for the institute had provoked the then viceroy, LordCurzon, who showed 'veiled hostility' to the project, to remark: "Thesquabble over the climatic conditions of Bangalore and Rurki is an interestingillustration of the combined one-sidedness and irascibility of men ofscience."
Later, after it was finally decided to locate IISc in Bangalore, the institute'sfirst director Morris Travers arrived in Bangalore at the end of 1906 from theUniversity College of London. The current director, Prof. P. Balaram describeshis first journey to the site: "Travers' first sight of the land destinedto be the IISc campus follows a ride on horseback from the West End hotel inBangalore. He recounts a tale of buying a horse 'from a native' for the thenprincely sum of Rs. 250."
As I said earlier, IISc now appears so integral to the very idea of Bangaloreand Bangalore has left Roorkee far behind in terms of economic, social andscientific progress, but what if IISc, by some quirk of destiny or sheerstubbornness of the British, had been set up in Roorkee?
