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

Abstract
The history of science in India has not focused on the nature of legacy of scientific institutions. 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 paper will offer alternative ways of understanding histories of scientific institutions. 

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Indira Chowdhury is Founder-Director of the Centre for Public History at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Bengaluru. Formerly professor of English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, she is also the founder of Archival Resources for Contemporary History (ARCH), Bengaluru, now known as ARCH@Srishti. She has a PhD in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London and her book, The Frail Hero and Virile History (Delhi, OUP, 1998) won the Tagore prize in 2001. She was awarded the New India Fellowship to work on the manuscript of her recently published book titled Growing the Tree of Science: Homi Bhabha and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research(OUP: 2016). Indira is a founding member of the Oral History Association of India. She was President of the Oral History Association of India (2013-2016) and President of the International Oral History Association (2014-2016).