Reflections

  Sir John Herschel  Sir William Herschel was born in the Electorate of Hanover in what is now Germany, but found fame and fortune in Britain where he emigrated at the age of 19. He is remembered as the person who discovered Uranus and several moons of Saturn and was instrumental, together with his sister Caroline in charting the stars with the help of superb telescopes that he and his sister constructed in their home in Bath, England. His son, Sir John Herschel was also an astronomer and, in a sense continued where he left off. However, today’s story is not of their scientific discoveries, but of how the son, Sir John was used by an unscrupulous newspaper in New York to perpetrate a hoax that led to a sensation in   the United States and the rest of the world and sold more newspapers than any other story in the past. Richard Adams Locke This was the era of the penny press, when cheap, easily available newspapers first began to come into the market. These newspapers wer...

It is now all but forgotten, but the entire area of North Bengal, including the parts that have after partition gone to East Pakistan and are now part of Bangladesh, had a proud record of anti Imperialist struggle. Today we mainly remember the politics of the region for the Spring Thunder and perhaps the Tebhaga movement,  and well we should , because they changed the socioeconomic status of not just North Bengal but also many parts of India for ever. But the foundation for struggle was laid down by many individuals, many of whom have receded into the mists of the past. I refer to men like   Dr. Charuchandra Sanyal, Khagendranath Dasgupta, Shashadhar Kar, Rabindranath Sikdar in Jalpaiguri, Shiumangal Singh and Dr Brajendra Bose Roychowdhury in Siliguri , Putulimaya Devi in the Darjeeling Hills and many others. It is also now almost forgotten that even in the Dooars, there was a strong Independence Movement, fanned by many leaders who organized the local people and tea garden w...