Despite being a prominent social reformer, scientist, teacher, politician, public intellectual and leading educationist of colonial Punjab, Ruchi Ram Sahni has not been given his due place in the social and academic circles of India and Pakistan. He had worked with renowned physicists Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr but his scientific and educational legacy was largely forgotten till the start of the 21^st Century.

Punjabi University, Chandigarh (India), celebrated his 150^th anniversary in 2013 and digitised all available volumes of his manuscript: History of My Own Times, and the government of India honoured his legacy with a postal stamp issued during the commemorative event.

His great-granddaughter, Neera Burra, has collected and organised his writings and got them published as a book, A Memoir of Pre-Partition Punjab: Ruchi Ram Sahni, 1863-1948, from Oxford University Press in 2017. A major part of this book comprises a precious document titled, Self-Revelations of an Octogenarian, originally written by Sahni as his autobiography. While it remains unpublished, it has been quoted from in some books on the Punjab e.g. Harjot Oberoi’s The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition (1994).

While Lahore acknowledges its “father” Ganga Ram, who, as an architect, built most of its great buildings, Lahore’s “son” went on being ignored for almost seven decades — till February 2018 when his great-granddaughter, Neera Burra revealed the facts about the great Sahni that his own book had left out.

Sahni had left his writings in steel trunks in his house — that was located at 22 Rattigan Road, Lahore, — and left Lahore in 1947. Like many others, he expected to return to his home some day after the riots and the restoration of peace. However, he could not come back — that made him worried about his writings. He used to tell his family and friends that his works might be wasted since he had not been able to get them published. After fulfilling his wish for publishing his works, Burra expresses: “I wish that there was some way of letting him know… His writings are of great interest even today amongst scholars and others, more than a century after he left Government College, Lahore, in disgust, and that these are being published by a renowned publisher.”

Ruchi Ram Sahni was born on April 5, 1863, in Dera Ismail Khan, and was enrolled in primary school there. Besides attending his school, he started helping his father, who was a merchant, in his business. This helped him learn the technique for negotiation. He also used to distribute grams among the poor and needy people. This brought him into direct contact with people of lower strata and helped him understanding their social conditions during the formative phase of his life. Sahni himself acknowledges that these activities trained him and modelled his personality.

After finishing primary school, Sahni got admission in High School in Jhang where he learned English and mathematics from Babu Kashi Nath Chatterjee, who was an inspiring teacher with an impressive method of teaching. There, he also struck a friendship with two class fellows, Gurditta Mal and Bhai Ram Singh, who also became icons in their respective fields. After Babu Kashi Nath Chatterjee’s retirement, Sahni left Jhang and got admission in Government High School at Haveli Raja Dhayan Singh, Lahore.

Learning English language and receiving education in this language was something new in the Punjab of 1870s and 1880s where the number of Punjabi graduates was very small. Sahni was one of the earliest university graduates from the Punjab. He passed the BA examination in 1884 from Government College, Lahore, securing the first position. He studied physics and chemistry for master’s from the same college.

Government College, Lahore, not only opened academic opportunities for him but also offered him a platform to establish contacts with leading personalities of public sphere. He was deeply impressed and motivated by Professor Oman, an experimentalist who built up science departments. Moreover, apart from actively participating in college debating society, he had access to the college reading room where he used to read the scientific journal Nature.

Sahni began his official career in the Meteorological Department of India at Calcutta under HF Blandford. During his stay at Calcutta, he not only took interest in the activities of Brahmo Samaj but also had the chance to meet and interact with top Indian scientists including Professor JC Bose. He made a remarkable forecast of a storm in the Bay of Bengal and saved many ships from destruction by sending a timely warning to all the seaports in the region.

At the end of March 1887, his services were transferred to the Punjab Education Department as assistant professor of science (physics and chemistry) in Government College, Lahore, from where he retired as a senior professor of chemistry on April 5, 1918.

He devoted his superannuated life — spanning almost 30 years — to public causes supporting Muslims on Khilafat Movement and Sikhs on the Gurudwara Movement. Moreover, he worked as a member of Lahore’s governing council. In addition, he was a member of the Punjab Legislative Council (1924 – 26) and refused to succumb to communalism since he was a secular-liberal man, a follower of John Stuart Mill and liberal and eclectic faith — Brahmo Samaj. Furthermore, he worked for The Tribune, the leading English newspaper of the Punjab, for decades.

While serving as an educationist, his interests developed in the field of scientific agriculture and popularizing science in the Punjab for which he established the Punjab Science Institute in 1887 and the Punjab Scientific Workshop that acquired the capacity to produce the finest and most sophisticated scientific instruments that competed in quality with the European-made scientific instruments and equipment. His quest for enhancing his knowledge of the subject of radioactivity compelled him to travel to England and then to Germany where he worked with leading scientists including Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr.

He was so obsessed with the idea of developing the scientific approach in public minds that he arranged tours in the length and breadth of rural Punjab for exhibition of wonders of science and delivering lectures on various topics. It is claimed that he delivered more than 500 lectures.

His contribution to the popularisation of chemistry in the Punjab was acknowledged by the Indian Chemical Society in 1927. The Tribune reported that Dr Duncliffe, president of the Society at the time, eulogised the services of Sahni, “who worked inside and outside the College for the progress of chemistry in its early stage”.

The British, despite his rebellious nature, conferred him with the status of Rai Sahib for services rendered to the Lahore Exhibition of 1909. However, he returned the title after joining the Khilafat Movement under Mahatma Gandhi.

While returning his title to the British, Ruchi Ram Sahni wrote a letter to the chief secretary of the Punjab that states “I beg to inform you that I feel compelled by circumstances to relinquish my title and that I am sending you by registered post, the Sanad as well as the medal thereof… Since the happenings of last year, I have always felt my title more as an embarrassment than anything else… The fact that the leaders of Khilafat agitation have made a request to me to give it up as a token of my sympathy with their movement has finally induced me to take the step which I am now taking.”

For his rational, liberal and unorthodox religious beliefs, he had to confront the orthodox Hindus on several occasions. He was averse to discrimination on the basis of caste and religion. That is why he opposed the rigid caste system in Hinduism and criticised hate and enmity on the basis of religious dogma. Moreover, he rejected superstition. For his rationalist principles and the scientific temper and opposition to archaic Hindu traditions, his own widowed mother refused to live or eat in his house.

Ruchi Ram Sahni gave not only new direction but also zenith to the scientific knowledge and religious values in the colonial Punjab. He deserves to be remembered as Lahore’s “son” in particular and of colonial Punjab’s in general.

The writer has a PhD in history from Shanghai University and is a lecturer at GCU, Faisalabad. He can be contacted at mazharabbasgondal87@gmail.com. He tweets at @MazharGondal87