Jul 11 2025 to Jul 11 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

The Western Ghats enjoyed a central place in the life and science of cytogeneticist E. K. Janaki Ammal (1897-1984). To her, the dense and tall tropical evergreen forests found here was the epitome of climax vegetation in India, or the mature stage of ecological succession. In order to understand how this balance was reached and stability attained, she undertook a grand and pioneering project— a study of the relationship between peoples and plants of the region, both in deep history and the immediate present. One of her chief aims was the making of a modern and decolonialised version of the Hortus Malabaricus— a new compendium of medicinal plants from the Western Ghats, reordered on the basis of chromosomes, and containing information on their uses, as gathered from the forest dwellers, who she believed were the primary interlocutors of indigenous medico-botanical knowledge. Also, quite tellingly, in her advancing years, rather than expend energy directly wrestling with the Kerala government on the Silent Valley issue, she championed for its conservation by mobilising international support and creatively embarked on an innovative project— the cytogenetics of the flora of these undisturbed forests.

This lecture is part of the Obaid Siddiqi Lectures, Annual lectures delivered by the Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science at the Archives at NCBS.

Image credit: Thumbnail and Header Art by Megha Ramachandra

In collaboration with

Speaker

Savithri Preetha Nair
Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science, Archives at NCBS
Dr Savithri Preetha Nair is the Obaid Siddiqi Chair in the History and Culture of Science, 2024-25. She is a Historian of Science, and her research spans a fascinating range of topics, including the history of science, modernity and enlightenment at the turn of the nineteenth century, history and politics of collecting for science, the sociology of knowledge, the public museum, and women in science in colonial and post-colonial India. Among her notable publications are Chromosome Woman, Nomad Scientist: E. K. Janaki Ammal, A Life: 1897-1984 (Routledge, 2022), Science and the Changing Environment in India: A Guide to Sources in the India Office Records, 1780-1920 (co-authored with Richard Axelby, British Library, 2010), and Raja Serfoji II: Science, Medicine and Enlightenment in Tanjore, 1786-1832 (Routledge, 2012).