On this page
If you have ever understood an idea better when someone explained it in your home language, you already know why Ruchi Ram Sahni mattered. In late nineteenth-century Lahore he gave hundreds of public science lectures, many in Punjabi, to shopkeepers, students and village audiences. This post draws on his own memoir to show how he did it, what he built to support it, and what you can borrow from his method.
Who was Ruchi Ram Sahni?
A 2018 article in the Indian Journal of History of Science gives his dates as 5 April 1863 to 3 June 1948 and traces his family to Bhera, on the Jhelum river. His family lost most of its wealth, and he studied largely on merit scholarships. He took a bachelor's degree from Panjab University in 1884, then went to Presidency College, Calcutta.
The article records that in 1885, aged 22, he was selected as an assistant meteorologist, the first Indian in that role. He then joined Government College, Lahore, as an assistant professor of chemistry, working there from 1887 to 1918. He was also the father of the palaeobotanist Birbal Sahni, whose story is in our post on Birbal Sahni and fossil plants.
What was the Punjab Science Institute?
His autobiography was published by Vigyan Prasar as Memoirs of Ruchi Ram Sahni: Pioneer of Science Popularisation in Punjab, edited by Narender K. Sehgal and Subodh Mahanti. The editors explain that his popular science work ran through the Punjab Science Institute, which he co-founded with Professor J. Campbell Oman.
The editors write that he himself gave more than 500 lectures, illustrated with practical demonstrations and lantern slides, and that people were willing to pay a small fee to bring lecturers to smaller towns. His own list of topics shows how close they stayed to daily life: "How does the telegraph wire speak", "The common flame", "The water Lahoris drank before 1880", "Pure and impure air", "Soap making" and "Electroplating".
He also used the newest science of the day. He writes that demonstrations of X-rays, Edison's phonograph and wireless telegraphy drew such interest that audiences demanded repeats. At one event he sent wireless signals between two points about 150 feet apart, and the Lieutenant Governor asked the guests to crowd between the sender and receiver to check that the waves really passed through them.
How did he explain science in Punjabi?
He needed Punjabi names for scientific apparatus, and he built that vocabulary with his audience. He describes overhearing a shopkeeper call the electric plate machine "Bijli da charkha", which he thought "a very apt and expressive name". His method was simple: "Sometimes when I was at a loss to express myself, I would invite the audience to suggest a name or a word for which I was struggling."
He records one test of the approach. After he explained wireless in English and then in Punjabi at a garden party, a Delhi lawyer, Madan Gopal, said: "the fact is I myself have been able to understand it better in Punjabi, than when the explanation was given in English."
The research on learning in your first language is covered in our post on mother tongue and learning.
Why did he build a workshop?
Lectures needed working apparatus, and broken instruments were common. He writes that "no science teaching in the province was possible without the provision of ordinary facilities for the repairs of simple school apparatus". Other members of the institute doubted it could be done, but he set up a scientific workshop in 1888.
The editors describe how, with his head mistri Allah Bakhsh, it grew from repairs to making apparatus of a standard they compare with contemporary British firms, and trained young people in a trade.
What did he do in Rutherford's laboratory?
According to the history article, he travelled to Heidelberg in 1914. When the First World War broke out, his supervisor suggested he move to Ernest Rutherford's laboratory at the University of Manchester, where he spent about two years. Two papers followed in the Philosophical Magazine: The photographic action of alpha, beta and gamma rays in 1915 and The scattering of alpha particles by gases in 1917.
He was over 50 at the time. He had taught chemistry for decades and still chose to start research in the newest field of physics.
What can a student take from how he worked?
Start from what people already know. His lecture titles began with water, flames, soap and telegraph wires, then moved to the principle.
Explain it in two languages. If you can explain an idea in your home language and in English, you have usually understood it, not memorised it. Our guide to learning by teaching shows why this works.
Fix the tools. Good teaching needed working apparatus, so he built a workshop. If your study set-up is broken, fix it before blaming yourself.
When a term in your textbook will not stick, the Fermi Concept Library has every concept in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computing, each with its own lesson.
Tonight, pick one chapter heading, explain it aloud in your home language to someone at home, and note every word you had to invent.
