Jagadis Chandra Bose (1858-1937), India’s first plant physiologist, deviated boldly from mainstream botany by claiming that plants possess “nerves” and “pulsating cells” that function much like the nerve and heart cells of animals. In support of these ideas he recorded “plant autographs,” i.e., continuous, high-resolution measurements of plant functions by means of assorted ingenious instruments of his own design. Although Bose was the most internationally celebrated plant biologist of his era, Bose’s detractors in the West, by accusing him of virtually every academic malfeasance, including technical incompetence, mysticism, insanity and fraud, effectively expunged Bose from Western histories of plant biology. Nearly all of Bose's scientific claims have since been confirmed but without attribution. It is proposed that that attempts to understand Bose’s reception by the West wholly in terms of scientific dialectics ignore the fact that the progress of science cannot be divorced entirely from the cultural and social lives of its practitioners. Given the times in which Bose lived, one obvious hypothesis to explain the West’s rejection of Bose’s scientific views is that Western opinions of Bose may have been tainted by the racism rampant in the West at that time. Archival research will be presented that supports this hypothesis.
