B.C. Guha is often remembered as the ‘stormy petrel of science’. He was a public speaker; known for his boldness and leadership qualities. His aggression and yearning to break shackles and obtain freedom for his country was profound and was accordingly at the age of 11 inducted into the revolutionary Jugantar Party. Later in life, he would have landed behind prison bars if not for his wife’s counsel. Guha could recite freely passages from the works of Kalidas, Tagore, and Shakespeare. He entered the world of science not because he loved science – he was more inclined towards the arts. His brothers, both professors in English, prevailed upon him to take up science. Born on 8 June 1904, Guha was the youngest child born into the Guha Thakurtha family of Banaripara, in the district Barisal (now in Bangladesh).
Guha took up science courses in the City College, Calcutta (now Kolkata). Since botany was not taught at City College, he studied botany in the evening at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. After passing the ISc examination in 1921, standing second in order of merit, he took admission to the BSc course with Chemistry Honours in the Presidency College. However, soon the young and passionate Guha was drawn into the Swadeshi movement. He was imprisoned for attending a banned political party meeting and subsequently asked to quit Presidency College. Guha had to secure admission in St Xavier’s College then, to complete his graduation with flying colours.
His passion for science grew due to his close association with Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray while studying MSc at Calcutta University. Acharya Ray’s devotion to science, selfless idealism and patriotism left a great mark on Guha. No wonder he became one of the favourite students of P.C. Ray. B.C. Guha spent five years in England pioneering biochemical investigations with particular reference to B-vitamins. This was in the laboratories of Prof. Jack Drummond at the University College, London and Prof. Gowland Hopkins, a Nobel Laureate, at the Biochemical Laboratory, Cambridge University. Another Nobel laureate that Guha worked with was Szent-Györgyi, who won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for his discoveries concerning biological oxidation processes with reference to vitamin C. With his expertise in bioassay, Guha helped Szent-Györgyi understand the nature of the antiscorbutic property of hexuronic acid.
Returning to India in 1932 with Ph.D. and DSc degrees, Guha joined the Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works and initiated many lines of work on preparation of vitamin concentrates and other biologically active compounds. In 1936, he was appointed Professor of Applied Chemistry at the University College of Science, Calcutta, and got the opportunity to work on several aspects of carbohydrate metabolism, particularly on the biosynthesis of ascorbic acid for which he is most well known. The significance of Guha’s work on ascorbic acid biosynthesis lies in its evolutionary implications. Guha’s work showed the importance of biochemistry as the connecting link between molecular genetics and species evolution.
The next major change in his life came during the Bengal famine of 1943. The wanton suffering of millions of people shook him up completely. He became one of the most uncompromising advocates of science for rapid implementation of policies. He was deeply moved by the calamity and applied all his knowledge of biochemistry and food technology to prepare cheap protein foods and digests for the treatment of extreme cases of starvation and emaciation. He prepared vegetable milk for infants, and for adults, he prepared protein substitutes. Since there was an acute shortage of animal proteins he became a strong advocate of leaf proteins, even developing some processes for the preparation of edible proteins from grasses and weeds such as water hyacinth that was considered otherwise useless.
In 1944 he joined the Ministry of Food, Government of India as the Chief Technical Adviser, and initiated plans for nutrition surveys for the whole country. He also organised a Technical Wing for inspection, analysis and standardisation of foods. It was in the Food Department that he got the idea for a Food Technological Research Institute. Subsequently, when CSIR decided to establish such an Institute at Mysore, Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar asked Guha to serve in its Executive Council for many sessions during its formative stages.
Having spent much of his youth and even a part of his middle ages focusing on his passion for science and his yearning to serve fellow citizens, Biresh Chandra Guha married in 1944 at the rather late age of 41. Dr.PhulRenu Guha, a talented lady who later became a Member of Parliament, was a Ph.D. in languages from a French university. Guha was deputed to serve the UNESCO in Paris as India’s representative and counsellor in Agricultural Sciences. Later he also joined the Damodar Valley Corporation as a member from West Bengal. However, the routine work, the general apathy and administrative delays were not to his liking. After almost ten years of administration related assignments, Guha once again came closer to his roots when he returned to University Professorship in 1953. He vigorously championed the cause of biochemistry in India pushing the University Grants Commission to form a Biochemistry Review Committee. As a member of the Committee, he visited all university laboratories where biochemical research was in progress. There were very few biochemistry departments in the country. It was due to his efforts and the recommendations of the Committee that the Departments of Biochemistry at Calcutta, Lucknow and Nagpur Universities were upgraded. He had led the delegation of Indian biochemists to the International Congress of Biochemistry held successively at Cambridge, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, and Moscow. Guha had an idea of holding a Summer School in Biochemistry at Srinagar. He had gone to Lucknow to discuss the modalities with scientists of the Central Drug Research Institute. But destiny had planned otherwise. He died abruptly on 20 March 1962, in Lucknow, at only 58 years of age.
B. Mukherji, a colleague of B.C. Guha, writes about his wide-ranging interests in his memoir: “Guha’s interests were broad and ranged far beyond the sciences. He was deeply read in ‘Sanskrit’, ‘Bengali’ and ‘English’ literature and could recite freely passages from Kalidasa, Tagore or Shakespeare. Guha’s unusual combination of gifts included an ability to deliver a good lecture and write in a clear and attractive style.”