Indian initiatives to establish ‘western’ astronomical observatories prior to independence. 2: colleges and universities

Indian initiatives to establish ‘western’ astronomical observatories prior to independence. 2: colleges and universities

This paper outlines the efforts to establish Western-style astronomical observatories in India made by colleges and universities over the last century prior to Indian independence in 1947. The focus is therefore on the nineteenth-century emergence of the Presidency College Observatory in Calcutta, St. Xavier’s College Observatory in Calcutta, Takhtasinghji Observatory in Poona, and Langat Singh College Observatory in Muzaffarpur.
Three of these observatories were established either to aid educated Indians in gaining a realistic knowledge of Western astronomy, or so that India itself could contribute to that body of research knowledge. The fourth observatory, at the Presidency College in Calcutta, was a local government initiative founded primarily to provide a local time service and meteorological data.
Unlike the observatories discussed in the first paper in this series, none of the observatories reviewed in this paper was set up primarily to further Britain’s colonial ambitions. All were local Indian initiatives, but the critical involvement of Western astronomers or academics at three of the four observatories reveals that a colonial link was still there, albeit as an underlying element.