Birbal Sahni FRS (14 November 1891 – 10 April 1949) was an Indian paleobotanist who studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent. He also took an interest in geology and archaeology. He founded what is now the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow in 1946. His major contributions were in the study of the fossil plants of India and in plant evolution. He was also involved in the establishment of Indian science education and served as the President of the National Academy of Sciences, India and as an Honorary President of the International Botanical Congress, Stockholm.
Formative years
Birbal Sahni was born in Bhera,Shahpur, Pakistan, in today's Pakistani Punjab, on 14 November 1891. He was the third child of Ishwar Devi and the pioneer Indian meteorologist and scientist Lala Ruchita Ram Sahni who lived in Lahore. The family came from Dera Ismail Khan and they frequently made visits to Bhera which was close to the Salt Range and Khewra's geology may have interested Birbal at a young age. Birbal was also influenced into science by his grandfather who owned a banking business at Dera Ismail Khan and conducted amateur research in chemistry. Ruchi Ram was a professor of chemistry at Lahore and was also a social activist with an interest in the emancipation of women. Ruchi Ram had studied at Manchester and worked with Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr. Every summer, Ruchi Ram would take his sons on long treks in the Himalayas, visiting Pathankot, Rohtang, Narkanda, Chini Pass, Amarnath, Machoi Glacier and Jozila Pass between 1907 and 1911. Ruchi Ram was involved in the non-co-operation movement since the Jallianwala Bagh massacre as well as the Brahmo Samaj movement. The proximity of their house to Bradlaugh Hall made their home a centre of political activity and house guests included Motilal Nehru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sarojini Naidu, and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Birbal Sahni received his early education in India at the Mission and Central Model School Lahore, Government College University, Lahore (where his father worked, receiving a B.Sc. in 1911) and Punjab University. The family library included books in science, literary classics and he learnt botany under Shiv Ram Kashyap (1882-1934), the "father of Indian bryology" and travelled with Kashyap to Chamba, Leh, Baltal, Uri, Poonch and Gulmarg between 1920 and 1923. He followed his brothers to England and graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1914. He later studied under Albert Seward, and was awarded the D.Sc. degree of the University of London in 1919.
Career
During his stint in England, Sahni joined Professor Seward to work on a Revision of Indian Gondwana plants (1920, Palaeontologica Indica). In 1919 he briefly worked in Munich with the German plant morphologist Karl Ritter von Goebel.
In 1920 he married Savitri Suri, daughter of Sunder Das Suri an Inspector of Schools in Punjab. Savitri took an interest in his work and was a constant companion. Sahni returned to India and served as Professor of Botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Punjab University for about a year. He was appointed the first Professor and Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow University in 1921, a position he retained until his death. The University of Cambridge awarded him the degree of Sc. D. in 1929.
In 1932 Palaeontologica Indica included his account of the Bennettitalean plant that he named Williamsonia sewardi, and another description of a new type of petrified wood, Homoxylon, bearing resemblance to the wood of a living homoxylous angiosperm, but from the Jurassic age. During the following years he not only continued his investigations but collected around him a group of devoted students from all parts of the country and built up a reputation for the University which soon became the first Center for botanical and palaeobotanical investigations in India. Sahni maintained close relations with researchers around the globe, being a friend of Chester A. Arnold, noted American paleobotanist who later served his year in residence from 1958–1959 at the institute. He was a founder of The Paleobotanical Society which established the Institute of Palaeobotany on 10 September 1946 which initially functioned in the Botany Department of Lucknow University but later moved to its present premises at 53 University Road, Lucknow in 1949. On 3 April 1949 the Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the new building of the Institute. A week later, on 10 April 1949, Sahni succumbed to a heart attack.