Physicist C. V. Raman helped to usher India into the world of twentieth-century science. Raman overcame obstacles of geographical isolation and political oppression to establish himself, and thus India, as a serious contributor to modern Western science. His primary research interests were acoustics, musical instruments, and wave optics. He was best known for his discovery of the Raman effect (first announced in 1928), a process by which a beam of light passing through a solid, liquid, or gas was diffracted and its frequencies (and so its colors) were changed. In recognition of this discovery Raman was knighted in 1929 and awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1930.

Prior to Raman's time, India's development had proceeded along the lines of literature, art, and architecture. After the British colonized this land and set up trade, science was imported only to assist in furthering commerce. The British kept native Indians on the periphery...