Taraknath Palit

Taraknath Palit gave away his life savings to fund a science professorship. He never got to see who filled it. Three years after his death, a young physicist named C.V. Raman took the post, and went on to win India’s first Nobel Prize in science.

Sir Taraknath Palit, photographed in 1912, the same year he executed the trust deeds that funded science education at Calcutta University. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Donation That Outlived Him

ModHist0303

1831

Born in Kolkata

Only son of a wealthy family

1871

Starts Legal Practice

Returns from law studies in England

1906–c.1910

Joins, Then Leaves, the NCE

Helps found Bengal Technical Institute, later withdraws support

1912

Donates Rs 15 Lakh

Trust deeds to Calcutta University

3 Oct 1914

Dies in Kolkata

Months after his college opens

1917

C.V. Raman Named Palit Professor

Chair funded by his donation

18 years apart: Palit’s 1912 donation, and Raman’s 1930 Nobel Prize for work partly done in the chair it created.

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📑 Contents

1A Barrister Who Funded a Nobel Prize
2A Falling Out, and a Shared College
3Test Yourself
4A Chair That Still Exists

A Barrister Who Funded a Nobel Prize Need to Know

Sir Taraknath Palit (1831–1914) was a Bengali barrister and philanthropist, the only son of the wealthy Kalisankar Palit.
He studied at Hindu School in Kolkata, then read law in England. He returned in 1871 and built a legal practice as a barrister.
In 1912, he executed trust deeds donating Rs 15 lakh, his life savings, to Calcutta University for science education.
That donation endowed the Palit Professor of Physics chair. C.V. Raman became its first holder in 1917, and later discovered the Raman Effect while holding it.
Raman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for that discovery, 18 years after Palit’s original donation. Palit himself was knighted on 1 January 1913, and died the next year, on 3 October 1914.

A Falling Out, and a Shared College Good to Know

Palit was present at the founding of the National Council of Education in 1906. He helped establish the Bengal Technical Institute alongside Rashbehari Ghosh, Bhupendra Nath Bose, and Nilratan Sircar.
He later fell out with the Council, and by around 1909-10 had withdrawn his support from it. He redirected his philanthropy toward Calcutta University instead.
Sir Rashbehari Ghosh, another lawyer-philanthropist, made a separate but complementary donation. It went to the same University College of Science that Palit’s gift created, not to a different institution.
Palit’s donation funded the college’s Ballygunge campus, still informally called Ballygunge Science College. Ghosh’s donation funded its Rajabazar campus. Both remain part of Calcutta University today.
Palit died just months after his college formally opened on 27 March 1914, never seeing the Palit Professorship actually filled.

Test Yourself

A Chair That Still Exists Great to Know

Palit’s donation is a clear example of Swadeshi-era philanthropy directly shaping India’s scientific future. This happened years before independence, and long after the donor’s own death.
The Palit Professor of Physics chair remains a recognised academic post at Calcutta University today. It still carries the name of the man who funded it over a century ago.

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