Meghnad Saha was born in Seoratali, Dacca district, now in Bangladesh, on October 6, 1893. His father was a petty grocer who barely managed to keep his large family from starvation. He wanted his fifth child, Meghnad, to start earning for the family from childhood. But on the advice of local teachers, who found him a brilliant student, the grocer allowed the boy to join a boarding school eleven kilometers from the village with a well-wisher paying his fees and other charges.
When Saha secured a scholarship, he was sent to Dacca for higher studies. After the boycott, he had to join another school. However, in the final examinations he stood first. Again winning a scholarship he joined Presidency Collage, Calcutta. Here he was only taught by eminent teachers like J. C. Bose and P. C. Ray but had brilliant contemporaries like S. N. Bose and P. C. Mahalanobis, who, like him, became noted scientists in due course.
Saha secured the second position in M.Sc. (the first position went to S. N. Bose) and decided to join the Indian Finance Service as he wanted to help his needy family. Fortunately for scientific research in the country, his earlier school boycott and association with nationalists like Subhash Chandra Bose and Rajendra Prasad stood in his way and he was not allowed to take up any government job. Naturally, he turned to his first love-research in physics and mathematics.
He earned his living by giving tuition, cycling to distant places, morning and evening, to teach his students physics and mathematics. In 1917, he and S. N. Bose were appointed lecturers at the newly opened University Collage of Science in Calcutta. Thermodynamics, relativity and atomic theories were then the latest developments in physics and Saha read books on these subjects avidly and taught them as well. It was while preparing his lecture notes that he came across an astrophysical problem, the solution of which made him world famous.
Aware of the latest advances in physics, Saha put forward an ‘ionization formula’ which explained the presence of the spectral lines. The formula also enabled an astronomer to know the temperature, pressure and other aspects of the interior of the sun or any other star. The formula proved to be a breakthrough in astrophysics.
Saha was hardly 25 then. The scientific world applauded his work. One eminent astronomer even called it the twelfth major discovery in astrophysics.
In 1927, almost a decade after his discovery, Saha was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Till then not many of his countrymen had known him or his work.
After that in Allahabad he began research in spectroscopy, the study of the spectrum and ionosphere, and thus raised the department to international status. Ancient Indian history, geology and archaeology also attracted his attention. He studies the origin of the Saka era and measured the age of some rocks. Later, when he moved to Calcutta, he did research in radio waves from the sun and radioactivity.
Saha was also a social worker. Having suffered poverty himself, he did not forget his poor countrymen. When the partition of India took place and refugees from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) poured into the country, he did much to resettle them.
He founded a magazine, Science & Culture, to put forward his views. In 1952 he stood as an independent candidate for Parliament and was elected by a wide margin. He died on February 16, 1956.
