Bhau Daji Lad adds colours to Bombay

In one corner of Byculla in Mumbai stands the Bhau Daji Lad Museum – rechristened from its original Albert & Victoria Museum. Elsewhere, there are roads and squares named after him; to anyone in Mumbai, it is a familiar name. But who indeed was this Bhau Daji Lad?  

Bhau Daji Lad, or to use his real name – Ram Krishna Lad was from a poor family based in Goa. Born in 1822, he moved to Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1832. Here, says an anecdote, his intelligence and prodigal skills were noticed by the Governor of Bombay at a chess tournament! It was no less than the Bombay Governor who encouraged his father to give him a sound western education.  

He was then admitted to Elphinstone College, recently established by the efforts of Jagannath Shankarsheth, and managed to ace every exam. But it is from a few years later that his remarkable career graph starts.  
In 1845, arguably Mumbai’s most famous medical college – Grant Medical – was established.

Bhau Daji formed part of the first batch of the prestigious college – one of only three Hindus in a class of twelve! Parsis and Christians forming the rest.  The reason being the traditional aversion of the then Hindu society to dissecting dead bodies; forgetting that Sushruta was performing surgeries two thousand years before. Be that as may, as of the nineteenth century, a Hindu performing dissections of a human body was looked down upon by the society. Hence, Bhau Daji Lad’s achievement has more significance. In 1851, he became one of the first few graduates of the Grant Medical College, becoming Dr Bhau Daji Lad in an era where clearing the matriculation exams was considered ‘sufficiently educated’.  

Dr Bhau Daji Lad became a renowned physician and surgeon. At the same time, he was a reputed Sanskrit scholar. His greatest achievement lies in marrying the two and giving India and the world a cure for leprosy! On encouragement from his former professor and mentor Dr Morehead, Bhau Daji  Lad studied hundreds of scriptures and formed a cure for leprosy. Over painstaking research and experiments conducted across many years, he zeroed in on Kawath or Kauty oil as the cure. Unfortunately, he died before he could put his findings in public and in medical journals. However, his results – in the form of cured patients were there to show – and Kauty or Kaulmogra oil continued to be the cure for leprosy till 1941!  

As mentioned earlier, he was a scholar of Sanskrit and possessed a huge collection of manuscripts in Pali, Sanskrit and other languages. His love for history and what we term today as ‘Indology’ was well known.  A collector of coins and artefacts, Bhau Daji Lad traversed the length and breadth of India collecting manuscripts and copper plate inscriptions and deciphered them. Although a doctor by profession, he still presented scholarly papers at the Bombay Asiatic Society on topics as varied as ancient Indian (Sanskrit) numerals or genealogy of the Guptas! He was contributing to archaeology studies in India at a time when it was considered almost the sole preserve of Europeans!  

Dr Bhau Daji Lad used his scholarship to determine entire genealogies and also deciphered the age in which poet Kalidas lived. From Jain Pattavalis to cave inscriptions in north India, Dr Bhau Daji Lad’s contribution to the study of ancient India was immense. He also served as the Vice President of the Asiatic Society for some time.   

It was perhaps fitting then, that when the British government thought of establishing a museum in Mumbai, Bhau Daji Lad’s name would figure prominently. Today, this museum has his name!  

A public meeting at the town hall in 1858, chaired by Jagannath Shankarsheth, with Bhau Daji Lad and Sir George Birdwood as Secretaries decided to raise funds for the ‘Victoria and Albert Museum’. Through Bhau Daji Lad’s efforts, over a lakh rupees were raised from the citizens of Mumbai for the museum. An equal amount was contributed by the government. Fourteen years later the museum was inaugurated. A time in which Bhau Daji Lad twice served as Sheriff of Bombay. Also, important to note that during this same time span, the walls of the old ‘Fort’ in Bombay were torn down and its iconic buildings such as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai University and the General Post Office were built. In short, the ‘town’ area of Mumbai with its planned streets and Gothic – Indian architecture came up at this time. Dr Bhau Daji Lad, along with Jagannath Shankersheth and George Birdwood, thus made important contributions to the growth of the city.   

The middle of the nineteenth century was a time when India was transiting from native to British rule. The Bombay Association was formed at this time, with Dr Bhau Daji Lad, along with others such as Jagannath Shankarsheth and Dadabhai Navroji as the founders.  

Thus, having made contributions in the fields of medicine, history, Indology, town planning and politics, Dr Bhau Daji Lad died in 1874, aged just 52.