At every step in his career, CVR had to undergo excessive hardships raised by Babucrats and politicians. He had accept the job of Professorship as 50% salary in Kolkata as he had no other option. Once he had to request a businessman to finance a spectrophotometer for his laboratory instead of government providing the same. The businessman wanted to know what he would receive in return. Thereupon CVR assured him of Nobel Prize and he did it in 1930. When offered Directorship of IISc, Bangaluru, he accepted albeit it was a nightmare working there. Vested lobbies seeped in corruption joined hands and forced him to quit stewardship of the institute.
1945 onwards, his relations with government and the last Mughal Jawaharlal Nehru deteriorated considerably. CVR loudly castigated Nehruvian socialism and Soviet-ism, voiced the view that science must be set free of government reins. He demanded professional freedom for scientists and liberal allocation of funds. He vehemently opposed centralised model of research that he dubbed CSIR a ‘Taj Mahal to bury science’. It was due to Nehru that scientists under his regime enjoyed their sinecure positions bereft of productive research as Nehru didn’t have the vision to push national science to the glory that it deserved. Nehru even once advised CVR not to worry about fate of his laboratory after his demise !! It was only with the support of Maharaja of Mysore that CVR could raise Raman Research Institute. In spite of his bitter criticism of Nehru, CVR was awarded National Professorship and Bharata-Ratna as Nehru did not wish to tarnish his image w.r.t. a celebrity Nobel Laureate and an international figure.
His contempt for Nehru was so much pronounced that he personally smashed on ground a bust of Nehru that shattered into pieces and the Bharata-Ratna medallion he crushed and hammered to pulp. He was finally locked out of his institute and his students warned not to meet him at all !! Acrimony boiled down to such a nasty level that he erected a board in front of his house ‘Politicians not allowed’. Finally he breathed his last on Nov. 21, 1970 after donating all his possessions to IISc, Bangaluru.
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