Editing J. B. S. Haldane (section)

=== In India ===

[[File:Marcello Siniscalco (standing) and J.B.S. Haldane in Andra Pradesh, India, 1964.jpg|thumb|right|[[Marcello Siniscalco]] ''(standing)'' and Haldane in Andhra Pradesh, India, 1964]]

[[File:John Burdon Sanderson Haldane Avenue - Kolkata 7660.JPG|thumb|J.{{nbsp}}B.{{nbsp}}S. Haldane Avenue in [[Kolkata]], the busy connecting road from [[Eastern Metropolitan Bypass]] to [[Park Circus]] area containing [[Science City Kolkata|Science City]]]]

In 1956, Haldane left [[University College London]], and joined the [[Indian Statistical Institute]] (ISI) in Calcutta (later renamed [[Kolkata]]), India, where he worked in the [[biostatistics|biometry]] unit.<ref name=":5" /> Haldane gave many reasons for moving to India. Officially he stated that he left the UK because of the [[Suez Crisis]], writing: "Finally, I am going to India because I consider that recent acts of the British Government have been violations of [[international law]]." He believed that the warm [[climate]] would do him good, and that India shared his socialist dreams.<ref name="dronam">{{cite journal |title = On Some Aspects of the Life and Work of John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, F.R.S., in India |author = Krishna R. Dronamraju |journal = Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London |volume = 41 |issue = 2 |year = 1987 |pages = 211–237 |doi = 10.1098/rsnr.1987.0006 |pmid = 11622022 |jstor = 531546 |doi-access = free }}</ref> In an article "A passage to India" that he wrote in ''The Rationalists Annual'' in 1958, he stated: "For one thing I prefer Indian food to American. Perhaps my main reason for going to India is that I consider that the opportunities for scientific research of the kind in which I am interested are better in India than in Britain, and that my teaching will be at least as useful there as here."<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Haldane|first=John Burdon Sanderson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u_hDAAAAIAAJ|title=Science and Life: Essays of a Rationalist|date=1968|publisher=Pemberton Publishing|isbn=978-0-301-66584-9|pages=124–134|language=en}}</ref> The university had sacked his wife Helen for being [[public intoxication|drunk and disorderly]] and refusing to pay a fine, triggering Haldane's resignation. He declared he would no longer wear socks, "Sixty years in socks is enough."<ref>{{cite book |last = deJong-Lambert |first = William |title = The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair |year = 2012 |publisher = Springer |location = Dordrecht |isbn=978-94-007-2839-4 |page = 150 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GzxvfRbIMbAC |edition = 2012. |url-status = live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308005118/https://books.google.com/books?id=GzxvfRbIMbAC&pg |archive-date = 8 March 2017 |df = dmy-all }}</ref> and he always dressed in Indian attire.<ref name=dronamjaru1992 />

Haldane was keenly interested in inexpensive research. Explaining in "A passage to India", he said, "Of course, if my work required [[electron microscopes]], [[cyclotrons]], and the like, I should not get them in India. But the sort of facilities which [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] and [[William Bateson|Bateson]] used for their researches—such as gardens, gardeners, pigeon lofts, and pigeons—are more easily obtained in India than in England."<ref name=":6" /> He wrote to Julian Huxley about his observations on ''Vanellus malabaricus'', the [[yellow-wattled lapwing]]. He advocated the use of ''Vigna sinensis'' ([[cowpea]]) as a model for studying [[plant genetics]]. He took an interest in the [[pollination]] of ''[[Lantana camara]]''. He lamented that Indian universities forced those who took up biology to drop mathematics.<ref>{{cite journal |author = Majumder PP |year = 1998 |title = Haldane's Contributions to Biological Research in India |journal = Resonance |pages = 32–35 |url=http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Dec1998/pdf/Dec1998p32-35.pdf |doi = 10.1007/BF02838095 |volume = 3 |issue = 12 |s2cid = 121546764 |url-status = live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910153330/http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Dec1998/pdf/Dec1998p32-35.pdf |archive-date = 10 September 2008 |df = dmy-all }}</ref> He took an interest in the study of [[floral symmetry]]. In January 1961 he befriended Canadian lepidopterist [[Gary Botting]], the 1960 U.S. Science Fair winner in zoology (who had first visited the Haldanes along with Susan Brown, 1960 U.S. National Science Fair winner in botany), inviting him to share the results of his experiments hybridising ''[[Antheraea]]'' silk moths. He, his wife Helen Spurway, and student Krishna Dronamraju were present at the [[The Oberoi Group|Oberoi Grand Hotel]] in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] when Brown reminded the Haldanes that she and Botting had a previously scheduled event that would prevent them from accepting an invitation to a banquet proposed by the Haldanes in their honour and had regretfully declined the honour. After the two students had left the hotel, Haldane went on his much-publicized hunger strike to protest what he regarded as a "U.S. insult".<ref>"Haldane on Fast: Insult by USIS Alleged", ''Times of India'', 19 January 1961; "Protest Fast by Haldane: USIS's "Anti-Indian Activities", ''Times of India'', 18 January 1961; "Situation was Misunderstood, Scholars Explain", ''Times of India'', 20 January 1961; "USIS Explanation does not satisfy Haldane: Protest fast continues", ''Times of India'', 18 January 1961; "USIS Claim Rejected by Haldane: Protest Fast to Continue", ''Times of India'', 18 January 1961; "Haldane Not Satisfied with USIS Apology: Fast to Continue", ''Free Press Journal'', 18 January 1961; "Haldane Goes on Fast In Protest Against U.S. Attitude", ''Times of India'', 18 January 1961; "Haldane to continue fast: USIS explanation unsatisfactory", ''Times of India'', 19 January 1961; "Local boy in hunger strike row", ''Toronto Star'', 20 January 1961; "Haldane, Still on Fast, Loses Weight: U.S.I.S. Act Termed 'Discourteous'", ''Indian Express'', 20 January 1961; "Haldane Slightly Tired on Third Day of Fast", ''Times of India'', 21 January 1961; "Haldane Fasts for Fourth Consecutive Day", ''Globe and Mail'', 22 January 1961</ref><ref>{{cite book |title = The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses |year = 1984 |publisher = University of Toronto Press |location = Toronto |isbn=978-0-8020-6545-2 |page = xvii |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MRj4hmqPRxEC |author = Botting, Gary |editor1 = Heather Denise Harden |editor2 = Gary Botting |chapter = Preface |url-status = live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312150123/https://books.google.com/books?id=MRj4hmqPRxEC&dq |archive-date = 12 March 2017 |df = dmy-all }}</ref><ref name=cook50>{{Cite journal |last1=Cook |first1=Laurence M. |last2=Turner |first2=John R. G. |date=2020 |title=Fifty per cent and all that: what Haldane actually said |url=https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/129/3/765/5700465 |journal=Biological Journal of the Linnean Society |language=en |volume=129 |issue=3 |pages=765–771 |doi=10.1093/biolinnean/blz169 |issn=0024-4066|doi-access=free }}</ref> When the director of the ISI, [[P. C. Mahalanobis]], confronted Haldane about both the hunger strike and the unbudgeted banquet, Haldane resigned from his post (in February 1961), and moved to a newly established biometry unit in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa ([[Odisha]]).<ref name="dronam" />

Haldane took Indian citizenship; he was interested in [[Hinduism]] and became a [[vegetarian]].<ref name="dronam" /> In 1961, Haldane described India as "the closest approximation to the Free World". [[Jerzy Neyman]] objected that "India has its fair share of scoundrels and a tremendous amount of poor unthinking and disgustingly subservient individuals who are not attractive."<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Dronamraju|first=Krishna R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J3h4DQAAQBAJ|title=Popularizing Science: The Life and Work of JBS Haldane|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-933392-9|location=New York|pages=280–285|language=en}}</ref> Haldane retorted:<blockquote>Perhaps one is freer to be a scoundrel in India than elsewhere. So one was in the U.S.A in the days of people like [[Jay Gould]], when (in my opinion) there was more internal freedom in the U.S.A than there is today. The "disgusting subservience" of the others has its limits. The people of Calcutta riot, upset trams, and refuse to obey police regulations, in a manner which would have delighted [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson]]. I don't think their activities are very efficient, but that is not the question at issue.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Why india survives – The true choice facing Indians|url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/why-india-survives-the-true-choice-facing-indians/cid/1019066|access-date=2021-08-07|website=The Telegraph}}</ref></blockquote>When on 25 June 1962 he was described in print as a "[[World Citizen|Citizen of the World]]" by [[Groff Conklin]], Haldane responded:<blockquote>No doubt I am in some sense a citizen of the world. But I believe with Thomas Jefferson that one of the chief duties of a citizen is to be a nuisance to the government of his state. As there is no world state, I cannot do this. On the other hand, I can be, and am, a nuisance to the government of India, which has the merit of permitting a good deal of criticism, though it reacts to it rather slowly. I also happen to be proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the U.S.A, the U.S.S.R or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organisation. It may of course break up, but it is a wonderful experiment. So, I want to be labeled as a citizen of India.<ref name=":7" /></blockquote>