History News Desk!! Was an Indian doctor and scientist. He was the father of the world’s second and India’s first test tube baby. The first test tube baby in India was born on October 3, 1978 in Kolkata. It was the misfortune of Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay that his success was not recognized. Subhash Mukhopadhyay could not maintain his success at the international level. Doubts were expressed about his work and he was barred from going to Tokyo. Hurt by all these reasons, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay committed suicide in 1981. Later his work was recognized.
Introduction
Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was born on January 16, 1931. Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay, the father of India’s first test tube baby, was born to his maternal grandfather Anupam Babu. Anupam Babu was a well-known advocate of that time. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was educated in Kolkata and then in Edinburgh. Through his in vitro fertilization technique, the first test tube baby in India was born on October 3, 1978 in Kolkata.
The leader of the doctors team was Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay. Unfortunately, the state government doubted his work. Where a team of incompetent people investigated their work and expressed doubt. Subhash Mukhopadhyay could not put his work on the international platform. He had to go to Tokyo to present his work before medical scientists on the international stage. Expressing suspicion, he was stopped from going to Tokyo. Disappointed by this, he committed suicide in Kolkata on June 19, 1981. His work was later vindicated and recognized as the “Father of India’s first test tube baby”.
start of experiment
By the time Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay returned to Calcutta after completing his doctorate degree from Edinburgh University in Scotland, discussion on test tube baby had intensified worldwide, but any successful experiment was yet to be conducted. This was in the early eighties. A wealthy Marwari family lived in Kolkata. He had no children. As was the case in those times, childless families, especially women, had to face not only family oppression but also a lot of social oppression. That Marwari family was also going through the same mental torture. When he got information from somewhere about Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay, he went to meet him at his small house on Southern Avenue. The couple considered having the baby through the test tube method. Dr. Mukhopadhyay also agreed for this. In this way, in 1977, he started experimenting with the help of some instruments and a refrigerator in a very small room of a small flat.
Birth of the first test tube baby
On one hand, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay in India was thinking of producing a test tube baby. On the other hand, at the same time, a similar experiment had started in England also. The story was the same. When a couple living there was unable to have a child for a long time, they met renowned gynecologists Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards. Both the doctors started the experiment. The doctors of England had all kinds of resources and had the full support of the government. Whereas Dr. Mukhopadhyay had to work on his own without any government help. On July 25, 1978, physicians Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards made history by announcing the birth of a child through a test tube.
Both of them got the title of the first doctors in the world to deliver a child through a test tube. At that time, an embryo was also taking shape in the lab of Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay. On October 3, 1978, just 67 days after the July 25 announcement, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay also made an announcement. He told the world that he had also successfully experimented with giving birth to a child through a test tube. The baby girl born through a test tube was named ‘Durga’. The story behind this name is that October 3, 1978 was the first day of Durga Puja, hence it was named ‘Durga’. If Durga had been born 67 days earlier, India would have been the first country in the world to give birth to a child through the test tube method.
Insult instead of reward
Despite very less resources and technology, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay’s experiment was 100 percent successful. If he had lived in any other country, perhaps the government there would have taken his success seriously, but he was insulted. Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay wanted to go to the global platform and tell the world about his experiment, but the then government did not allow him to do so. On the contrary, the then West Bengal government formed a committee on November 18, 1978 to investigate his claims.
The committee had to investigate four points. The committee asked him strange questions and ultimately declared his claim bogus. He was made fun of. He was invited to Japan to tell about his experiment, but the government did not allow him to go there either. In 1981, as punishment, he was transferred to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (Kolkata).[1]
suicide
This insult was unbearable for Subhash Mukhopadhyay. After this entire episode he imprisoned himself in his small house. That sip of insult proved to be poison for him. He kept dying bit by bit and then one day he decided to get rid of the unbearable pain of humiliation. He committed suicide on June 19, 1981, by hanging himself from the ceiling of his house. He had not even thought that he would get this reward for his discovery. With this a promising doctor left this world.
Identification found after death
Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was not a light but a shining sun, whose light was to spread all over the world. In the year 1986, an Indian doctor T.C. Anand Kumar also gave birth to a child through test tube method. He got the title of ‘the first doctor to deliver a test tube baby in India’. In the year 1997, he got hold of important documents which testified that before him, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay had given birth to a test tube baby. After a thorough study of all the documents, Dr. Anand Kumar came to the conclusion that Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was the first scientist to gift India a test tube baby.
Due to the initiative of Dr. Anand Kumar, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay finally got the title of father of India’s first test tube baby. On the same subject, in 1990, renowned film director Tapan Sinha made a film named ‘Death of a Doctor’. Pankaj Kapoor played the lead role in the film. After this, the name of Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay became famous all over the world.
