The story in “The Telegraph” that you have linked to is so muddled in so many ways that it is difficult to decide what is its greatest flaw.

To start with, the whole article reads as if Bengal and Tamilnadu are the only states where Indian scientists live. There is no mention of Harischandra or Khorana or Bhabha all of whom are comparable (and some might say superior) in their scientific stature to other scientists discussed in the article. I will be the first one to grant that regional
disparities in Indian science academia is a serious issue which has to be tackled. But, it is quite annoying if people just want to select facts that support their parochial hypotheses.

Next flaw that leaps out of the article is the shameless nobel-centrism which
stands as the primary motivation for the article at this point of time.
The only good reason to forgive the authors is the fact that this disease is
quite common and is often left unchallenged. Again, national disparities in
science are a serious issue worth thinking about but I don’t think there is
much advantage to framing it as a question about nobel prizes. To think about
science in terms of nobel prizes suffers from same drawbacks as thinking about
education in terms of exams or thinking about politics in terms of elections.

Coming to the particular statement which is attributed to Raman, I am
surprised how the article basically renders both the primary and the
secondary source obscure. Some unnamed scientist claims having seen
copy of some letter whose existence the authors have not bothered
to check and that seems all that is needed to frame an accusation !
We are told of “Southern scientists”, “Bengal scientists”, “A
senior scientist, who too did not want to be named”, “A physics
faculty member from Calcutta, who did not wish to go on record”
and the bulk of the article is built on such gossip. This might
be a fair material for tea-time gossip ( may be even a blog post)
but in my opinion, it is substandard material for a mainstream newspaper.

That is just to say that I have no reason to believe the particular claim. Having said that , let me add that I don’t believe that Raman was a saint and given sufficient sources to buttress that claim , I find the claim to be a historically interesting one. If Raman did write a letter to Mountbatten, I would be very much interested in knowing what he wrote (and in what context). If this claim is indeed true, it raises historically interesting questions regarding Indian academia vis a vis partition. Raman’s letter if it existed would be interesting for the same reason Newton’s work on alchemy is interesting. But, till that claim is confirmed, there is not much point in baseless speculations.

And regarding your statement

“Can’t really think of this great man as harbouring so narrow views.”

I can just say that it is probably too narrow to classify humans as entirely great or entirely narrow. The
success of the methods adopted in science is that they are robust and they work for you even if you’re not a saint. In that sense, it is easier to be a good scientist than to be a good human being…

With regards.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091009/jsp/frontpage/story_11594747.jsp

Hope this is not true. Can’t really think of this great man as harbouring so narrow views.

we should all try to speak truth & nothin but truth.

knowledge is available to all and not just to some.