A Pioneer of Reproductive Science and Family Planning: The Story of Dr. Amiya Bhuson Kar

On 6 May 1918, in Calcutta, a second child was born to Abani Bhuson Kar, a leading advocate at the Alipore Criminal Court, and his wife Prabhabati. They named him Amiya Bhuson. The disciplined, intellectually rigorous atmosphere of his father’s household shaped the boy early. He studied at Mitra Institution in Bhowanipur and then at Presidency College, where brilliance marked him from the start. In 1938 he stood first in the first class in his BSc (Honours), winning the Jubilee Scholarship. In 1940 he completed his MSc in Zoology with a gold medal from Calcutta University.

That same year he began teaching as a lecturer at Bethune College. But research pulled him harder. In 1944 the University of Calcutta awarded him the Sir Rashbehary Ghosh Fellowship for higher studies in Britain. At the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh, under Professor A.W. Greenwood, he earned his PhD in 1946. A year as Resident Doctor in the Department of Poultry Husbandry at Cornell University followed. By late 1947 he was back in newly independent India, teaching biology at St. Xavier’s College and lecturing in zoology at the University of Calcutta.

In 1949 he joined the Central Drugs Laboratory in Calcutta as a Senior Research Fellow. Three years later, in 1952, he moved to the newly established Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) in Lucknow. There he would spend the rest of his working life, rising to become the first Head of the Division of Endocrinology and, in 1974, an Eminent Scientist of the CSIR. Under his leadership the division grew into one of India’s most active and internationally respected schools of reproductive biology and contraceptive research.

Dr. Kar’s early work explored the effects of steroids—androgens, oestrogens, progestogens—on the reproductive processes of animals, especially birds. He demonstrated their anti-ovulatory and anti-spermatogenic properties at a time when systematic fertility regulation research was still rare. Between 1954 and 1956 he independently established the mode of action and contraceptive efficacy of 19-norsteroids, almost simultaneously with Gregory Pincus in America. He conducted exhaustive long-term studies on the first oral contraceptive, Enovid, in rhesus monkeys from birth to maturity, showing no adverse effects. He investigated the effects of heavy metals, particularly cadmium, on reproduction and developed a simple, bloodless method of sterilising scrub cattle by intra-ovarian injection of cadmium chloride.

From the early 1960s his attention turned increasingly to human contraception. He carried out extensive experimental and clinical studies on intrauterine devices, examined the physiological and biochemical changes they caused, and explored ways to manage the bleeding problems associated with them. In 1964 he pioneered work on the intra-vas deferens device; in 1966 on the intra-fallopian tube device. In 1963 he began developing non-steroidal post-coital contraceptives, discovering anti-implantation activity in a series of chemical structures—benzofurans, naphthofurans and chromans. One of these compounds, Centchroman, later entered multicentric clinical trials as a weekly contraceptive pill and eventually became an important Indian contribution to family planning.

He published more than 350 research papers and review articles in some sixty national and international journals, co-authored three World Health Organization monographs, and served on the editorial boards of journals such as Steroids and Contraception. For nearly two decades he advised the WHO on human reproduction, served on ICMR committees, helped draft India’s Fourth and Fifth Five-Year Plans for family planning, and sat on panels of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. He trained and examined research students for about ten Indian universities.

Recognition followed. He received the Dr P.N. Raju Award of the ICMR in 1966, the National Award of the Ministry of Health and Family Planning in 1969, the FICCI Award in 1971, the Inventions Promotion Board Award and the Asiatic Society Medal in 1972. In 1969 he was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy. In 1972 the Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Shri for his contributions to medicine and biomedical research.

On 15 August 1948 he married Geeta Mitra. She once remarked, with affectionate honesty, that he was wedded more to his work than to her. She predeceased him by only a few months. In mid-1975 he suffered a cerebral thrombosis from which he never recovered. He died in Calcutta on 6 January 1976 at the age of fifty-seven.

Dr. Amiya Bhuson Kar (also recorded as Amiya Bhushan Kar) remains one of the foundational figures in Indian reproductive biology and contraceptive research. At a time when the newly independent nation was urgently seeking scientific solutions to population growth, he built, from the laboratories of CDRI, a body of knowledge and a generation of trained scientists that helped shape both policy and practice. His quiet, rigorous, internationally respected work continues to stand as a landmark in the scientific history of modern India.