‘We found the zero, but we need not be ciphers’
Prof. A. Jayakrishnan, professor of Biotechnology, IIT Madras and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Kerala
The recent outburst of Prof. C.N.R. Rao, the Bharat Ratna recipient, that the country’s investment in higher education and research is subcritical and marginal has attracted considerable attention.
Prof. Rao’s utterances caught the attention of the media not because of the merit of his statement, but because he seemed to have made politically incorrect remarks without realising that his position as scientific advisor to the Cabinet demands that he be politically correct.
As scientific advisor to the Cabinet for over two decades, Prof. Rao’s comments assume importance since the scientific community feels that even an aggressive and fierce proponent of basic research at the helm is not capable of impressing up on the government to invest more in basic science.
Prof. C. N. R. Rao
The issue of inadequate allocation for higher education and research has been debated over the last several decades ever since the Kothari Commission submitted its report in 1966, but the commission’s recommendation of investing six percent of the GDP on education still remains a distant possibility.
It is a fact that ancient India had a rich scientific tradition. We made the best steel in the world, exemplified by the Iron Pillar in Delhi and the Damascus swords, and our metallurgical advances included distillation of zinc to make the best brass products.
Indian cotton and silk were the envy of the Europeans while our medical systems included surgical techniques such as plastic surgery were considered path-breaking.
Mohenjo Daro and Harappa bear testimony to our architectural skills. At a more fundamental level, we developed the concept of zero around 600 CE which was considered as heresy in Europe and even Pythogoras is said to have learnt his basic geometry from the Sulba Sutras.
It remains a paradox that although Britain was responsible for introducing modern education in India, it failed to integrate the modern scientific methods with the traditional in India with the result that a nation that contributed to almost fifty percent of the world trade in the 18th century had become a very poor nation when the Empire left.
Early 20th century witnessed the flowering of modern science in India through great minds like S.N. Bose, P.C. Ray, J.C. Bose, C.V. Raman, H. Bhabha and V. Sarabhai to name a few.
Soon after independence, Pandit Nehru, declared that ‘science alone can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening customs’.
The main focus of Indian science, however, was confined to strategic science and technology and agriculture with the defence absorbing 60% of the government’s R&D funding.
India spends about 1% of its GDP on R&D whereas Japan and USA spends as much as 3% of their GDP. Indian industry’s contribution to R&D is 15% of the total national R&D outlay.
It is more than 70% in South Korea, Japan or USA. Basic research has become a casualty with funding agencies increasingly insisting on the ‘outcome of the research’ or ‘directed research’ with ‘specific benefits’ as a condition for funding ignoring the fact that basic research undertaken to understand a phenomenon of scientific curiosity has often resulted in unexpected outcomes, sometimes called accidental discoveries which transformed the way we live and work.
The history of science is replete with many such examples of serendipity. Galvani’s observation of the twitching of a severed frog’s leg when touched with a bimetallic scalpel led to the development of battery by Volta.
The discovery of X-rays by Roentgen, of radioactivity by Becquerel, of urea by Wholer, of infrared radiation by Sir William Herschel, famous for his discovery of planet Uranus, of argon and other inert gases by Raleigh are a few examples to cite that had far reaching implications in society.
Arguably, if Roentgen, Hertz and Faraday were to do research on ‘real problems’ of life, we would not have had X-rays, radios or electric motors.
More recently, the invention of Internet, neutron capture therapy, computer-assisted tomography, MRI and radioisotope chemotherapy were all fruits of open-ended, often ridiculed esoteric, blue sky research in astronomy, particle physics or number.
Most of the basic research, happened in the universities, where pursuit of curiosity was the only aim and scientists were not concerned about the ‘specific benefits’ of their research.
I believe, one of the major errors of our science planning was the creation of parallel institutions of research (CSIR for instance) at the expense of the universities. The better minds in science went to these institutions which were better equipped and better funded. Universities got the left over.
Parallel research institutions were narrow in their objectives. They reel under the weight of permanent staff. No teaching. No students. No young minds to be trained as the fountainhead of future science and technology.
When German physicist Sommerfeld visited India in the thirties after Raman had won the Nobel for Physics, he noted that the level of theoretical physics in India and Europe was the same.
Now? We have even abandoned our Cosmic Ray experiment in Kolar Gold Mines, whereas the Chinese have built an excellent facility.
It is true that with the opening of the economy, employment opportunities have burgeoned in the IT sector and more and more youngsters are gravitated to engineering sciences than pure sciences.
Pure science options are usually a long haul and would require a masters, a doctorate and postdoctoral experience and still face employment uncertainty.
The Indian industry still thrives on licensed technology and does not invest in research and development to recruit sufficient scientific manpower.
The youth cannot thus be faulted for not pursuing science although they, I am tempted to believe will be more excited about back holes, God particles, quarks, quasers, lasers, DNA, anti-matter, or the Big Bang than just coding for Microsoft or Infosys.
While more funds for basic research are certainly needed, it is also pertinent to ask why we are not able to create one more Raman, Saha, Bose or G.N. Ramachandran?
Is it because there is paucity of funds or because there is paucity of ideas? If more basic research is to be done, science departments in the universities should be well staffed, well-equipped and properly funded. Creating parallel and specialised institutions for research is not a solution at the expense of the universities.
Next: Chase your passion
Chase your passion
Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman of Startup Village, Kochi
To understand the context of Dr Rao’s comments, it is important to understand the basic framework of science as a subject to the readers.
Basic science or Fundamental science is the development and establishment of information to aid the understanding of the world around us.
This is mainly fundamental physics and many special sciences like astrophysics, biology, chemistry, geology and so on. Engineering and medicine are Applied Science(s) which use portions of basic science to derive new applications that are practically useful in human life.
IT Industry clearly is a bye-product of applied science as per this definition. Research and Development (R&D) is where applied science and basic sciences overlap.
The IT Sector registered blistering growth and this naturally attracted the brightest students. The scale of employment opportunities that the sector created was many times higher than that created by basic sciences.
Parents want a safe and happy career for their children and thus would gently nudge them into an engineering or medicine stream where the probability of getting employed was much higher and this drove the education system to create more seats for engineering/medicine.
Our world simply didn't have a model that attracted the best minds with the best financial opportunities into Basic Sciences.
To my mind, it is also difficult to imagine a whole lot of people who can have a career in basic sciences as well as this is arguably designed for people who have the passion and the scientific bent of mind.
The biggest employer in Basic Sciences is the government. To create large scale employment opportunities in Basic Sciences, large amounts of investment are required.
To move from R&D in applied sciences to pure sciences, the gestation period is possibly multiple decades and commercialisation is not anywhere close in the horizon.
This means that private investment and employment creation in Basic Sciences is extremely difficult.
To my average mind, this would possibly mean having a facility like CERN where people are going deep into world class basic sciences to unravel the mysteries of the world.
This facility cannot be created by Private Sector and thus the consummate investment needed by Government in Basic Sciences was not made is the accurate observation by Dr Rao.
