Indian National Science Academy Indira Gandhi Prize for Science Popularization Oration

IISER Mohali 18 February 2014

Rise and Decline of Modern Science in India

Rajesh KochharMathematics Department Panjab University &

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali

rkochhar2000@gmail.com

It is a matter of great honour and

pleasure for me to receive this prize for

science popularization. The prize is

twice blessed. It is given by Indian

National Science Academy and it is

named after Indira Gandhi.

The current year is the 120th anniversary of an

international event which interestingly is more

significant for India than the rest of the world.

The German scientist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the

discoverer of radio waves, died on 1 January 1894.

By way of obituary notice, the English experimenter

Oliver Lodge wrote ‘very simple and precise

instructions’ for constructing radio detectors which

now ‘could readily be duplicated, even by unskilled

hands’.

It was Lodge’s publication that introduced J. C.

Bose to the exciting new world of radio waves

and thus began modern scientific research by

Indians. Bose, who had had nine years of rather

uneventful existence as professor of physics at

Presidency College Calcutta, published his first

results in the May 1895 issue of the Journal of

the Asiatic Society.

According to his colleague the chemist P. C. Ray

who shot to fame at the same time with his

discovery of mercurous nitrite, Bose did not realize

‘the importance of the new line of research he had

hit upon’. Bose sent a reprint to his former teacher

Lord Rayleigh who immediately saw its worth and

got it republished in The Electrician. Thus

encouraged, Bose launched into a brief phase of

inspired experimental research.

But, let us begin by taking a look at the things

as they stand now.

• USA remains the world leader in science

as measured by the number of research

papers published and their citation.

• Some 225 countries of the world publish

more than 1.5 mn research papers.

• During 2008-12, as many as 23% of research

papers were published by USA whose share in

the citations was even higher at 39%.

• This gives USA a Relative Citation Index ( share

in citations divided by share in papers=39/23) of

1.71.

• Over the years pursuit of science has become more

widespread so that the US share (but not the quality) is

now lower than before.

• From 1996 to 2012 India improved its rank from 13 to 7;

and China more drastically from 9 to 2. The share of both

in citations however is low.

World share India World share China

World share USA

Papers%

Relative Citation Index

Papers%

Relative Citation Index

Papers%

Relative Citation Index

1996-2000 1.89 0.57 3.14 0.41 27.88 1.69

2008-2012 3.45 0.63 14.58 0.64 22.93 1.71

• India’s expenditure on R&D remains a lowly

0.9%.

• China is taking its science very seriously. Since

1999 it has been increasing its R&D spending by

20% every year so that in 2012 it stood at an

impressive 2% of GDP.

(Sources for data: Scimago, Royal Society, NSF; Table by B. M. Gupta

personal communication)

• Permit me to narrate a personal anecdote which

provides valuable insight into official Chinese

thinking.

• In 2005, the Chinese Deputy Science Minister

with his team visited us at NISTADS ( National Inst

of Sci. Tech & Development Studies, New Delhi)

• A short time previously, Business Standard had

published a big article arguing that just as China

had become the world hub for manufacture,

India should become the hub for services.

• I wrote a short letter ( Business Standard , 5-

Oct-2005) saying that the prescription is wrong.

China has become the hub for low-skill

manufacture; India should become high-skill

• manufacture hub.

• I gave a copy of this letter to the Chinese

Minister who took my permission to keep it.

• Then he made a very significant statement in

English>

• The Chinese Minister said: We know we cannot

compete with the West on today’s technologies.

We are therefore making money from

yesterday’s technologies and investing it in the

technologies of tomorrow.

• A typical example indeed of the Chinese

farsightedness>

• ‘[a] search of the Science Citation Index for the first eight months of 2004, using a comprehensive and precise 92-term query for the highly critical field of nanotechnology, retrieved the following results for the 20 countries reporting the most research papers:

• China ranks first, 14% higher than the United States in this crucial technology. In the top six countries, the Asian countries of China, Japan, and South Korea (7,894 publications)

outproduce the Western nations of United States, Germany, and France (6,587 publications) by 20%.

• A decade ago, the United States (1,034 publications) outproduced China (271 publications) by 380%, and these same Western nations (2,481 publications) outproduced these same Asian nations (1,694 publications) by 46%.’

• Scientometric studies have their limitations.

• But they can be considered indicative especially

while making comparisons in some respects.

• For reliable inputs into science and education

policy, India needs a National Repository and a

National Science Data Base ( say under the

Planning Commission).

• Year-wise number of Ph.D.s given by UGC,

CSIR, DST, ICAR varies widely! We need

authentic information on number of Ph.D.s; of

research papers, pattern of authorship;

contribution from universities; foreign

collaboration; foreign affiliation; women

scientists; subject-wise break-up; average age;

etc.

• Normally an activity begins modestly, reaches

the peak, stabilizes and then slowly declines.

• For China the present situation thus is an

improvement over the past.

• Modern science in India however began at the

top and has had no place to go except

downward

• Decline in Indian science is ironic because India

was the first country outside of Europe and

America to take to modern science.

• J.C. Bose and P.C. Ray are the world’s first non-

Western modern scientists.

• Similarly C.V. Raman’s Nobel prize (1930) was the

first one to go out of the West. It is noteworthy that

Raman almost missed the prize.

• Chronologically speaking, two Soviet physicists,

Leonid Mandelstam (1879-1957) and Grigory

Landsberg (1890-1957) observed what came to be

known as Raman Effect a week before Raman did.

• If these researchers had been West European

rather than Soviet, their publication would have

preceded Raman’s and the prize gone to them.

• In retrospect, it would perhaps have been better

for India if Raman had missed the Stockholm bus.

• The freak individual honour raised false hopes and

has made a clear-headed analysis of Indian

science difficult if not impossible.

• It will be instructive to look at the past 12

decades of Indian science with a view to

understanding how we have ended where we

are and where we go from here.

THE INDIAN PURSUIT OF SCIENCE

can be discussed in terms of three sequential phases: • (i) Nationalist Phase (1895); • (ii) International Phase(1945); and • (iii) Globalization Phase (c.1990).

- The first phase can be assigned a precise beginning,

1895, when Bose’s first paper on radio physics appeared.

- The second phase can nominally be taken to begin with

the 1945 setting up of Tata Institute of Fundamental

Research, Mumbai, by Homi Bhabha.

- The third phase, now on, began with the onset of

globalization.

• As we move down the phases, there is a general

decline in the quality of Indian science and in its

impact on the world.

• I would argue that there is a striking correlation

between these three phases and the stages in

the diminishing role perceived by the middle

class for itself in the national scheme of things.

 

NATIONALIST PHASE

• Although creativity-wise, Bose’s personal research

ranked higher than Ray’s, the over-all impact and

long-time influence of Ray was far greater.

• Bose carried out his experimental studies on the

optical properties of mm-length radio waves in his

personal lab, did not train any students or assistants

and gave it up altogether in 1900 or 1901. He chose

to devote the rest of his life to a study of the living

and the non-living which work at the time was

considered to be pseudo-science.

• Bose could have made millions from his radio work,

but he did not.

• If he had done so, India would have learnt to

appreciate science as a producer of wealth and

physics-based industries would have been started.

• As it turned out, industrial physics never ever took

roots in India.

 

• In contrast, Ray carried out his chemical researches in

the College lab, set up a flourishing school as well as

industry.

• While the driving force in Calcutta was nationalism, it

needs to be appreciated that Dacca University emerged

as a strong training centre under a British chemist

Edwin Roy Watson (1880-1926) who remained there

from 1906 till 1921 excluding the war years when he

returned home for war-oriented research.

• If Indian chemical and the pharmaceutical

industry are an internationally recognized

success story, and if in contrast there is no

physics-based Indian industry worth the name,

the reasons can be traced back to the 1890s

and later decades.

• The spectacular achievements of the Nationalist Phase

(including Nobel prize-winning work of Raman and the Nobel-

class theoretical researches of M. N. Saha and S. N. Bose)

were made possible by a fortuitous combination of

circumstances.

• (i) Modern science was young then. It was just a short step

ahead of, or rather a continuation of, M. Sc.- level studies.

-Thus Raman could publish research papers in international

journals while still a student and establish his credentials as a

world-class experimentalist working part-time.

-

- There was hardly any difference between a classroom

textbook and a research journal.

• Saha and S. N. Bose as young lecturers produced the first

ever English translation of Einstein for use as course

material.

• Saha and before him J.C. Bose could identify research

problems by reading popular accounts.

(ii) Another very important feature of this phase was that the

caliber of teachers was exceptionally high.

- Teaching was the best career option after the civil service.

- Surendra Nath Banerjee after being unfairly dismissed

from ICS became a college professor (He taught P.C. Ray

English literature).

- Since Saha could not enter civil services because of his

pronounced nationalist leanings, he became a university

lecturer. Raman left a cushy civil job to become a

professor.

(iii) As J.C. Bose noted, in his time the Presidency College

Calcutta was among the best equipped anywhere in the

world.

- The infrastructural and technological requirements of

experimental research were very modest and easily

available at the level of college teaching.

- Ray had a B.Sc. - failed assistant, Jitendra Nath Rakshit,

who “Out of a few bits of rejected glass - tubing” “could

improvise an apparatus, which hitherto could be had from

a firm in England or Germany after months of anxious

waiting”.

• Raman used to boast that his equipment cost

only 200 rupees. Raman missed the point

completely. What is important is not the cost, but

the fact that at the time world-class research

could be carried out in a college practical lab.

(iv) The take-off stage of modern physics coincided with the enhanced sense of Indian

nationalism. - Making scientific discoveries requires a certain

amount of defiance. - The suppressed semi-articulated resentment

against the colonial rulers provided that defiance.- Paradoxically, while Indian achievements in

science were perceived as part of the nationalist movement, at the same time honours bestowed by the colonial rulers were coveted and even flaunted.

• In the early days when India was new to modern science, it was natural that recognition be sought from the West.

• A very serious shortcoming of Indian science has been and still is that it never became self-assessing.

• Scientists have continued looking towards the West for guidance, encouragement, support and recognition.

• In the pre-Gandhian years, the nationalist

movement was strictly a middle class affair, with the

leadership still making appeals to the Empire’s

sense of noblesse oblige.

• In this scheme science and public affairs reinforced

each other. Things changed with the emergence of

Mahatma Gandhi on the scene.

• Leadership remained in the hands of the middle

class but its constituency became more broad-

based.

• As a strategy, Gandhi put the West on the

defensive on ethical grounds. Since modern

science was largely seen as a part of the

Western civilizational baggage, it went out of

focus during years of Gandhi’s ascendancy.

• Science returned centre stage with the

emergence of Jawaharlal Nehru as the

undisputed leader of independent India.

Second World War and Independence

• At the time of the Second World War (1939-1945) there

were two mutually exclusive streams in Indian science:

routine science under the government, and nationalism-

inspired research activity by the Indians in the universities.

• The twain met during the war.

• The government needed the help of Indian academics in

its war effort. And it was a foregone conclusion that the

British would leave India after the war.•

• Indians were already in important

positions in government.

• Though still working under British

auspices, they sought to dovetail their

country’s post-independence interests into

the British exigencies of war’.

• Throughout the world, all available scientific expertise

was mobilized by the governments for their war effort.

• But as soon as the war needs were over, universities

were re-energized.

• Not so in India.

• Unfortunately what was an out-going foreign

government’s temporary compulsion became the

abiding philosophy of a new nation.

• Independent India opted for government science labs

at the cost of universities.

CSIR

• Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

(CSIR) was set up on 12 March 1942. Its

scientific head was Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar

who had been brought two years previously from

Punjab University Lahore as Director Scientific

and Industrial Research.

Two years later. In 1944, CSIR sanctioned the

establishment of five research laboratories the

foundation stones of which were laid between

December 1945 and April 1947 and which were

opened between January and November 1950.

• In the enthusiasm for science too many labs were

opened in too short a time. Since there was no felt

need for them and they were being opened for the sake

of opening extraneous arguments were proffered and

accepted for their establishment and location.

• National Chemical Lab was located in Poona to be

near Bombay which was already a major hub for

chemical industry. ( It was funded by the House of

Tata which even wanted it to carry their name.)

• In contrast, there was however no obvious venue

for the Physical Lab. It was decided to locate it in

Delhi rather than Calcutta on the irrelevant ground

that this would enable the laboratory ‘to keep in

touch with the government’.

• Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute

was opened in Pilani on the personal request of

Ghanshyam Das Birla (1894-1983 ) whose birth

place it was.

• Central Electro Chemical Research Institute was

set up at Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu because a

wealthy local landowner (Alagappa Chettiar)

offered 300 acres of land and 15 lakh rupees

provided it was located there.

• For the distinguished guests assembled for the

opening ceremony, Chettiar hosted a lunch where

‘plates and goblets used were silver or gold’.

We get this interesting piece of information from

the 1957 chemistry Nobel laureate, [Sir, later Lord]

Alexander Robertus Todd.

• The research carried out by Indians in the universities was basic in nature.

• Sudden creation of national labs without creating a pool of trained personnel beforehand robbed the universities of talent.

• It also blurred the distinction between applied and basic research.

• Without linkage to economy, a laboratory would merely be an office.

• Government science in general is more government than science.

• The first Indian research Institute ( as distinct from

colonial government establishments and the

personal Bose Institute Calcutta) was Tata

Institute of Fundamental Research set up in

Bangalore in 1945 and shifted to Bombay before

the year end. It was the result of Homi Bhabha’s

initiative whose father’s sister was married to Sir

Dorab Tata.

• Apart from TIFR two more laboratories were

opened: Physical Research Laboratory

Ahmedabad (1947) and Bangalore-based

‘Research Institute of the Indian Academy of

Sciences, directed by Sir C.V. Raman’ (1948).

• CSIR supported all three. Though legally private

entities TIFR, PRL and RRI. became for all

purposes national facilities.

• Nehru had a soft corner for persons with an

aristocratic background.

• He was more comfortable with a Bhabha than with

a Saha.

• On his return to India from Cambridge in 1939,

Bhabha held temporary appointments in the Tata-

owned Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

• Bhabha turned down offers of regular appointment

from Allahabad University as well as Indian

Association for the Cultivation of Science Calcutta,

because he was ‘only interested in research and

not in teaching’, which to him constituted ‘routine

duties’.

• And yet, before leaving for India, Bhabha applied for

a Reader’s position at Liverpool, but was not

selected.

• Bhabha would teach in England, but not in India.

• He was a beneficiary of the British University system

and was ready to become part of it.

• But he would not extend a similar courtesy to an

Indian University.

• As director of Tata Institute of Fundamental

Research Bombay (1945), Bhabha could comfortably

deal with people whom he had inducted into his

social club.

• It would be tempting to speculate on the impact an

aristocratic Bhabha would have made on the rank

and file of Indian students in a classroom and vice

versa.

• Incidentally, we have it on the testimony of a leading

nuclear scientist of the time, Otto Robert Frisch (1904-

1979), that at the time of his return to India in 1939 Bhabha

did not know how to use a Geiger counter, the most

elementary gadget in experimental nuclear science.

• He however knew the significance of the new emerging

field.

• Early 1946, CSIR set up an advisory Atomic Research

Committee under the chairmanship of Bhabha, which

eventually led to the formation of Atomic Energy

Commission (AEC).

• Bhabha is important on two distinct fronts.

• He initiated India’s foreign-policy related big

science, and he changed the social setting of

fundamental research.

• Bhabha headed both TIFR and AEC which thus

enjoyed a symbiotic relationship.

• And yet, they were guided by different philosophies.

• While the atomic establishment was to be self-contained with

its own rigorous manpower training programme, TIFR was to

be integrated socially and intellectually with the West.

• It is as if the Trombay Bhabha was distinct from the Colaba

Bhabha

• Earlier interaction of Indian scientists with their Western

counterparts had been through the pages of research

journals and in the lecture rooms.

• In the Nationalist Phase, Indians hoped to excel in science

while retaining their own cultural identity.

• Thus Raman was very proud of his distinctive turban, while

Chandrasekhar would sit in a first class train compartment

as an equal of the Europeans but in his South Indian attire.

• In contrast, Bhabha insisted that Indian scientists integrate

with the Western scientific community at social level also.

• Bhabha insisted at least with the TIFR senior faculty that they

come in a tie. Those without it were expected to avoid high

visibility.

• Two separate canteens, aptly designated the west canteen and

the east canteen, were constructed for the upper crust and the

lower crust respectively.

• The European cuisine of the west canteen immediately became

the talk of the town.

• In Bhabha’s time chapati and rice were banned from the west

canteen.

• In a minor concession after Bhabha’s death, rice has been

permitted, but chapati still remains forbidden.

• At the professional level, TIFR had some very

constructive features.

• Bhabha believed in identifying persons and

building institutions around them.

• In contrast, CSIR first built buildings and then

scrambled to fill the posts.

• At least in the early years, TIFR offered higher

salaries than elsewhere in India.

• Bhabha’s greatest asset however was that he lay

outside the caste hierarchy and beyond regional or

linguistic parochialism.

• He could thus build a truly Indian institution.

• Contrast this with the situation in the sisterly Indian

Institute of Science Bangalore, where ‘ early in 1943,

there was a serious agitation by students against the

construction of a common dining hall, since they

preferred the already existing four different messes

which were run almost on a regional basis.’

INTERNATIONAL PHASE

• During this phase, at least in the earlier part,

nation building was a recurrent theme.

• Attempts at industrialization, reverse

engineering, irrigation dams, agricultural

production, strategic science, health-care and

desire for expansion of science and engineering

all placed science (including technology and

engineering) in a pivotal place.

• This rubbed onto basic scientific research also.

• Generally speaking, research in the International Phase

was of lesser quality than in the Nationalist Phase.

• This is understandable because in the interim science

had developed faster than India had.

• Indian science depended on foreign collaboration and

visits; and had an eye on the man-power needs of post-

war West.

• Yet, it fitted in with the national desire to harness science

for economic development and as an instrument of

national prestige.

• Although political power now vested in elected

representatives, the distance between them and

the middle class was still small.

• The distance has since increased to such an

extent that middle class has lost whatever sense

of national obligation it had cherished earlier.

GLOBALIZATION PHASE

• Globalization has transformed Indian economy as

well as the Indian middle class.

• Before the recent slow-down, India enjoyed a

growth rate of 8-9% for many years.

• Acting short-sightedly, India has neglected

agriculture and manufacture and focused on

service sector.

• Since the service sector is manifestly science-

less, the value of science in education and daily

life has declined. Thus paradoxically while our

dependence and fascination for new technology

has gone up, respect for science itself has gone

down. If the economy of a country becomes

derivative so will its culture.

• Globalization has introduced Upper Class India

to a consumerist lifestyle that is beyond the

intrinsic strength of Indian economy. This

lifestyle can only be maintained by servicing the

Western economy. Children of this class

therefore will generally be not interested in a

career in science

• There is however a way out.

• Throughout the world science provides the quickest,

shortest and the surest route for entry into the middle

class and for upward social mobility.

• Our state education system should rigorously train

boys and girls coming from socially disadvantaged

sections, for whom a science-related career in

universities, defence, national labs, public sector

undertakings, etc., would be a social step upward and

would therefore be enthusiastically accepted.

 

• During the colonial period, the production-of-wealth aspects of

modern science were looked down upon.

• There was an economic role for science under Nehru’s

influence, but the phase soon came to an end.

• The lessons of the past 12 decades of Indian pursuit of India

science are very clear to anyone willing to learn them.

• During the nationalist phase there was this desire to show the

world.

• That spirit somehow vanished on the way. It needs to be

revived again.

 

• Personally, I would like to judge a country not by

the quality of its researchers but by the quality of

its teachers.

• Science cannot flourish in a society whose

economy does not require science.

• The purpose of science is to produce wealth

and improve quality of life.

• The purpose of this wealth is to support science.

• This symbiotic relationship needs to be

established because a country cannot sustain

science as a purely cultural activity for an

extended period of time.

• If science is to survive, leave aside flourish, in

India, it must play a leading role in GDP.

• At the same time fruits of rigorous state

education should be made available to those

whose parents did not enjoy these fruits.

Science belongs to its harnessers

not its worshippers.

Thank you