Science is an expensive affair

Only a handful of illiterate business management experts  believe that they generate wealth and deserve pay packets in tonnes. Wealth generation is rooted in scientific and technological knowledge, innovation and labour, which, in turn, transform society. A society that doesn’t value science and re-invent the science-society relationship, is doomed to the Dark Ages.

Professor CNR Rao’s recent outburst has once again brought science and the nation-building debate to the fore. This debate since long has been pushed to obscure corners of our national consciousness. During the last two decades or more, the nation was more interested in discussing god-men, spirituality, mysticism, the occult and miracles. The national leadership and bureaucracy are more enthused by pravachan on the art of living than listening to a scientist.

Serious efforts were made to put astrology high on the national agenda, rather than astronomy or astrophysics. Even the science congress — the biggest congregation of scientists in the country — now starts with religious rituals. The general national anti-science ambience, paucity of funds and lack of job opportunities have dampened the fervour of many to pursue science as a career.

Gone are the days when the Prime Minister would change his schedule to listen to a lecture by a scientist. Jawaharlal Nehru on his way to a foreign visit took a detour to Bangalore where Dr HJ Bhabha was to deliver a lecture. Of course, the public lecture was intensely scientific and technical in nature. But the conclusion had profound implications for the future. What propelled Nehru, Azad, Patel and other leading political figures to take keen interest in science and technology was the legacy of the freedom movement. Inspired by the values of Enlightenment, a political consensus was built even before 1947:  free India was to be built on the bedrock of scientific temper.

The Raj had left an economically drained country, with every sector competing for limited resources. Intellectual acumen prevailed and we, as a nation, tightened our collective belt to allocate funds for science and technology. Most other countries in the developing world do not have a similar history. Democracies coming into being in the latter half of the 20th century and not investing in building scientific infrastructure have remained unstable and fragile. Just after Independence, India’s  political and scientific leadership decided to build scientific institutions.

The first three decades witnessed massive building up of scientific institutions. The old institutions were expanded and reoriented. CSIR, Atomic Energy, DRDO, ICMR, ISRO, a chain of institutions all over the country came into being. Parliament passed the Scientific Policy Resolution (SPR) and, remarkably, became the first country to do so in 1958. The parliamentary debate on SPR is more astonishing than the document itself. Nehru, while introducing the resolution in Parliament said: “I shall read it out because we consider this resolution as an important one, defining our attitude to Science and Technology, generally.”

Not a single voice of dissent was heard. The opposition leaders of that time argued that the government was late in introducing the SPR. The members of Parliament during the debate on SPR, asked for more funds for S&T; they raised concerns that scientists should not be burdened with administrative responsibilities; the linkage between science teaching and scientific institutions must be strengthened. The then Minister of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Humayun Kabir, observed that, “I welcome the general support for the Scientific Policy Resolution and I am sure that all sections of this House will unite in creating a temper in this country where scientists can work in an atmosphere of honour, dedication and service to the nation and humanity.” SPR remained the most sacred document till the late Eighties.

When we started, we chose the right track vis-à-vis science and were far ahead of China. In fact, the Science Report prepared by the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minster, in 2010, clearly shows that expenditure on R&D, as percentage of GDP in India, was marginally higher than China till 1999. However, the graph remained stagnant. The message is clear. Scientists stagnate even as the horizons of science expand.

China, on the other hand, has tripled its expenditure on R&D from almost 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent of GDP. Both the countries lag behind USA, Japan, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and the European Union. But if we compare the two, China, even when she achieved independence after India, faced abysmal poverty, experienced far more intense social and economic turmoil, and was treated as an untouchable by the developed world. 

But when it resolved to invest in scientific and technological research, it did not take time to translate policy into action. It could be argued that barring China, most countries mentioned in the report have a history of being in the forefront of S&T, but what about Qatar, a tiny nation, with almost no legacy of S&T, that now spends more than 2.7 per cent of its GDP on S&T.

Today, after six decades of being masters of our destiny, we have far less S&T manpower per million people, compared to some of the countries, which were never big players in the field of S&T. We lag behind South Korea, Taiwan, Czech Republic and even Brazil, Turkey, Iran and South Africa on this count.

The close relationship between political leaders and top-notch scientists of the country in the olden days went beyond the bureaucratic bond. During the initial three decades, the commitment to build a scientifically tempered society was much stronger, the zeal to build S&T infrastructure was at its zenith. But as globalisation, privatisation, management and IT became the buzzwords, we were happy to divert young minds to call centres. Instead of enlarging the S&T infrastructure to create job opportunities for the younger generations, we almost stopped recruitments in the government sector.  True, problems won’t go away once funds start flowing. The scientific community has to address problems of sycophancy, feudal culture, and religious display of myths within scientific institutions. Failures have to be scientifically analysed for achieving success.

Generating scientific knowledge in the 21st century is expensive. Not because scientists take pride in large pay packets. Scientists work on solving a problem  and compete with each other for recognition (the same can’t be said about technologists). Scientific work is expensive. It requires large scale collaborative teams, cutting edge technology, instruments and machines. All of this requires huge funds and an expansion of knowledge.

The author is Chief Scientist at CSIR-NISCAIR