India's scientific prowess or the lack of it

I was about nine or 10. By this time, our back-of-beyond school had moved out of two rooms in a house into a new U-shaped building. By back-of-beyond standards, it was a decent school (it was also the only school). We no longer sat on a durrie on the floor. But we didn’t have enough teachers.

At least, we didn’t always have teachers qualified to teach. Sometimes we got stuck with bad-tempered, frustrated people. Sometimes, the management just couldn’t find anyone. That year, my class found itself without a science teacher.

My mother worked in the same school. She’s a wonderful teacher, but I hardly benefitted from her skills and enthusiasm since she taught only the senior students. Except for that one year. Mom wasn’t qualified to teach science, but in the absence of any kind of teacher, she stepped in.

That year, a strange book with diagrams and definitions of ‘phenomena’ came alive. I still remember with absolute clarity the day mom asked us: What makes shadows? In my mind, shadows were associated with darkness — with candlelight; with evening walks. So I answered: ‘Dark’. She switched off the lights and shut the windows. And hey! No shadows! Then she made us carry a desk into the blinding sunshine. Shadows!

I have never forgotten that lesson about light. That year, the class wouldn’t end when the bell rang. An experiment couldn’t be abandoned mid-way; a discovery was about to be made. Mom would always be apologising and begging the waiting Maths teacher for a few more minutes.

A few years later, Chemistry descended upon us. As did a new teacher. His modus operandi was to read out entire paragraphs, affix us with a glare and ask, ‘Is it clear?’ If you said, ‘No sir’, he would read out the whole paragraph again.

Then it was time to learn the Periodic Table with its codes/abbreviations for elements. I’ve forgotten the rest but I remember that Chromium is represented as Cr. I read it as ‘Crrrrrr’, as if I was a crow trying to imitate a motorbike. The teacher threw me out of the class. That is my most vivid memory of him. And of the Periodic Table.

When I reached high school, I didn’t know what I would become. But I knew I wasn’t taking up science, particularly Chemistry. Now I wish a saviour had swooped into my life and made me fall in love with the subject again, just like those teachers in movies. (Speaking of movies, watch Stanley Ka Dabba for its subtle side-swipe at unimaginative science teachers.)

It takes imaginative teachers to make sure science isn’t reduced to diagrams and formulae that can be forgotten as soon as we find jobs. We need them to unlock the secrets of nature and introduce us to ourselves, to give us the tools with which we can build better societies — taller, safer, greener cities; better transport systems; life-saving medicine; new media.

But there aren’t enough people using those tools in India. While ScienceWatch.com included India in its list of top 20 nations conducting basic research in 2009, India’s qualitative contribution to global scientific research is allegedly less than 1%. If we consider researchers as a percentage of the population, we’re doing badly — it’s just 157 per million (the USA has 4,700 per million).

Clearly, we don’t want to spend a lifetime with science. And this may well be because of poor infrastructure, but I suspect a big part of the problem is teachers who don’t really love science. Because you must feel the love before you can spread it around. No?