While the world’s most populous democracy, India conducts its biggest Lok Sabha election, the editorial piece in the reputed science journal Nature – ‘How India can become a science powerhouse’, means a lot for the current dispensation, the Narendra Modi government and its work.
However, not delving into its political aspect, let’s see this headline through the prism of science.
It is welcoming and satisfying that the international journal of science, Nature, has prognosticated in its edition of 18 April that India has the potential to become a leader in science. If we take a deep dive into our ancient history, we find India as a superpower in the field of education, science and technology. It had many ‘firsts’ to its credit – whether the invention of wootz steel or the invention of zero, the list is exhaustive.
But simultaneously, it’s also true that today India no longer needs validation from the West. There was an India in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, when anything with a ‘foreign’ tag was almost an obsession and many of us took pride in possessing a foreign brand — be it a chewing gum, watch, perfume, a pair of jeans or a foreign-returned guy.
In the 21st century India, however, this obsession has minimized. Today’s India is about self-reliant India, a confident India and the India that has taken responsibility on its shoulders to be on the global stage through its work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world assumed that India would have great difficulty in fighting the crisis, we were one of the few countries to develop an indigenous vaccine and a foolproof system of vaccine delivery based on technology. Besides administering 220 crore doses all over the country, India under its Vaccine Maitri programme exported 30.1 crore doses and became the third largest Covid vaccine exporter in the world after China and Russia.
To reach this stage of self-confidence, India had to undertake an arduous journey — from breaking the shackles of subjugation, oppression and extreme discrimination under the British rule, to slowly rebuilding the lost confidence in our own merit, and finally competing with confidence on the world stage.
According to the World GDP Ranking 2024 list, India is the fifth largest economy in the world, and also the fastest growing.
While India is aiming at a $5 trillion economy by 2025, it’s also a historical truth that the British had siphoned off a whopping sum of $45 trillion in 190 years – nine times to what we are aiming today. To fuel its Industrial Revolution in England, the British looted 38-million-pound sterling between 1757-80 from Bengal alone.
The 190 years of the British Raj (including the East India Company’s rule in Bengal and subsequently in India) was a saga of great loot. This loot impacted India’s education and its indigenous progress in science and technology. In fact, Indians were made to believe that their knowledge of science and technology was hocus pocus.
Citing an example: The British looted Kohinoor diamond from India and kept it on display for the world to see; today it is on display at the Tower of London. And for that they charge £32 per visitor!
If Nature says India has the potential to be a ‘science powerhouse’, it has taken this nation a lot of gumption to reach this stage. Even before Independence, when this country was fighting the British for its freedom, our stalwart scientists like Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Dr Mahendra Lal Sircar, Ruchi Ram Sahni, Sir CV Raman, Satyendra Nath Bose, to name just a few — had world-class achievements, though the West chose to ignore them. Some of their works deserved the Nobel Prize but it was never conferred on them.
Raman was an exception in that sense. He was the first Indian and the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in any discipline of science (Physics) — a true indigenous scientist, who did his research in India’s first indigenous lab — the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science (IACS) in Calcutta, which was founded by Dr Sircar for Indian scientists to carry out indigenous research. Raman also created a mini laboratory inside his house in the bylanes of central Calcutta’s Premchand Boral street, so that he could continue with his experiments when at home.
Today, when we talk of developing indigenous technologies, we also need the scientific temperament, tenacity and perseverance of Raman, who did it as a colonial subject, facing all odds that existed in those days of British rule.
Let’s not forget that the British government was never favourably disposed towards Indian science and scientists. In fact, they dismissed our science as ‘unscientific’ and ‘superstitious’ in nature. Getting funds for research from the colonial masters was virtually next to impossible. Many Indian scientists and inventors even failed to get their due in pre-Independent India.
Today, we are fortunate enough to have a massive chain of CSIR labs, besides Indian Institute of Science and Indian Institutes of Technology. A big credit for this goes to Dr Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1955), the founder-director of CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), who played a seminal role in helping build independent India’s science and technology infrastructure; he established 12 national laboratories in his lifetime.
Image Courtesy: Sonam Singh Subhedar
India is only behind the United States and China in terms of research output in the world. Our government has increased the expenditure on Research and Development (R&D). The Gross Expenditure on R&D, which was Rs 60,196 crore in 2010-11 has doubled to Rs 1,27,380 crore in 2020-2021.
This also says a lot about the political will of the present government.
In context to R&D spending, the Nature’s article has pointed out that 60% of India’s research spending comes from central and state governments, and universities; and private sector’s contribution is 40%; whereas the other economies similar to India have much more private sector funding.
Last year, the government established a funding agency for scientific research – Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). The ANRF aims to seed, grow, and promote research and development (R&D) and foster a culture of research and innovation throughout India’s universities, colleges, research institutions, and R&D laboratories. The budget has envisaged a spending of Rs 50,000 crores over five years, out of which a major share of Rs 36,000 crores, is estimated to come from non-government sources, from industry and philanthropists, from domestic as well as outside sources.
ANRF will act as an apex body to provide high-level strategic direction of scientific research in the country, forge collaborations among the industry, academia, and government departments and research institutions.
The ANRF will prove to be a significant milestone in India’s scientific research and innovation ecosystem, where the private sector funding will play a big role.
Today, India is fearless and is already on a superhighway with its head held high, as Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore said, “Where the mind is without fear; And the head is held high”.
*The writer is Editor, Science India.
