Research has come a long way in India, fostering a robust forum for scientific temper and achievement. Today, Indian children have heightened interest in scientific subjects, which is crucial for their foundation as good individuals and a strong nation. However, more needs to be done on the policy-making front and making science more fun and accessible to youngsters across the spectrum. Discussing these critical areas, and more, The New Indian Express interviews Dr Jahnavi Phalkey, the Executive Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru, and the recipient of the Infosys Prize 2023 in Humanities for her book The Atomic State (Permanent Black, 2013). Dr Phalkey talks about the individual, institutional, and material histories of scientific research in modern India. Excerpts...
1. Is India lacking in its approach to building robust scientific temper through its education system?
We think a university education is enough to nurture you (youngsters), but it’s not. If you’re training to pick up a job or to become some kind of a professional, there are not enough opportunities to pursue the kind of work one likes. There are no public spaces nor no cultural spaces where you can go and allow your mind to roam free, without the pressure of competition. And it’s detrimental to the young mind. Regulations are also an issue.
We need universities where you can study law, medicine, engineering, history, philosophy, and cinema together. Where a physicist’s first fight is with a historian or a historian’s first fight is with a mathematician at the age of 15 or 17, that’s the kind of mingling we need.
2. The Science Gallery in Bengaluru particularly caters to young adults. Why and how can this be beneficial for India’s trajectory in science?
The gallery primarily just doesn’t talk about the history of science. It’s science as it stands and as it probably might be imagined for the future. It revolves around the contemporary and futuristic work in the space. Our target audience are those in the age-groups of 15 and above. We focus on undergraduates and postgraduates. We are a part of a university-linked global network, with all our sibling galleries on university campuses. However, we are the only autonomous gallery in the network, and we inherit that model. It’s an important age-group today for us in India, because the demographic is such that we have a bulk of young adults in this country who we don’t equate. We haven’t quite figured out what to do with them when we keep talking about the dividend. I think we are falling short of a really bold imagination to be able to use this incredible resource. We confront important challenges such as climate change, pandemics, AI and a range of other things, which involve science and engineering, where we need young minds to think about what kind of futures they want, but we are not doing enough to equip them to be able to think about it. At the gallery, during research festivals, I make sure that we have some historical experiments, figures or historical material that lays the topic into context for the youth.
3. What can be done to improve India’s position in pushing young minds to pursue scientific fields?
The first thing is we don’t have enough institutions to train the number of people we have. And I think that is a policy matter. Having said that, I do believe we are on a slow upward trajectory, but I think it’s still not enough or not at the scale which is required. We need to do more, by bringing in a variety of institutions that can provide opportunities to people. The other thing is that I think both parents and teachers need to leave the kids alone and let them find their own path. I’m not undermining the need to look for both upward social mobility and job security through education.
4. There is a lot of debate about religion/faith vs scientific temper. Is there a line or can they go hand-in-hand?
This battle between science and religion is an artificial one. I say that because, if you look at the history of science, there are many practising scientists who have also put some amount of faith in a being that they don’t understand much about. Religion is a social organisation of a kind, and science through the production of knowledge is also a social enterprise of a certain kind. And of course, they come into conflict when there are different claims, for eg., for the origins of life or the origin of the planet. When I was a student of politics, in my undergraduate years, there was a teacher of mine, who began our class on liberty by quoting British political scientist Harold Laski, by saying that “my freedom to swing my arm ends where your nose begins”. And I think if that is the dictum, we generally follow irrespective of whether it’s about religion, or anything else, I think we are okay. However, the knowledge that comes to us through rigorous processes, not necessarily rigid, followed by the scientific community, is the best we can know for now. So I do believe that we have to understand that this is something to be respected, and taken seriously, along with its uncertainty. I’m not asking for trust, but for an appreciation for what goes into making that claim.
5. You say that the dissemination of science and humanities together to critically route the histories and everyday practice of science are under threat everywhere. Can you elaborate?
One is funding for basic research that has become uncertain. Across the world, scientific communities and their claims in human, social and natural sciences are being undermined, whether these are claims about climate change or AI. It’s not simply about doing the research, but about where you’re doing it, who’s throwing you out of your job, and where you are being asked to resign. Doing research and doing knowledge work – at some point – there was respect for it. There was room for that rigour, there was room publicly for that report. In India too, immediately after independence, there was a large discourse and faith in the ability of people who could produce knowledge about society and the world to put the country on the right path of development. That faith is no longer there or is eroding. If you look at the US, the UK, Hungary, or Russia, the need to back up claims is not sort of taken seriously. But on the other hand, political and social life is conducted as if knowledge didn’t matter, which is a threat.
6. Despite our strong roots in research, there is a perception that research done in the West is more accurate. Your thoughts...
That perception broadly persists within the scientific community, as well as outside of it. Promotions are based on publications in Nature, Laws or Physical Review, and not in Indian journals. The reasons are; one is the amount of resources that are put into research elsewhere, and we are largely talking about Europe and America, and to some extent, Canada and Australia. So basically, the West is right, and now increasingly, China. When you compare it with the kind of money we put into our research, the kind of institutions we build in India, is low. If you’re writing 100 papers in the West, and you’re writing 20 in India, out of those 100, the chance that more than 20 will be of high quality is not that difficult to believe. Resources almost always signal respect. So if you’re giving it more money, it means you respect that work. It’s also the power that research then allows countries to have what puts them geopolitically in a stronger position. This linkage, between research at the frontiers and how it feeds into social and political organisation, is something that I think people who do the research understand very well. But people around them may or may not grasp it. Literacy around science in India is not that great. When you don’t write about science and research in the newspapers, the ability of the average reading citizen is compromised. And so I think, perceptions can be managed in different ways.
7. Where do you see India in the next decade in terms of research?
Research budgets have to increase. We need more research-funding bodies. Indian universities need to be revived and rejuvenated. We don’t need institutions of higher education in silos, but universities. Karnataka is the size of France, Maharashtra the size of Germany, and yet approximately Paris has over 25 universities, and there are several in Germany. We don’t have that many even across India. That’s just untenable.
Literacy around science in India is not that great. When you don’t write about science and research in the newspapers, the ability of the average reading citizen is compromised
- Dr Jahnavi Phalkey,
Executive Director,
Science Gallery Bengaluru