BEFORE the attacks in Mumbai last month, it was India鈥檚 historic first mission to the moon that was making headlines. Chandrayaan-1 entered lunar orbit on 12 November and had begun beaming back images of the surface. Indians were transfixed, and the rest of the world duly impressed.
Just over a week later, the attacks justifiably garnered all the attention. A tiny probe 400,000 kilometres away no longer seemed important. 鈥淚 wonder if it has already faded from everyone鈥檚 memory,鈥� mused astronomer Subramaniam Ananthakrishnan, former director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune.
It鈥檚 a depressing thought as India struggles to build solid foundations in basic science education and research. The scientific establishment is counting on the moon mission, among other things, to fire up young people and attract them to science 鈥� a tough task even before the euphoria over Chandrayaan was doused by the horror in Mumbai.
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, India鈥檚 first prime minister, was convinced that science was crucial to a developing nation. 鈥淚t is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty,鈥� he said. So he promoted research in nuclear and space technology, and set up the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the newly independent nation鈥檚 answer to MIT and Caltech.
Unfortunately, for decades most IIT graduates have decamped for greener pastures in the west. Shashi Tharoor, a former under secretary general at the UN, writing in honour of Nehru鈥檚 vision and India鈥檚 brainpower, said that the IITs have 鈥減roduced many of the finest minds in America鈥檚 Silicon Valley and Fortune 1000 corporations鈥�. Intended as praise, his words are an ironic reminder of how India has failed to hold on to its brightest stars for lack of challenges and rewards at home.
While this exodus of talent has helped India to become an information technology powerhouse by linking it to the high-tech centres of the west, the IT industry, in another irony, has become a major obstacle to the advancement of basic science. Indian society has traditionally valued applied sciences: research into fundamentals is an afterthought. For instance, the space and nuclear industry succeeded despite the brain drain, mainly because visionary leaders since Nehru鈥檚 time have been given generous budgets to build institutions and have been little troubled by bureaucratic interference.
Inevitably, applied science is an economic imperative in a poor country. But in today鈥檚 booming Indian economy, the result is that IT professionals are paid up to 10 times as much as basic science researchers, and the industry siphons off the best talent. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 have good people going into basic sciences today, we won鈥檛 have good people coming out tomorrow,鈥� says Sanjay Sane at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, who returned after taking a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 be scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as basic sciences go. They are fundamentals.鈥�
Indian policy-makers badly need to inspire young minds. So far, their response has been Nehru-like, setting up five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) since 2006. The institutes aim to lure those who just fail to gain admission to the IITs, which are still the main draw. This worries some scientists. 鈥淚t perpetuates the second-class status of [basic] science,鈥� wrote Gautam Desiraju, a crystallographer at the University of Hyderabad, in the leading magazine .
That said, the IISERs have got off to a good start. The government has guaranteed each one $100 million over five years and enrolment is increasing each year. There鈥檚 no guarantee these graduates will stay in India, however. That rests on making careers in basic sciences lucrative: the notion that people will do basic science for love, not money, is popular but wrong.
India鈥檚 universities, meanwhile, fail to provide a home for basic sciences. They do little, if any, new work, and so their students are taught by academics with outdated skills and knowledge. Instead, fundamental research is the domain of state bureaucracies such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. 鈥淲e continue to pamper鈥� unproductive behemoths which have usurped the functions of the universities, and have been unable to generate any kind of quality in their own research,鈥� wrote Desiraju.
鈥淯niversities do little new basic science: students are taught by academics with outdated skills鈥�
Another imperative is to make science sexy. Chandrayaan helped a lot, and other attention-grabbing science projects are in the pipeline: a satellite for astrophysical observations is due for launch next year, and a 21-metre gamma-ray telescope is to be built in the Himalayas. These efforts will only boost basic science, however, if India produces enough capable graduates in time to use these instruments, do good science and inspire a new generation.
To that end, Chandrayaan should not be forgotten during its two-year mission. 鈥淚t can鈥檛 be just about going to the moon and coming back,鈥� says Sane. 鈥淯ltimately, it has to be about using it for some larger purpose.鈥�
