Investing in Science

After setting off waves of dismay in the country’s scientific community, the premier, state-run Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) has now announced it has paid its staff their full salaries. This comes soon after the media went to town about Homi Bhabha’s dream institute in the throes of a severe fund crisis, with its authority releasing a circular that the staff would be paid only half their salaries for February. But surely it is not all’s well that ends well, rather there is more than meets the eye in this near-fiasco. After all, top scientists and researchers not paid their dues would have made bad press for the government in poll season. When India stands up to nuclear blackmail by neighbours while building reactors to generate power, our Moon and Mars missions draw global kudos for delivering at affordable cost, our missiles and rockets become forces to reckon with and depend upon, our brains in IT and bio-sciences raise the profile of their country abroad, our farmers are benefited by new innovations streaming into agriculture, and in so many developments in other emerging fields — the political class rushes to take credit while the scientists and technologists are pushed to the sidelines. Projections are being made about the fields where Indian talent can make it big in near future, like in robotics, 3-D printing, meta data management, blockchain & cyber security, genomics, synthetic biology, organic electronics, medical technology, green energy and much else. The PM’s science, technology and innovation council recently identified nine priority missions which include quantum computing, artificial intelligence and deep ocean exploration. This government has unrolled schemes to foster innovation at school level and strengthen institutional research to make India a knowledge superpower.

When the foundations of the country’s scientific infrastructure were being laid post independence, TIFR was already up and running, having been established in 1945 with support from Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. It carries out basic research in physics, mathematics, computer science, chemistry, biology and science education, and as a deemed varsity also awards master’s and doctoral degrees. If TIFR is going through bad days, it is not alone — reportedly, other prestigious scientific institutions like Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and SN Bose Centre for Basic Sciences at Kolkata, Institute of Plasma Research at Gandhinagar and Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Chennai are also beset with fund shortage. The squeeze first hit labs and institutes under Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) over three years back, and later spread to those under the Central Departments of Science and Technology, Atomic Energy and Health Research. While these hassles are mostly attributed to changed norms of non-plan expenditure and budgetary allocations, some observers see a pattern. They trace the problem to the Dehradun Declaration of CSIR lab directors in June 2015, in which commitment was made (under government prodding) to switch over from public funding and start ‘self-financing’ projects to develop ‘industry-driven’ technologies. The idea was to get the labs generate half their fund requirement, be more ‘accountable’ and thereby get industry on board to foot the bill more. But all the solemn resolve to turn research projects within two years into ‘profit ventures with clear input-output cost analysis’ came to nought in 2017 itself when CSIR declared financial emergency, having little money left over for research after paying out salaries, capital and other liabilities.

Whether all this trouble is due to a hare-brained policy of science only for profit or a ‘saffron agenda’ being insidiously pushed through, it is the young researchers who are left facing bleak prospects and forced to contemplate moving abroad. This is bad news, coming just when the country has been on course to offer better opportunities for home-grown talent and tap the Indian diaspora’s expertise. For decades, brain drain has been India’s bane; yet the country soldiered on, served ably and loyally by scientists and engineers nurtured in second-rung institutes below the IITs. Thanks to their efforts, our missile and space programmes got going; the successes would have been spread wider had there been more funds for other science programmes. Now that India is one of the fastest growing economies, there is no reason to be parsimonious. We need only to look at China, determinedly spending on its varsities which figure among the world’s best, investing heavily in cutting edge research, reversing brain drain with incentives for those who return. Lest we forget, fundamental research that seems to have no applications today, could well turn out to be the next phenomenon tomorrow. When Indian industry is not even willing to invest in infrastructure it uses, forcing the government to keep on pump-priming the economy, what hope is there for those with eyes fixed on bottom-lines to take a chance with research, however promising? We can further ask whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ and ‘Innovate in India’ initiatives can deliver without necessary foundations. While the country’s R&D spend remains stagnant at about 0.7% of GDP, the likes of Japan, China and South Korea are spending more on this front as they grow richer. No wonder the Economic Survey last year called for doubling the spend on R&D. Surely, research has to be outcome oriented and relevant, as much as it should measure up to international standards; promising small science ventures also need support. But unless our scientific talent is rewarded well, they cannot be motivated to stay and compete with the world’s best.