Book Review | In The Gutsy Girls of Science, Class 11 student Ilina Singh celebrates women scientists who paved the way

As a child, I used to wonder why we never heard of women scientists in our physics, biology, and chemistry classes. The absence was particularly striking because all my science teachers in school were women. How I wish I had pursued that curiosity, and tried to find answers!

When Gurgaon-based Ilina Singh, who is in Class 11, sat down to choose subjects for high school, she thought carefully about future prospects for young women scientists in India. She and her friends tried to draw up a list of notable women scientists but they could not come up with any names other than Marie Curie, who was awarded the Nobel Prize on two occasions.  

As luck would have it, Singh came across a tweet from the Government of India celebrating 11 Indian women scientists – Archana Sharma, Janaki Ammal, Darshan Ranganathan, Asima Chatterjee, Kadambini Ganguly, Iravati Karve, Anna Mani, Rajeshwari Chatterjee, Raman Parimala, Bibha Chowdhuri, and Kamal Ranadive. Singh was thrilled to learn these names.

Inquisitive by nature, she began to read up. As she got more immersed in the journey, she felt a strong need to share their stories with more girls to “know that such brave and intelligent women had paved the way for future generations.” The dream project began with her painting portraits of these scientists and sharing them with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Singh also met Smriti Zubin Irani, the Minister of Women and Child Development, who wrote the tweet.

The encouragement that she received from Irani firmed up her resolve to write a book on these scientists. The dream became a reality, and the book has now been published by HarperCollins India. Titled  The Gutsy Girls of Science, it is a heartwarming collection of anecdotes, poems, and fun activities. Singh has worked on the text and the illustrations. This book would make an excellent addition to school libraries and science laboratories in India.

Ranadive, who was a Padma Bhushan awardee, contributed to research on leukaemia, breast cancer, and oesophaegal cancer. She co-founded the Indian Women Scientists’ Association in 1973. Singh writes, “Today, this institute, with multiple branches all over India, provides hostel and daycare facilities to enable women to pursue their interest in science.”

Her book has inspiring stories of women across scientific disciplines – botany, chemistry, engineering, medicine, meteorology, physics, cytogenetics, mathematics, and anthropology.

Since it has been written to encourage girls who love science, it looks at the scientists’ lives with respect to their education, professional training, achievements, and challenges.

Ganguly, who became the first woman physician with a Western medical degree in South Asia, had to put up a determined fight when she decided to study medicine. The Calcutta Medical College did not admit women at that time but Ganguly’s efforts paid off. Singh writes, “She enrolled in the college in 1884 after crossing the many obstacles put up by the college, and even received a scholarship from the government. She went on to study in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin before returning to India to set up her medical practice."

Singh adopts a friendly, conversational tone to ask her readers if they would like to consider a career in the fields that each of these women chose to work in. For instance, after an introductory note about what a cytogeneticist does, she offers a puzzle to familiarise readers with terms that a cytogeneticist is likely to use – mutation, phenotype, meiosis, chromosome, gene, karyotyping, and more. Her writing style is in in tune with what her peers would enjoy.

In the chapter on Mani, who served as Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department, Singh includes a hands-on exercise about making a wind vane with easily available materials, including clay, kite paper, cardboard, straw, and crayons. In other chapters, Singh shares tip on stargazing, introduces a spice game, and also gives instructions to create a circuit using a coin-cell battery, aluminum foil, chart paper, and more.

The book tries to challenge preconceived notions about certain subjects. In the chapter on Parimala, the mathematician who received the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award, the highest scientific award in India, Singh writes, “Did you think that Maths is just some arithmetic and algebra? Maths is a vast field made up of many areas of study.” She goes on to talk about some of these areas, namely topology, actuarial science, combinatorics, and game theory.

A lot of love and hard work seem to have gone into the making of this wonderful book. It comes with a glowing foreword written by Eric Falt, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Sri Lanka, who is concerned about the under-representation of women in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

Falt, who is based in New Delhi, writes, “At present, less than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women, and only 30 percent of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in information and communications technology [three percent>, natural science, mathematics, and statistics [five percent>, and in engineering, manufacturing and construction [eight percent>."

Changing these numbers will take time, and Singh’s book will hopefully play an important role in sensitising parents and teachers about the need to encourage all Indian girls who love science. This book offers 11 different role models, each with a compelling story worthy of being shared widely. It would be eye-opening for boys as well. They must certainly educate themselves about the contributions that Indian women have made in the world of science.  

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist, commentator, and book reviewer.

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