Colonial corrosion: Decolonising Indian science

Modern science, and by this I mean post-Renaissance science in the West, has seen a remarkable consolidation of reductionism. How far a system based on deductive and inductive logic, on point and counterpoint, and play between analysis and synthesis, can take the human race forward, has been amply witnessed in the last few centuries. During this time, practitioners of science have been able to understand and own many aspects and features of our environment, creating thereby better conditions of life. We have been increasingly spared the ravages of disease, deprivation and destitution. Science, with its bossy handmaidens, engineering and technology, has afforded better living standards for all.

India, by the circumstances and compulsions of its unfortunate history, has largely missed this boat. The indigenous science that existed in India until the mediaeval ages was destroyed by waves of Islamic invasions. The British visitation that followed, saw a more insidious and indeed more dangerous development: the systematic colonisation of the Indian mind. By the end of the 19th century, we had sunk to the very nadir of our intellectual and cognitive debasement. A few notable individuals however, in the three presidency cities, began to realise the importance of science, albeit within the context of the freedom struggle.

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The effects of colonisation had been deep and debilitating. Doing good science signals high self confidence in one’s capabilities. If the very core of such ‘attitude’ has been eroded by colonial masters, what chance remains for an Indian to dare venture into the world of competitive science? In this context, the contributions of Prafulla Chandra Ray, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Ashutosh Mookerjee and Jagadish Chandra Bose stand out. These men were the real heroes of Indian science in that bygone era.

This chequered historical background precedes the stark dilemma facing Indian scientists today. The science we try to do in the arena we are in, is a creation of the West. If we wish to score in this game, we need to play it by the rules of Western science, and at the end of the day, be recognised as equals if not superior to the scientists of the West. No amount of self-coronations as vishwagurus is going to get us the recognition or even basic credibility, as responsible scientists.

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Simply put, we first need to decolonise and declog ourselves, so that we are not in worshipful awe of the Western scientist. Only then can we compete with him in a free and fair contest within the system that he has designed. This second aspect is made more difficult by the fact that the amount of money put into science is measly. India only budgets 0.8 per cent of its GDP for science and education (2021 figure) compared to 2.43 per cent for China and 3.46 per cent for the United States — but this is another story.

So far, we do not seem to have much headway. Since the Nature Index was introduced in 2014, China has been the standout country for growth in Share, a metric that measures contribution to papers in the Index by authors based in a particular location. In 2022, China overtook the United States as the leading country for natural-sciences output. India’s overall Share for 2023 was 1,494.27 — which is much lower than China’s, at 23,171.84, essentially 20 times less.

At the heart of decolonisation should be a serious effort to understand our mixed attitude to foreigners and rid ourselves of the undesirable in it. Presently we suffer from an ambivalence, lurching between obsequiousness and xenophobia with regard to foreigners. Many Indian scientists and researchers have worked with foreigners or continue to work with them at several stages of their careers. For a few, the interaction begins with their PhD. The vast majority of Indian scientists, however, have their first introduction to foreigners as postdoctoral associates, after a PhD from an Indian institution. Some others get acquainted with a foreign group that works in an area of research closely related to their own.

These associations have led to several scenarios, none of which are particularly conducive to the cleansing of our sins. At the first instance of blemish, there are Indian scientists, who interact very closely with just one foreign group to the extent that most of the Indian work is collaborative. Often, the collaboration arises because of the lack or non-functioning of a critical piece of equipment in the home department. The equipment, or more accurately the lack of it, is the cause and sustaining factor for the collaboration. But this is an asymmetrical relationship. The foreigner typically collaborates with many other scientists worldwide because he is able to contribute with a highly specialised but critical experimental skill. The Indian is not his only collaborator. However, for the Indian, this particular foreigner is all-important. Without this person, his research output would decrease sharply.

At the next level of culpability, the Indian who got into an association for want of a certain experimental technique begins to increasingly depend on the intellectual and infrastructural support of the foreign group. He supervises his students at home and initially some experimental data are collected in India. This data are either found to be insufficient or of sub-critical quality to draw worthwhile conclusions. The Indian starts spending prolonged periods abroad in the same laboratory and the experimental data are either rehashed or recollected. Why the foreign scientist accepts such a situation is hard to tell. Perhaps he is too busy or preoccupied to really care. It really does not matter in an increasingly asymmetric relationship.

At an even higher level of wrongdoing, the foreigner in question happens to be the post-doctoral supervisor of the Indian scientist. Here, I would even begin to question the intellectual contribution of the Indian in what is purportedly his own research. The research in the Indian laboratory is a watered down version of what goes on in the post-doctoral mentor’s laboratory. Collaborative papers do appear but these are often from a by-product of the work. Spin offs and side themes are published by the Indian group without foreign authorship. These latter papers sometimes appear in prestigious journals (because of a friendly peer group located around the foreign mentor) but they rarely get cited (even within this group) because they are not original.

Originality and innovation, the lifeblood of research, are the main casualties. Our system fails us completely here. Instead of discouraging this type of imitative research, we tend to encourage it because of an initial spurt of publications in international journals. What is regrettable is that on the strength of such poor mimicry, the Indian scientist picks up awards and recognitions within the country. These are of little to no value outside India. Our system is so opaque and senseless today that an Indian scientist who truthfully includes a foreigner as a co-author is penalised for lack of originality while another who deliberately obfuscates this connection is richly rewarded.

The acquisition of these so-called prestigious national awards, academy fellowships and recognitions and research grants by the Indian researcher completes the picture and he settles down to many years of well deserved obsolescence, committee memberships and of course the now nearly-obligatory annual foreign holiday. Amazingly, the shadow of the post-doctoral mentor continues till the end of the Indian’s research career, sometimes even long after the foreigner has abandoned this particular line of research because it has become outdated or saturated. In such a scenario, there is no need to even ask why Indians are not opinion makers and leaders in the international scientific community. Colonisation is now complete.
Decolonisation is incredibly hard in a poor country like India, but for Indian scientists it is even more so, because we work in a system designed by the West. Good scientists take other good scientists seriously. They have little time for mediocrities. In general, the serious scientist is nationality neutral, and politics, based on one’s country of origin, is not really a problem. Establishing scientific credibility is a long term effort. A reputation built over decades can be lost in days.

We Indians seem to be unaware of this. We are used to an ad hoc system based on jugaad, sycophancy and compromise. This has come about because the overall physical poverty that surrounds us, has induced a kind of mental poverty—one which is not comfortable with black and white and perpetually flits around shades of grey in this scarcity mindset. And in the end, mental slums are more dangerous than physical slums. Swachch Bhārat should also factor in the slums of the mind.

It is not, surprising, therefore that the case studies I have described lie in the grey area between right and wrong. They are capable of being interpreted subjectively, and we Indians revel in grey activity. One must tread warily but in the end I will only say that while one may manage with half-truths and conveniently contorted arguments with the external world, it is truly impossible to cheat oneself, unless one is remarkably dense.

The author is an Emeritus Professor in the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru & Distinguished Visiting Professor in UPES, Dehradun. He is a recent recipient of the van der Waals Prize of ICNI Strasbourg. He has an H-index of 104. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.