Science in the Indian universities

Reports and Documents

SCIENCE IN THE INDIAN UNIVERSITIES

IN ThE PRESENT CENTURY, under British rule, there were some very distinguished Indian scientists who worked under cramping conditions. In the years before India became independent, efforts were made by the then government of India to promote scientific research through the development of research institutions. Once India became independent, the new government of India launched a campaign to raise the intellectual quality and to increase the amount and practical value of scientific research in India. The first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a nationalist who was also a liberal and socialist of the British radical Labourite stamp. He was an ardent admirer of the Soviet Union, which he thought was, among other things, a model of social and economic progress achieved through the application of scientific knowledge. He was determined that India, against its own pervasive and profound traditions of religions thought and practice, should become a modern country, i.e., one which is formed around scientific knowledge in every department of life.

The Indian universities were born under an unlucky star from the influence of which they never became free. They had few if any admirers in India and elsewhere in the world. The Indian nationalist movement under the leadership of the Indian National Congress, first under radical and liberal leaders and then under the traditionalistic leadership of Gandhi, was either hostile or con- temptuous towards the Indian universities. They regarded them as alien implanta- tions. Jawaharlal Nehru, who was far from a traditionalist, shared this animosity against the universities. He shared the British low opinion of them and he disliked them because they were too British. Yet, scientistic as he was, he was insistent that India base its aspirations on a planned economy like that of the Soviet Union, and that the foundation of that planned economy be scientific research. It was decided from the beginning that the Indian universities had no great part to play in this.

Like the communists of the Soviet Union, who had also disliked the universities of their country for their associations with the old order of society, Nehru did not look to the universities for the scientific research which was essential to progress. The Russian communists had inherited from the Tsarist regime an Academy of Sciences founded by Peter the Great on the model of the Prussian Akademie des Wissenschaften in Berlin; the Russian, later the Soviet, Academy of Sciences was assigned a major responsibility for this research. India had no counterpart through which to pursue its scientific aims. The Indian counterpart created by the prime minister and by his chief scientific advisers was an extension and multiplica- tion of the National Chemical Laboratory founded in Poona by the British rulers before the outbreak of the Second World War. This pattern was reproduced many times. The laboratories flourished financially, at least according to Indian standards. The universities, growing rapidly and hugely in number and size, languished as far as scientific research and fi~ancial and moral support for them were concerned. They could not be disregarded because of the popular demand for admission and for degrees, but little regard was shown them and little provision was made for them to engage in scientific research.

52 Reports and Documents

The results have been unsatisfactory to many observers. ~ The national laboratories have been much criticised for their failure to do the research, either fundamental or applied, which has been expected of them; and the universities have continued to be criticised in the long-established manner? More recently, disillusionment about the national laboratories having become common, there have been second thoughts about whether it was a counsel of wisdom to rest so much hope in the national laboratories and to neglect the universities as sites of scientific research. Various gestures have been made towards redressing the balance.

In Insight into Scientific Research in Indian Universities and the Institutes of Technology, Professor Ahmed and Dr Rakesh have taken up the situation of science in the universities in a monograph sponsored by and published under the auspices of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Their report is the outcome of a prolonged investigation, by questionnaire and interviews, bearing on the situation in the natural sciences in a sample of 27 Indian universities and research institutes.

In the following pages, we reproduce a lecture by Professor Amrik Singh, who is one of the best connoisseurs of Indian universities, and a selective summary by myself, with a few supplementary comments, of the main results of the report by Professor Ahmed and Dr Rakesh. (The report is referred to by Professor Singh in his lecture.) We also reproduce one whole chapter of the report presenting some vivid brief accounts of scientists and scientific departments in particular universities; these were written on the basis of interviews, conversations and impressions of the field-workers who were Professor Ahmed's collaborators. Finally, we reproduce an abridged and edited version of the recommendations of Professor Ahmed and Dr Rakesh as to measures to be taken to improve the quality of scientific research in the Indian universities.

E.S.

~ Shils, Edward, "The Academic Profession in India", Minerva, VII (Spring 1969), pp. 345-371; Shiva, V. and Bandyopadhyay, J., "The Large and Fragile Community of Scientists in India", ibid., XVIII (Winter 1980), pp. 575-493. The following were reprinted in Reports and Documents in Minerva under the general heading "Indian Scientific Policy": see "Scientific Policy Resolution", "Recommendation of the Conference on the Implemen- tation of the Scientific Policy Resolution" and "Address by Dr Humayun Kabir", II (Winter 1964), pp. 210-256; "Indian Science: Policy, Organisation and Application" and "The Educational Value of Science", II (Spring 1964), pp. 360-378; "Memorandum Submitted to the Review Committee of the CSIR on National Research Laboratories", II (Summer 1964), pp. 512-530; "Science and Government", III (Autumn 1964), pp. 99-113; "Report of the Third Reviewing Committee of the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research", III (Spring 1965), pp. 356-384. See also "A New Indian Programme: Science and Technology for Development", XI (October 1973), pp. 53%570.

2 The Indian universities have been under censorious observation for more than a century, beginning with the report of 1882, followed by that of 1902, the Calcutta University report of 1917, the Sargent report of 1938, the Radhakrishnan report of 1948--49, and the report of the National Education Commission of 1964-66. In the latter report, the chapters on universities (XI, XII, XIII) were originally drafted by myself and then revised by the late J. P. Naik; they were reprinted in Reports and Documents in Minerva under the general heading "Indian University Reform". See "Higher Education: Objectives and Improve- ment", V (Autumn 1966), pp. 47-81; "Higher Education: Enrolments and Programmes", V (Winter 1967), pp. 242-264; and "The Governance of Universities", V (Spring 1967), pp. 391-412.

Science in the Indian Universities 53

I

T H E I N D I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S : L I T E R A C Y A N D S C I E N T I F I C R E S E A R C H 1

AMRIK SINGH

CO-ORDINATION AND INTERACTION between industry and research is far from satisfactory in India. The beginnings of indigenous industry can be traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century. However, before 1947, the growth of indigenous industry itself was slight. The Second World War gave it an unusual impetus. Before that, Indian industry was largely dominated by British capital. The pioneering role of the house of Tatas deserves to be specially recalled in this connection; it was the Tatas who set up a basic industry like steel. This was evidence of an exceptional degree of foresight and vision. Quite a few other industries based on indigenous enterprise and catering mainly to the consumer sector also came up, particularly textiles and jute. But the effort as a whole was patchy.

When the Second World War got under way, extraordinary efforts were made by the government of India to stimulate industrial production within the country. This led to positive results. It was in this context that the Bombay Plan, which was the culmination of a series of earlier efforts, was worked out by some of the leading industrialists of the country.

The dominant characteristic of the subsequent four decades was that a planned attempt was made to industrialise the country and the results have been, within limits, quite impressive. In the first 25 years or so the focus was on what was called "import substitution".

The focus began to change somewhat after a couple of decades. It has been succeeded by collaboration with various industrialised countries. This new policy was in a sense, a variation upon the old theme; it was a disguised form of "import substitution". The fact of the matter is that almost every Indian entrepreneur feels that unless he can work out collaboration with a foreign concern and import foreign technology, his achievement will not be creditable. There is relatively little research being done by Indian industrial and commercial firms. Although Indians have done some industrial research, they do very little. It is not that they lack the talent for research; it is more that they are so lacking in confidence in

This paper is an abridged and slightly revised version of the text of a lecture by Dr Singh at the University of Pondicherry on 5 April, 1991. It was the first lecture delivered on the NLC Endowment. (The NLC is the Neyveli Lignite Corporation.) Dr Singh was secretary of the Association of Indian Universities until 1982. He had been vice-chancellor of Punjabi University in Patiala from 1977 to 1979 and reader in English for many years at the University of Delhi. He is the author of Asking for Trouble: What it Means to be a Vice-Chancellor Today (1984)--reviewed by Professor W.H. Morris-Jones in Minerva, XXIII (Spring 1985), pp. 151-158.


regard to indigenous capability that they do very little by way of promoting research and development. In a developed country, research and development is a strategy for survival. In India, it is, to a large extent, a form of public relations or an act of patronage.

Furthermore, the work done by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research had marginal impact. This particular body was established by the government of India when it was thought necessary to promote research in India, more or less as part of war effort. After Independence, Pandit Nehru was one of its fervent patrons and gave it unstinted support. Nevertheless, where new processes or products have been developed under its auspices and the relevant patents taken out, industry by and large had not reacted to them favourably.

Wherever industry in Europe or the United States has its own arrangements for research and development, it feels obliged to make use of the work done. In point of fact, research work in an industrial firm is usually done in response to an urgent need or with a desire to innovate and to make a profit. This is uncommon in India. The institutions which are supposed to do research and development are not part of such a pattern. Instead, they are dormant and they continue in that condition. But such is the immobility of our social situation that a unit or structure, once established, is seldom wound up, even when, over the years, it becomes apparent that it is neither useful nor productive.

To put it plainly, while there was very good justification for the chain of research laboratories that were establised in the 1940s and the 1950s, there is very little justification for them now. This is not to suggest that they should be wound up straightaway. But surely there is some need for thinning down and a strong case for reorganisation. In a sense industry has come of age and is in a position to undertake at least some of the activity in research and development which may be required.

Of course, some of this torpor can be reasonably attributed to the extraordinarily prolonged spell of protection that Indian industry has received for almost four decades. It is only during the last few years that industrial firms have been asked to stand on their own feet, compete in the international market, regulate their cost of production and fight for survival. Such a process was initiated in the early 1980s but it has yet to catch on. Reference to countries like South Korea need not be brought in though several critics of the industrial scene have repeatedly referred to that example, in addition to several others. The plain fact is that in terms of quantity of production, India is the ninth or tenth industrial power in the world. But the greater part of the installed capacity is imported and what is called the indigenous element is more or less marginal in character.

II

Where do universities come into the picture? The painful answer is that they are even more marginal in the performance of scientific research than the national laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The national laboratories are the least concerned in principle with the industrial application of research and development. The univer-


sities are concerned, at least in theory, with what is called fundamental research. Applied research is also done there. It is however rather a smaller part of the effort, and what is done in the universities is so marginal as to be hardly taken notice of by industry. According to the data collected by Rais Ahmed on behalf of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 2 out of more than 4,000 dissertations every year done in the sciences, only about 10 per cent are in applied science. There is moreover no evidence to show that what is done even on this small scale is ever put to any practical use.

It would, however, not be fair to say that the universities and industry live in two wholly separate worlds and, like two parallel lines, never meet. Perhaps at one time or another, some notice is taken in industry of these investigations. More important is the fact that some of the persons who have worked in this area are picked up by one firm or another at some stage and their training is put to good use. Nevertheless, the inescapable fact remains that the kind of collaboration that exists between industry and research and development in other countries does not exist in India. As if that were not bad enough, a good deal of the research done in the main Indian universities is an extension or repetition of the work done in advanced countries. It is no wonder that this is so since so many of those who work in these departments were trained abroad!

Ili

The Indian universities and Indian society have followed different and divergent principles. In developed countries, the growth of universities and the growth of literacy has moved almost hand in hand. They were two parallel processes, occurring more or less at the same time. In the United States, for example, universal literacy was achieved before the end of the nineteenth century. The economic boom which followed the end of the civil war and the expansion of the railway coincided with the growth of the American universities as important centres of learning.

In Great Britain too, almost 100 per cent literacy had been achieved by the close of the nineteenth century. When the industrial revolution got under way in the eighteenth century, for instance, the British universities had very little to do with it. By the second half of the nineteenth century however, the British universities were interacting with what was happen- ing in industry. The German universities had shown the way and contributed to industrial development in that country in no small measure.

In contrast with these instances, the universities in India which were established in the middle of the nineteenth century were like flowers stuck in the midst of mud and dirt. The bulk of the population was illiterate and steeped in ignorance; a small part of the higher educational institutions in India operated at the frontiers of knowledge, or at least not too far from them. What happened within the universities on the one hand and in the rest of Indian society on the other were hardly

2 See below, pp. 62ff.


interconnected activities. The objective of the universities was to educate a small part of the age-cohort which went to college and university into the modern sector of Indian society. The latter was only a very small part of Indian society as a whole.

It was only the foresight and vision of Asutosh Mukherjee at the beginning of this century which resulted in the establishment of postgraduate teaching in the University of Calcutta and also the pursuit of advanced research. He had a clear concept of what a university was and how its ideals could be realised. He collected a band of outstanding persons from all over the country and it was in that setting that men like Prafulla Chandra Ray and Jagdish Chandra Bose in chemistry and botany respectively made their mark.

The reference to P. C. Ray needs to be elaborated somewhat. He was a man of remarkable talent who apart from notable research in chemistry also wrote A History of Hindu Chemistry and, in addition, was active in the industrial production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Several individuals have followed his trail but not as much as should have happened.

It must be conceded however that P. C. Ray was swimming against the current. The industrial firms owned and managed by the British, particular in Eastern India, were so dominant at that time that there was little possibility for indigenous industrial firms to flourish. Western India took to textiles, Eastern India took to jute and coal. It was only in the 1940s that India was able to recover from the earlier neglect of industry by the government of India and the great world depression of 1929. This happened in circumstances connected with the outbreak of the Second World War.

It was mainly after India become independant that the universities had a chance to begin to serve industrial growth as had happened in the West. Several factors however deflected the course of development which might have followed. One was the establishment of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. India was deeply influenced by the advice it received from the Royal Society of Great Britain. In short, the British model was somewhat thoughtlessly copied. What was overlooked however was the fact that Great Britain had been the leader of the Industrial Revolution well before the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was established in that country. There was already a pattern of lively interchange between the universities and industry. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was able to contribute to an already existing relationship; it did not create that relationship. The situation was quite different in India.

Furthermore, Great Britain had a large number of scientists, more or less sufficient to staff university departments, governmental laboratories and the laboratories of private industrial firms; India did not.

But in the 1950s, almost everyone who ioined the national laboratories came out of the universities. K. S. Krishnan was typical. As soon as the national laboratories got under way, the universities were bereft of their scientists. Within about a decade, most of the leading scientists had moved out of the universities and had gone into this newly emerging field of applied scientific research.


There is nothing to be regretted about it except for two things. One was that not many of them had a background of industrial research. When they involved themselves in applied scientific research, they were beginning a new, though related, experience. Some of them could adjust and went on to distinguish themselves in their chosen fields. But quite a number failed to make the change. In consequence, scientific research in the national laboratories was not as applicable as it ought to have been. In several cases, former university professors made the national laboratories of which they were directors into academic research institutes.

Another factor which made for difficulties was the proliferation of universities and colleges in the 1950s and the 1960s. During these two decades, there was unprecedented growth in the size of the student body which grew on average by about 14 per cent per year. Nothing like this rate of expansion had been witnessed anywhere else. The usual rate of expansion, even at its peak in any country, was 5 to 6 per cent per year. It was only a little later that a country like Nigeria reached a rate of expansion of 7 to 8 per cent per year, and there have been one or two similar cases. The consequences of this rate of growth on the university scene in India was without question unsettling.

Practically all the new universities had a number of scientific departments. Not enough men and women of requisite talent and training were available to fill all the posts and some with poor talents and training had to be recruited. The national laboratories were less adversely affected than the universities. The scales of pay were somewhat better in the former sector which offered more opportunities for a rewarding career. In the universities, this situation had very deleterious effects.

Alongside, the exodus to American universities had got under way. More and more students went to the United States. While quite a number stayed there and became part of the brain drain, a substantial number came back and were absorbed in the various new openings that were now available. It was in the 1970s that the rate of migration to the United States increased markedly. This was after the phenomenon of unem- ployed engineers within India had become a fact of life; furthermore, the laws and regulations governing entry and settlement in the United States had become easier.

As stated earlier, this was the period on the industrial front when import substitution was emphasised and the collaboration between indigenous industry and foreign industrial firms prevailed. That is why even the limited applied research work done by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research did not have as many users as it might have had. The universities were even less capable of doing anything for industry. The universities had neither traditions nor arrangements for this purpose; their scientific departments were not capable of it, even if the demand had existed.

IV

In 1986 the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research supported a project titled, "Quality, Character and Efficiency of Scientific Research in


Indian Universities and the I.I.T.s". 3 While the report was still unpublished, an interm report was made public and a seminar to discuss the implications of its findings was organised in late 1989.

Rais Ahmed and his colleagues dealt with some central universities, some state universities, all the five institutes of technology and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which had been granted the status of a university.

The study goes into some important problems, such as the interaction between the supervisor and the research student, the perceptions of scholars regarding the environment in which they work and the academic values which govern them; the links between departments, institutions and industry, and much else . . . .

The support in the universities by industry is hardly worth mentioning. For instance, according to the supervisors, both in central and state universities, only 1 per cent of support comes from industry; it is 6 and 13 per cent in the Indian institutes of technology and the Indian Institute of Science respectively. At the time the survey was undertaken, half a dozen "technology missons" had been initiated by the central government. These were in fields like immunology, telecommunications, production of oilseeds and a few other important fields. While the Indian Institute of Science did not have any significant support in these fields, the other institutions had around 10 per cent support for such work from the central government.

The conclusion from the survey is that scientific research within the universities is lacking in rigour and quality. About 10 per cent of dissertations are written on topics and issues which might have an industrial or other practical application, but their results are not utilised in industry. Lack of information about the needs of industry and absence of co-ordination between the two are important features of the present situation.

One particular point is that even though 80 per cent of the Indian population lives in rural areas and in one way or another depends upon agriculture, that field of study has not received enough attention. Although there are two dozen agricultural universities and almost every state has at least one, careers in agricultural research are not very attractive. Agricultural research still does not attract the best talent.

There are three research councils dealing with the social sciences, history and philosophy respectively. Total expenditure on their support comes to no more than 5 to 6 per cent of the outlay on the natural sciences and technology.

These fields do not attract the more talented students. Their prestige is lower than that of the scientific fields. In India the professions of law, medicine and engineering are the most esteemed and the courses of study which prepare for them attract many students. Academic careers with some exceptions do not attract students with high ambition; this is even more true of the humanistic and social studies than of the natural

3 IIT is the abbreviation for Indian institutes of technology of which there are five. They are all supported by the government of India.


sciences. (The best seek to continue their studies abroad. Many of them do so and then remain abroad indefinitely.) Even though salary-scales in universities are much more attractive today than they were a quarter of a century ago, the rating of the academic profession has not significantly improved. Humanistic studies are more or less at the bottom rung of the academic ladder and therefore do not attract many talented students.

V

Throughout the nineteenth century, universities grew in achievement, influence and prestige all over the Western world; this situation was accentuated in the decades after the Second World War. For a quarter of a century or so after the end of the war, the universities in the Western world were unchallenged; they were overtaken by student disorders and since then have had other severe problems.

Currently the Western universities are passing through an ambiguous condition. As far as scientific research is concerned, the universities have registered great progress. At the same time, research outside the universities too has grown in volume, variety and quality. In the nineteenth century, it was mainly in the various fields of chemistry that the universities made a notable contribution to industry. By the end of that century, physical sciences had begun to receive uncommon attention. Alongside came a remarkable spurt in the development of engineering and technology. Since the Second World War, it is the biological sciences which have moved into the centre of things. The extraordinary growth of biotechnology in recent decades is a pointer to the changing scene.

Biotechnology is concerned as much with research as with industrial production. The connection between the two is close and intimate. At least to some extent, that is what explains the unaccustomed collaboration between universities and industry in this area. As far as one can judge, it is likely to grow even further in the years to come.

This is the picture of the Western world and of the Western universities. Even Japan and South Korea, which have made striking progress during recent decades, do not fit into this picture all that neatly. In both these countries there is much more emphasis on applied than on basic research. The data collected by the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development demonstrate convincingly that Japan in particular pays a lot more attention to applied research than to basic research. At the same time, Japan has done much work on computers and robots and some of it is fundamental in character. The general approach seems to be to choose a field of potential or actual practical significance and then to concentrate scientific and industrial resources on it.

When it comes to India, the situation is much less satisfactory. As stated above, most indigenous industry is based on foreign "know how", designs and patents and, except in a few limited areas, industrial technology is largely imported. Indian scientists have little tradition of presenting their research for understanding, appreciation and application to an Indian audience.

Whether this will change under the prospective condition of international competition is far from clear. I do not know whether the


scientists in Indian universities will rise to the challenge. And then there is the further question of whether Indian industrialists will challenge them by showing an interest in their work and inviting their collaboration.

VI

These last remarks bring me back to the state of the humanities in India and the widespread illiteracy of the Indian people. These have something to do with the orientation of applied research in India.

Present-day India is heir to an ancient civilisation. In various fields of knowledge, important original work was done. Some time after the beginning of the Christian era, Indian civilisation went into a state of decline. Its torpor made it easier for Islamic culture to penetrate India. Hence, instead of one major tradition, two major traditions came to co- exist in India.

The Hindu tradition since it went into a state of decline has not recovered. Islamic tradition was past its classical peak when it entered India. It was not vital enough to absorb or to replace Hindu civilisation. There was no fusion of the two into a new and vital tradition.

The situation was further complicated by the advent of the British in the eighteenth century. In the course of their rule over India for about 200 years, the British introduced a third tradition. It has achieved certain spectacular results in India. It has provided the basis for modern India. But one result, intended or unintended, has been the growth of English as the language of scholarship and research.

When the British left in 1947, the supermacy of English did not diminish. On the contrary, it grew further. English has now become the chief international language and any attempt to replace English in India raises all kinds of problems. Indian scholars and scientists in the academic world are so tied to English that it is difficult for them to change. There are many good reasons for them to use English. Yet, it means that to a considerable extent what they write is addressed primarily to an English- speaking audience, mainly abroad, rather than to the Indian audience within the country.

This has a good deal to do with the debility of the universities of India, which by and large operate through English. The task therefore is how to evolve a new tradition which at one level develops the indigenous traditions further and builds on them, without breaking with English which by now is accepted as an international language. It is a problem to which India has yet to find an answer.

Unless the Indian universities find a way to solve this problem, they will not be able to assume that central role in Indian society which is required of them if India is to become a modern country. In a sense that is a key task of the Indian universities--indeed, this is a role which only the universities can perform. There is not a readily available solution. Perhaps that itself is a result of the lack of intellectual vitality in the Indian universities; perhaps it is one of the causes of that lack of vitality. The problem is especially complicated when we consider scientific research.

Fundamental research is international in audience; it is carried on within an international community. Applied research can be local as well


as international in its context and audience. In the field of scientific research, one sees an inexorable demand for dissemination of results through the medium of English. Even the Germans and the French who have highly developed languages of their own and great traditions in every kind of research have now begun to publish many of their scientific findings in English. The choice before Indian scientists is limited. They cannot abandon English for it is the language of international scientific research. But if they aim only at the international audience and ignore the Indian andience, it implies at least to some extent that India would be unable to compete successfully with other nations with greater resources. In a sense therefore there has to be a double focus.

Those Indian scientists who are engaged in fundamental research have no choice except to operate through the medium of English. But those who do applied research have an alternative. Whether that alternative is followed depends upon the medium of expression of the results of such research in India. Hitherto it has been English. Whether it will change in the next half-century is a matter for speculation. In the meantime, therefore, those working in the field of scientific research have to operate, by and large, through English. This is no great handicap.

When it comes to humanistic studies, however, it is a handicap. In the humanities, the audience is primarily Indian. If the audience is not larger than it is, this is because universal literacy is still very far from realisation in India. When literacy becomes universal and the size of the reading public expands accordingly, most of the Indian languages will have a reading public which, in certain cases, will be much larger than even the larger European countries, except perhaps Russia.

This development might help the academic study of the humanities to become more attractive. It is quite another matter when it comes to applied research in the universities. The growth and nurture of applied research will depend on the expansion, diversification and competitiveness of India industry. That depends upon various factors which fall outside our present discussion. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Indian universities will improve and that humanistic and applied scientific research will grow in proportion to the growth of literacy, the size of the Indian reading public and the competitiveness of Indian industry. The Indian universities cannot themselves make India a literate country nor can they make Indian industry internationally competitive. But they will benefit enormously from the former and they will also contribute to the latter once it gets under way.