How not to fall into a trap while doing science from India , or anywhere else

Much has changed in the last fifty years in Indian science which is exciting, to say the least, many more Institutes, more people, more funding, more papers, more conferences. These are all good…excellent developments. When we started, the resources were almost non-existing. I remember not even having a good chair and a table and a decent sitting place as I returned from abroad. My first grant was of Rs. 2.8 Lakhs, after 6-7 years of work at IISc. and it is better not to speak of our salary. The only resources were human, students, and colleagues. Now the situation is different. Much has changed with the flow of money and resources.

But… and there is always a but….one does need to make an assessment of our achievements. Many of the new institutes are now working for more than twenty years, with energetic new faculty members whom I know are trying hard, and have achieved certain progress.

Nevertheless, there seems certain questions that come to mind, and these are being asked with increasing frequency. Remember that freedom of academicians depends on academicians themselves. Historically, they have been taken away in the past. My father jokingly used to say “we are parasites of the society”. We often do not serve any immediate purpose and our glory is often self-glory, looking at the mirror. We do need to look into ourselves, but critically.

The number of outstanding work has not increased. Worse, it seems that our expectation has gone down. We are chasing “good” journals. Again, probably not surprising, giving that you can get all the awards in India in particular by one paper in a major journal. However, the hope (of outstanding work) still lingers. To quote Rabindranath “Tabu asha jege thake praner krondone” (despite all odds, hope in the depth of heart, lingers on…).

Professor Gautam Desiraju once made a comment that is quite pertinent here, but not given due attention. He told in a meeting that most of people returning from abroad gets one or two good papers by following their foreign advisers’ footsteps. These typically appear 4-7 years after joining the position. The time gap is interesting and understandable. What Prof. Desiraju further pointed out that even these publications are somewhat managed through the foreign advisers. One marker is that these are cited much less than their papers in the distant land.

However, I am inclined to think that this “following the footsteps” becomes a trap. These young faculty often do good works (as mentioned by GDR) following their advisers abroad, the subjects appear new in India, they get awards and distinctions here, but it kinds of stops there! As I pointed out, original new ideas are not involved. The young scientists/faculty appear smart, are well accepted, they give many talks, and a pretended life of a successful scientist follows. BUT … no body abroad makes any note of such works.

To paraphrase our Gandhi from one of his famous lectures, after touring Indian villages, that “the West does not see any reason to take such works seriously.”. In fact I did an analysis quickly. The best citations of these scientists are still from their works abroad, or with their Indian senior professors during the PhD years.

Good work does not happen just like that. One needs to strive for them and to strive hard. In his interview to Mr. Wali, our great astrophysicist Professor Chandrasekhar commented (in the biography “Chandra” by Wali) on the lack of good innovative work from India, he pointed out that there is a lack of hard work and preparedness. Things were expected to happen, like Bose Statistics (which by the way needed huge creativity and skill).

A great or an innovative work of course brings a tremendous joy and satisfaction. Such work is its own reward. The problem is that even then, it often takes evaluation by others before it is regarded as a very good work. Even the scientist himself/herself often does not realize that he/she might have done something great. This is where recognition by the scientific society and colleagues, especially peers, play important role. This is why rewards/recognitions are important, or should be important, and not to be ignored.

I attended a fair number of conferences in the last few years, with focus on various aspects of physical chemistry, chemical physics and chemical biology. One thing I found to be universally common was the absence of citation or reference to the work of Indian scientists to work done from India, although increasingly larger and larger number of Indian researchers are attending these conferences. Young people do not notice, and much less realize that such absence of references could be humilating.

One can systematically make a hierarchy of expectation on the outcome of a work when finished or partly finished. At the lowest level is the publication in a “good” journal. At the next, higher level, comes the number of citations. At the third level, comes mention, and preferably, discussion of our work in science conferences. At the fourth level, invitation to give major lectures at major conferences. At the highest level, I put international awards from societies. FRS, NAS are good but still highly political…. But still they are highly creditable.

Note that I have not discussed Indian recognition. My take is that this should be equated with the first level of my hierarchy, that is level 1. From many selection committees, I have found that the analysis does not go beyong the impact factor. So, Indian awards should be placed at Level 1 of my hierarchy, not any higher.

As mentioned above, Indian work mostly (by and large) stops at level 1. I have seen very few Indians giving talks at big international conferences, or even at more difficult, departments of major universities.

Why is such lack of INTERNATIONAL recognition and impact? I give one further example. Even in the field of nanoscience, I have found Indain scientists get quoted rarely, with a few exceptions. But largely ignored. Note that real recognition comes when you are mentioned during a talk, not in a citation in a paper which is often a number game.

This is not racism. It is mostly a reflection of the mediocre work being done from India.

But why are we failing, despite so much facilities and money?

There are certain traps that I find young researchers willingly falling into and stay stuck. First, the trap of working on a fashionable area. Julian Gibbs (my PhD thesis adviser) told me bluntly that if you were to work from India, avoid fashionable fields, however tempting because your chance of making any impact would be slim, vanishinly small. Instead, try to pursue off-beat areas .. even not fully off beat … so that over the years you can make a major mark. Robert Zwanzig told me similar things.

Thus, one trap is that we follow others. I once asked Graham Fleming when he was chaging field from reaction dynamics/molecular relaxation to non-linear optics about the risk involved in such a big switch. Graham told me in his usual caustic fashion “Biman, most of the people are just like herd of cows. They just follow.”. That stuck with me, partly because of the language used.

A second trap has come about in recent times… the allure of national recognitions. People seem to chase them. Fame and money should chase you, not the other way around. Probably not fully true for money, but certainly for fame and recognition. Wasting time on them is just that, waste of time.

Biman Bagchi

30-05-2024, Bengaluru.

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