Indian Nobel Prize winner?

Nobel Prize for an Indian?

I was walking past the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus at Boston two days ago. I met an Indian student at the Sloan School - a Business School and asked her how it felt to study at this famed institution. She told me of the Nobel Laureates one met, the brilliant teachers including Indians, the thrust on independent thinking and the meritocracy and above all the seriousness with which students pursue their studies and teachers their duties.

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My thoughts went back to a question that many of us have asked several times: why can’t India produce homespun geniuses. Why is it that when the Nobel season is in the air we can hardly look to it with any hope?

Sure enough today’s paper carries the headline ‘Indian scientist wins Chemistry Nobel Prize’. I can wager a safe bet when shown just the headline ‘Indian scientist wins Nobel Prize’ hardly a few Indians in India will even momentarily entertain the thought that a scientist working in India might have bagged the coveted prize.

On the contrary when I sent an email about this and pointed out the sad fact of our homegrown talent being unable to bag such honours I was inundated with the predictable reactions: There is discrimination against Indians, Why are we so obsessed with the Nobel or Oscar or any international recognition? It is our inferiority complex at work here etc etc.

One of the reasons I have begun to like our Union Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal is that he is - to my mind — the first minister holding that portfolio to ask the question if our IIT‘s are as good as they are touted to be, how is it that they have not produced a single Nobel Laureate?

I can think of a dozen and more reasons for this lack of achievement but I shall dwell on only one — the lack of inherent ability to question the status quo and seek answers to the doubts and dissatisfaction that surface thereafter.

A consequence of this inability or unwillingness is our tendency to reach conclusions with little or no evidence. You have only to read reports or listen to conversations about any topic in India to find how there is scant respect for researched evidence. This happens not only in drawing room conversations but even in seminars and policy discussions.

I recall my experience when I was working on my summer project as part of my MBA studies. I wanted to find out the size of the middle class in a certain City in our country, I hunted far and wide but managed to get the data from - hold your breath — the Library of Congress in Washington DC. No source in India could readily give the data to me. That was in 1988.

On another occasion I got in touch with the meteorology office at Chennai. I wanted to get the exact date in 1969 when that city was struck with a cyclone and a Greek ship STAMATIS ran aground at the city’s Marina Beach. I remember trying to climb up the stranded ship as a playful school boy.

The met office had no information on that event. I gave up. After all I was only writing a story of an event on that fateful day. If I had persisted I would have got the exact date from the US/UK Met offices.

But you get the point — we are comfortable with little or no research and yet are capable of reaching far reaching conclusions WITH NO DATA WHATSOEVER. We proudly talk about our contribution to mathematics but are notorious in not being data oriented.

If Sibal’s question elicits constructive answers and he initiates action we might yet see an Indian in India win the Nobel prize but I have little hope. Why am I cynical? Let me tell you about my indirect encounter with Sibal.

More than a year ago I received a call at my US home from an executive in a top multinational Consultancy organization in India. The man told me that the Union Science and Technology Minister wished that an 'Institute For Creativity And Innovation' be set up by the Indian Government. The minister was Sibal.

The Consultancy organization had been appointed by the Minister to prepare a Concept paper. As a leading trainer in Lateral Thinking my views were sought by the crack team of executives. I was happy that such an idea was being entertained at all. I gave my views and waited and waited and waited…

As things happen in our country we went through the General Elections. When the cabinet was announced my heart sank - Sibal was no longer in charge of Science and Technology. The new minister has his own priorities of which creativity and innovation are not high on the list. Out goes the Institute and out goes the consultancy organization no doubt richer by a few million dollars...

I like to ask myself ‘WHAT IF’ questions to spur my creative juices. I asked myself—What if Laloo Yadav Or Mayawati is made minister for human resources in a cabinet reshuffle? What is your answer? Let your creative juices ooze out .

K.R. RAVI