50 OPEN MINDS: SCIENTIFIC TEMPER

What will it take for India to move up the global knowledge chain? For far too long, we have confused the glamour of ever-new defence missiles and space missions with scientific supremacy. The joy of curiosity has readily been forsaken for deceptively cheery metrics of success. A return to the basics is in order. As a new generation of researchers, hard-working and confidently invested in the country’s future, brushes away the crumbs of bureaucracy to take up real, basic science, it will need to turn to scientists who inspire not only with their academic brilliance but with their vision of an India of Ideas. The remit of this exercise at Open is to probe the gratifying link between scientific enquiry and thought leadership. Why must a doyen like CNR Rao chip away at the bedrock of nanoscience, the study of small materials that could change the world? What gives a distinguished ecologist the courage to take on state governments? How did a certain mathematician of Indian extraction channel the cultural beauty of his roots to derive path-breaking insights into the geometry of numbers? And what drives the celebrated neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran to seek a scientific basis for empathy? Indian science, on a rebound from the high of the Mars mission, is now bothered by the low spends and pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that threatens to tarnish its reputation. Though a number of government-run labs are functioning without a head, the country is making incremental changes in the way it treats its scientists. Last year, the stipends for young researchers were hiked by about 60 per cent—albeit after massive protests. Philanthropic contributions to science are on the rise, notable among them Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan’s generous Rs 226 crore grant to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to set up a brain research institute. As expectations go up a notch, let us hope that the intellectuals featured here, a Nobel laureate among them, will further invigorate the scientific discourse in this country.

VS RAMACHANDRAN, Neuroscientist, 63: THE MIND REVEALER

Anyone who has attended a lecture by Vilayanur Ramachandran knows him as a visionary. Perhaps no other neuroscientist has pushed the boundaries of research in search of deep philosophical insights into what makes us human. Ramachandran drew the world’s attention to neurons involved in motor control that also happen to fire when you simply watch someone perform an action, as though you were experiencing it yourself. These mirror cells, then, could be the cornerstone of empathy—he calls them ‘Gandhi neurons’—and even the basis for human civilisation. Some researchers are sceptical of this sweeping theory, since the presence of mirror neurons in humans has not yet been established, but his work has altered our view of the human brain. And of consciousness, emulation and what makes us unique.

 

VENKI RAMAKRISHNAN, Structural Biologist and Nobel Prize Winner, 62: OF GENES AND GENIUS

One of the most illustrious scientific minds in the world belongs as much to India as to the UK, where he will take over as President of the Royal Society later this year. The first Indian-born scientist to be elected to lead the oldest scientific institution in the world previously chaired by the likes of Isaac Newton, Ramakrishnan is disarmingly candid about his failure to qualify for any IIT and critical of India’s intellectual insecurity. His pioneering work in how genetic information is processed by a cellular machine called the ribosome to make proteins is an inspiration to many, but equally heartening is his courage in extricating scientific excellence from ceremony and pop-cultural frenzy, from the politics of recognition and from nationalistic pride.

 

MANJUL BHARGAVA, Mathematician, 40: ADVENTURER IN NUMBERLAND

He is credited with bringing the glory back to mathematics. And now, he is building the connecting tissue between India and its academic diaspora. Revisiting classical problems and developing new methods in the geometry of numbers, Manjul Bhargava, a Princeton professor, last year became the first mathematician of Indian origin to win the coveted Fields Medal. A modern-day ambassador of Indian wisdom, invoking Hemachandra, Brahmagupta and the elegant mathematics of Sanskrit poetry, he is the natural face of the Government’s new teach-in-India programme to get visiting US academics to spend some time lecturing students here. Just as Bhargava’s contribution to number theory has had a profound impact on the field, so could his vigorous advocacy of math education in India.

 

MADHAV GADGIL, Ecologist, 73: INTO THE WILD

Madhav Gadgil was used to being chased by elephants. But after his report on the Western Ghats exposed several inconvenient truths on the exploitation of this eco- system, he has had to deflect heavyweights of a different kind: the land mafia, state governments and quarry owners angry with with his ground-up approach to conservation. He is the founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. A keen advocate of the study of human impact on ecosystems, his impact on Indian ecological research has won him the 2015 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.

 

ASHOKE SEN, Physicist, 59: THE STRING THEORIST

Not many Indian scientists, let alone theoretical physicists, can hope to win a $3 million prize in their lifetime. A professor at Allahabad’s Harish Chandra Research Institute, Ashoke Sen was among nine scientists chosen by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner for his inaugural Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012. A man of simple ways, usually attired in a T-shirt and thick glasses, Sen’s area of work is string theory, an ambitious mathematical concept that seeks to re- concile the four forces of physics and its two theoretical cornerstones—quantum mechanics and gravity. The particle accelerators of today cannot test the theory, ruling out the possibility of a Nobel prize for researchers like Sen, but their work could prove crucial to revealing newer facets of the secrets of the universe.

 

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, Academic Doctor, 45: BIOGRAPHER OF CANCER

He is the emperor of cool. The oncologist walks with a swagger and talks like a prophet about the price the world would pay for ignoring the scourge of cancer. His devotion to raising awareness of the disease is beyond compare, and he dominates seminars with his knowledge and anecdotes. In The Emperor of Maladies, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book of 2010 that chronicles cancer, this Columbia professor of medicine covers all a lay reader needs to know about malignant cell growth, made especially readable by his own experience as a research doctor. His effort, tracking data on cancers as early as 440 BC, is laudable in that he demystifies what has belonged to the realm of specialists. Long years spent looking at cells through the microscope in his lab that a reviewer called a ‘Stanley Kubrick-like space’ came in handy while writing the book. Delhi-born ‘Sid’, as he is known to friends, is an alumnus of Stanford, Harvard and Oxford. Colleagues call him a workaholic and multi-tasker with an ‘internal hope machine’.

 

G SHANKAR, Architect, 56: THE ORGANIC BUILDER

For a lover of Sylvia Plath’s poetry, he is a diehard optimist. And that’s what helped him endure daunting odds in the cut-throat world of builders. Shankar believes that if one has to build a home on a hill, it should be of it and not on it, a philosophy championed by the famous architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright. A critic of ‘manipulation of nature’ to raise buildings, Shankar brought back to centrestage open courtyards, puja rooms and even mud houses. In Kerala, where he began his career in the early 80s, Shankar shunned marble floors and concrete roofs that had caught the fancy of the nouveau riche, and stunned people with attractive homes built of locally available materials at low cost. As a people’s architect, Shankar had to wait for years before he received widespread appreciation. An alumnus of Birmingham Institute of Design, he refused to be lured by commercial interests. His institution, Habitat Technology Group, has built homes and offices across the world, winning acclaim for green buildings.

 

CNR RAO Scientist, 80: THE ALCHEMIST

A busy little junction near the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where Rao began his career as a chemist over half a century ago, is now named after him. Rao went on to become the grand old man of Indian science, acquiring great clout and advising prime ministers, building the foundations of nanotechnology in India and institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. One of the most decorated Indian scientists alive—notably with the Bharat Ratna last year— he is not known to be the most decorous. His shrill criticism of ‘idiotic politicians’, his barbs against Bangalore’s infotech culture and allegations of plagiarism in his research papers have made him a figure who looms over the field of Indian science, a big man who believes in the promise of small technology.

Ashoke SenCNR RaoG ShankarMadhav GadgilManjul BhargavaSiddhartha MukherjeeVenki RamakrishnanVS Ramacharndran