“There are two kinds of people Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.” Gus Portokalos in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ 

I couldn’t stop laughing every time the father of the bride in this come­dy which I watched (not for the first time) with my family a few days ago, claims every word in any language had a Greek root. 

I did stop laughing when I learnt that the Greeks owed it all to the Indians. Minister of Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan told the Indian Science Congress over the weekend that Indians had discov­ered the Pythagoras theorem but in a typically magnanimous gesture credited it to the Greeks. The minis­ter, one of the few lucky members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet to have his portfolio changed from Health and Family Welfare af­ter he said some rather odd things about condoms, also told his scien­tist audience that Indians had dis­covered ‘Beej Ganit’ but gave the credit for algebra to the Arabs. Coming so soon after we were edu­cated about the origins of the Taj Mahal — some ‘right-thinking’ schol­ars said it had originally been a Hindu building called Tejo Mahalaya before it was usurped by the Mughals — I was ready to face more sobering facts. 

I knew at the back of my mind that Indian mathematicians had invent­ed the concept of ‘Shunya’(zero). I had also read a bit about Aryabhata, the fifth-century mathematician and astronomer whose work in ge­ometry and trigonometry was breathtaking in its sophistication. Indeed, the Encyclopaedia Brittanica says that his second, long-lost work, Aryabhata Siddhanta, may have formed the basis for Islamic as­tronomy.

I’m willing to accept that ancient civilisations and men and women who lived centuries ago possessed knowledge and vision that makes phrases like ‘cutting edge’ and ‘state of the art’ sound trite in our world. The Aztecs had not one but two calen­dars in their rich kingdom between the 12th and 15th centuries CE. Mohenjo-daro had planned streets, public baths and a central granary 26 centuries BCE. You must stand at the foot of the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt to understand the size and scale conceived by those architects and workers who put it together 4,600 years ago. I remember standing high up in the special building constructed next to the pyramid to house the Ship of Khufu, a 143-foot long wooden ves­sel that was meant to transport the pharaoh in his afterlife, and mar­veling at the precision engineering that brought it about. 

Many of us will remember hearing at our grandmothers’ knees about Hindu gods who flew about in vimanas (flying chariots), and anec­dotes from the Mahabharata about blazing arrows that sounded like missiles and lethal spinning wheels of fight, chakras, that could sever the head of an opponent miles away 

So, although the authors of last Sunday’s presentation at the Indian Science Congress who made a pres­entation that Indians had perfected huge aircraft 7,000 years ago that were powered by 40 engines, had flexible exhaust systems, could hov­er in mid-air, perform interplane­tary flights, and be seen on Indian invented radar have apparently refused to share their paper with nosy reporters, it is tempting to heed our prime minister, who told us back in October that ancient Indians must have been adept at plastic surgery and reproductive genetics to create the elephant-headed god Ganesha. 

The question is: if India had such a dazzling history of discovery and invention, how come we are no so abysmal in producing original research, and who do our brightest minds choose to flee to better climes?

Modi delivered an inspiring speech at the Science Congress on Saturday and said all the right things. “Our universities must be freed from the clutches of excessive regulation and cumbersome procedures. They must have a higher degree of academic freedom and autonomy; and, there should be as much emphasis on research as on teaching. In turn, the universities must also subscribe to the highest academic and re­search standards and accountability” he said. 

The reality is quite different. Around seven years ago Professor C.N.R. Rao, who was awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna in November 2013, wrote an essay for Purdue University, his alma mater, on the dismal state of re­search in India. He noted that sci­ence and technology got just about one percent of India’s GDP. India contributed only about three per cent of global scientific research, produced only about 4,000 PhDs a year, a fourth of China’s output, and “If one takes the top 1 percent of the research papers in the world, the per­centage of Indian contribution is less than 1 %.” 

I have spoken with several Indians working in universities and Corporate research laboratories abroad and they have similar tales to tell, about the funding they receive and of a research atmosphere that nurtures discovery and innovation. Far from being a meritocracy that produces quality work that can stand up to peer review, Indian research is sloppy and marred by rampant plagiarism. China, on the other hand, has been steadily and relentlessly building up its research institutions. Its universities now house thousands of committed world-class scientists, mathematicians and scholars. The Chinese are also single-minded about wooing the best of their diaspora back to the mother­land by dangling very good incen­tives and rewards before them. It is increasingly common for the best Chinese researchers to spend half the year on an American campus and the other half in China, likely in heavily funded research universi­ties. True, those universities have the heavy shadow of the Communist Party looming over them, but seri­ous work is being done. 

Modi has said ambitiously that the new NITI Aayog, the successor to the Planning Commission, will also tap into non-resident Indians ‘beyond just their financial support’ as his government strives for the ‘Bharatiya approach to develop­ment’. What does that mean, and how is it going to work practically? NITI Aayog will be headed by mar­ket economist Arvind Panagariya and at the top of the think-tank, be­sides fellow economist and Sanskrit scholar Bibek Debroy, will be former missile scientist VK. Saraswat. It is really not rocket science: Modi told the scientists in Mumbai that re­search also needs to move away from government control to a greater de­gree of autonomy and excellence. To get there, we need to stop daydream­ing about our Vedic breakthroughs and get hard-nosed about the long haul ahead. 

Share this story