For a government with clear antipathy towards Nehruvian ideas and institutions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has actively participated in a most Nehruvian ritual: The Indian Science Congress. The 102nd edition of the Congress, underway in Mumbai, has been in news for all wrong reasons. A session on Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit gained notoriety for its discussion of ancient Indian aviation technology. Aviation technology, even in its most rudimentary form—manned balloons—dates to the late 18th century. Anything earlier is, to put it politely, fiction.

While this may be a reason for criticism, a far more potent shortcoming is to be found elsewhere: the inability of Indian science to play the role expected from it in the country’s economic transformation. The science congresses are viewed more as annual jamborees and less as fora where path-breaking discoveries and innovations are unveiled. They are emblematic of the failures of Indian science at large.

Originally, these congresses were a forum for scientists to disseminate their findings. Before independence and for a while after it, they served another important function, that of giving confidence to Indian scientists to hold their own against the brightest scientists across the world. The presence of India’s prime minister gave the imprimatur that such events needed in a nascent nation.

That time is long past.

Any country that devotes resources to building a science and technology infrastructure—universities, labs, specialized institutions etc—does so with the goal of reaping economic benefits from them one day. A newly independent India spent considerable sums on such activities when they could have been used productively elsewhere. Had we taken that course, it would have been dubbed short-sighted. Such investments take time to yield results.

The trouble is that there have been very few such results while many ventures that need scientific input go without any help from the science establishment. Consider, for example, the Make in India plan. It is obvious that if India is to get a march over other countries, it not only needs cheap labour (which it has) but also exploit innovative technologies that are available locally. For instance, there is a huge demand for green technologies globally. As the world moves to a low-carbon growth path, these technologies can make or break a country’s prospects. From non-traditional sources of energy—nuclear, solar and wind—to manufacturing processes to innovative materials, India needs help in all areas. On the one hand, there is no sign of readily available technology that Indian companies can pick off the shelf domestically. On the other hand, even in areas where India has made strides—material science, for example—the link between innovation in the lab or the university and its commercial exploitation is weak at best. Instead, it is likely that Make in India will either have to rely on foreign technologies or it will only exploit some facet of economies of scale to be successful. This cannot go far. In the history of India’s failure to industrialize, the weakness of its scientific base certainly has a role to play.

The building of smart cities is another example. It is embarrassing to see India’s leader seek help from countries such as Singapore, Japan and the US to build its future urban infrastructure. India probably has some ingredients needed for the task. It has urban planners and designers. It also has the civil engineers with the right training for the task. Yet India has to go abroad hunting for plans and designs.

It is late in the day to reinvent the country’s science establishment. Like any bureaucracy, it will defy any fundamental changes. A different course needs to be adopted to meet India’s science and technology needs. Three initial steps need to be taken.

One, the science and technology ministry needs a clear focus. For starters, the ministry needs a far-harsher set of criteria for evaluating grants, proposals and spending money. Projects that don’t work should be killed off instead of being continually funded as it happens now in many cases. Two, India needs an office of technology assessment and evaluation. This is in clear recognition of the fact that there has been an industry-science-government coordination failure. This should not be another division in the ministry. The office needs to be led by an equal number of representatives from industry, scientists and the government. If something such as Make in India has to take off, then one part of it has to be the right level of science and technology backing. Finally, there should be a ruthless re-allocation of money for science-related activities in universities and institutes. There has been a proliferation of universities in the last three decades. Not all of them need science and technology funding. Performing universities should be favoured unabashedly. Most university science departments do nothing worthwhile in the name of research. The same principle should apply to government-run institutes and labs.

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