Heat, Dust, Science And A Million Brains

One of India’s greatest scientists, Prafulla Chandra Ray, began his fascinating book Life and Experiences of a Bengali Chemist with the following passage.

While a student at Edinburgh I found to my regret that every civilized country including Japan was adding to the world’s stock of knowledge but that unhappy India was lagging behind. I dreamt a dream that, God willing, a time would come when she too would contribute her quota.

Half-a-century has since then rolled by. My dream I have now the gratification of finding fairly materialized. A new era has evidently dawned upon India. Her sons have taken kindly to the zealous pursuit of different branches of Science. May the torch thus kindled burn with greater brilliance from generation to generation!

It so turns out, that the Indian subcontinent generated a phenomenal amount of original research around the turn of 19th century. It also turns out that most of the thinkers came from extremely modest backdrops.

A century might have rolled by, but the simple fact remains: the brightest stars of Science, Technology, Engineering are tucked away in the most unexpected places.

In the process of writing a book on the battle of a million brains, I came across some incredible young stars who had managed to defy all odds in their quest for higher education. Many of them grew up in remote villages where daily survival itself is an ordeal, let alone access to formal education. Most of them had an intrinsic understanding of the power of education, and demonstrated an interest in Science from early childhood.

When Scientific thinking flourishes, when we enable technological innovation, problems that have plagued us for centuries get solved in one fell swoop.

A recent film project took me to an extremely remote village near Sundarbans, a village known as Gosaba. Houses there are now powered through solar panels, as the area hardly gets consistent electricity. Many young engineers train on solar panel installation and repairing, and often end up starting eco-ventures that cater to the constant energy needs of the villages nearby.

If it wasn’t for solar technology, every house there would be shrouded in perpetual darkness.

As explained beautifully in this TED Talk, education is one of the few ways by which one can break the vicious cycle of poverty. It is therefore of utmost importance that the education system is made more inclusive, without lowering the quality. How we manage to do that is one of the most important debates raging today. Scams have plagued the system forever, and the government is facing an uphill battle to play the balancing act.

Yet, as Dr. Homi J. Bhabha mentioned in his address to the Assembly of Council of Scientific Unions on Jan. 4, 1966, we need to ensure that we don’t lose sight of the goal, as it is the only way this country will continue to stride into the future along with other forward-thinking nations.

“It is interesting to note that practically all the ancient civilizations of the world, Persia, Egypt, India, and China- were in countries which are today underdeveloped. … what the developed countries have and the underdeveloped lack is modern science and an economy based on modern technology. The problem of developing the underdeveloped counties is therefore the problem of establishing modern science in them and transforming their economy to one based on modern science and technology.” — Dr. Homi J. Bhabha