Dispersing diasporal science

A lively national workshop was held at the University of Hyderabad last week. The centre for Study of Indian Diaspora at this university organized the workshop, which was attended by scientists, sociologists, librarians and students. It was then that I came to know that the government of India has a special High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, headed by the lawyer-diplomat Dr. L. N. Singhvi. Formed by the External Affairs Ministry, this committee is meant to study the problems, aspiration and attitudes of the Indian Diaspora, and study the role that Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PoIs) may play in the economic, social and technological development of India.

Dr. Singhvi made the interesting remark: "The sun never sets on the Indian Diaspora". This is an ironic take-off from Winston Churchill's famous remark; indeed it is colonialism that had led to a significant fraction of the Indian Diaspora in the first place. While the sun has set on the British Empire, it will not on our Diaspora. The term owes its origin to the Greek language (the prefix Dia- referring to `going apart' and Spore referring to sowing the seed). (Chemistry students can now see why the widely spread aluminium ore HAlO2 is called diaspore). The term was first used to denote the scattering of the Jewish people to countries outside of Palestine after the Babylonian captivity. Now, it is used more generally; hence the Indian Diaspora of NRIs and PoIs across the globe.

At the Hyderabad workshop on `India and Indian Diaspora: Linkages and Expectations', special sessions focussed attention on transfer of science, technology, health care and education, and what linkages and ventures have occurred, can occur, and what special issues arise in this connection. It is interesting to provide over some of these.

First, it is important to note that the Indian Diaspora is a rainbow with many hues. There are PoIs, settled over 5-6 generations ago in Mauritius, Fiji and Caribbean as indentured labourers, and colonial subjects in East Africa, France Australia and England, and those who went more recently to the Middle East, UK, USA and Canada. Each of these is a distinct community in itself, with its own social customs, expressions and personality. The development of science and technology (S&T), medicine and education (both in practice and in appreciation of these) is necessarily uneven. S&T in the US, UK, Western Europe (and perhaps Japan) are the most relevant to our purposes of technology transfer. It also turns out that the very issue of S&T itself is more recent one with respect to NRIs (and PoIs, to a lesser extent).

Education, science and technology are cultural activities. They are driven by, and drive in turn, the ambient sociological climate, the mood of the times, and the culture of the society in which they are practised. This is why it was possible to talk of German Sciences, Japanese Science, American Science and so on.

These national or cultural imprints or signatures are manifest in terms of organizational dynamics (how institutions are organized and supported- through governments, councils, academies, universities, industry, land grant schemes and the like), structural dynamics (the character and practices in institutions- deans, schools, departments, centres of autonomy, number of professors, levels of inbreeding, rotating versus permanent leaderships, quota and reservation system of recruitment and the like), interpersonal dynamics (from the very formal Japanese and German systems to the relatively informal US system, vestiges of the guru-shishya tradition), and even temporal dynamics (how practices and rules vary with time; compare Indian science and education in the pre-Independence era to that now).

It is these dynamics that make Diasporal S&T different from Indian S&T. What is seen and applicable in the US is not directly transferrable to the Indian scene. Cultural and attitudinal aspects feed into the efficiency and success of S&T transfer. When NRIs come to help with education, or S&T efforts in India, we RIs here expect them to be sensitive and sympathetic to the conditions that obtain here, and build these into their efforts. If this is not done, the results can be disastrous. As Professor P N Murthy remarked at the workshop: "If you (NRI) want a total replication of all that you are used to in the US before you can succeed in S&T transfer here, I'd rather get an American instead". What he meant was that the Diaspora Indian be aware of and sensitive to how much India can accommodate. This is why the NRI plan much India can accommodate. This is why the NRI plan for the National Science University, suggested six years ago, met with stiff resistance and did not come about.

Then again, India itself is a rainbow, with climatic, structural and sociological differences. What the NRI, Sam Pitroda, did in the 1980s, was nothing but a revolution: thanks to him, just about every one of the 50,000 villages in India is now telephone {frac12} accessible.

Communication between them and the outside world became instantly possible. Technology has jumped across barriers and enabled everyone. But this technology had to be chiselled according to local climatic conditions {frac12} dust, heat, moisture, safety {frac12} and it was to this end that bright RI youth were recruited into the organization called C-DOT, which solved these local problems.

The other point that needs to be made is that governmental efforts towards S&T transfer have been less successful than private and non-governmental ones. The governmental programs have by and large lacked focus on one issue, and have tended to build in much structure and peripherals. The UNDP-aided program TOKTEN (Transfer Of Knowhow and Technology from Expatriate Nationals), which brings in expatriates to help transfer S&T; education and expertise to his/her country of origin, has had much greater success in Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore than in India, just because of this focus factor. The Indian Science Desks at our Embassies in Washington, London, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris and Bonn, have not done as much as they really can {frac12}again because governmental efforts tend to be found, procedural and highly structures.

On the other hand, look at nongovernmental efforts. They tend to be lean and mean, and highly focussed. No frills, no extra staffing, no big offices and super structure. If they failed, they vanished right off with no trace. Those that have succeeded have done remarkably- look at the L V Prasad Eye Institute, BITS Pilani, Satya Sai Hospital, Dr. Reddy Laboratory, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (some of these also do the revers, take RI expertise and transfer overseas). A large part of their success is because they have taken sociology into consideration.

The High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora is, fortunately, a flexible group with expertise in law, management, diplomacy, sociology (but none yet in S&T, medicine or education) and related fields. It interacted strongly and openly with the workshop participants, and took back their inputs. I believe this committee can help the smooth and even flow of S&T, healthcare, education, literature and fine arts and issues that enrich the people of India and people of Indian origin elsewhere through such inputs- and not just between NRI/PoI and Indians in India, but even between NRIs in say US or UK, and NRIs/PoIs in, say the Caribbean or Mauritius. The thread that binds us all is that gossamer- thin but generations-strong Indian-ness, you do not know how to define it but you know it when you see it.

D. Balasubramanian

L V Prasad Eye Institute

Hyderabad {frac12} 500 034

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Science & Tech
Previous : Publish or be dammed
Next     : Quantum dot: Crown jewel of nanoscience