India and quality of education

I recently came across a post on Facebook from a group called Hyderabad School Parents' Association (HSPA) in support of a protest organized by JAC SFR (joint action committee school free regulation). That post got me thinking about the attitude of us Indians towards government and regulation. We are so used to the wretched socialist system and government dole-outs that we have forgotten to appreciate that quality does not come cheap or free. As the lady in the video says, she wants the best quality school for her kid but does not want to pay the price required for the school to deliver services at that quality. Quality education is not cheap. You can't expect to own an iPhone at the price of a feature phone, can you. There are government schools that are run with our tax money but no one wants their children to go to government schools because those are poorly run and are no good. Everyone wants to send their kids to private schools for they are obviously better run and provide better services. But we do not want to pay the price for this better quality and demand for government meddling. Despite 70 years worth of experience we do not seem to realize that government involvement will destroy whatever little quality is left in our school education. Instead of forcing our elected representatives to better utilize our tax money and work towards improving the standards of government run schools, we want government to bully private schools. We expect good, talented teachers committed to their profession to work for peanuts. As Prof. CNR Rao once told a gathering of grad students in reference to salaries of university professors, if you throw peanuts you only get monkeys to dance. Just imagine the remuneration of lawyers, doctors, charted accountants or media professionals being fixed by the government. In all these professions, isn't the amount of remuneration determined by the market value of the services provided? Why should it be any different for education? Aren't medical or legal services basic rights of a citizen like education? 

At this point, the protesting parents would do well to rewind their collective memories to 2009 and answer what they did to stop Government of India from passing the right of children to free and compulsory education act, commonly known as RTE act. What protest did they carry out? What 'dharnas', 'gheraos', did they carry out? What pressure did they bring upon their Member of Parliament to prevent the government (with complete cooperation of opposition in parliament) from imposing this blatantly unsecular and unjust piece of legislation? Now, there is no doubt that every child deserves an opportunity to have access to quality education irrespective of the parents' financial status. But whose responsibility is it to create the physical and intellectual infrastructure that will give every kid born in this country access to quality education? Is it that of the government that collects the taxes or that of the private sector? It's been known very well for many decades now that the publicly funded school system is rotten to the core. The government instead of fixing this system so that even the kids attending government schools are provided with good standards, has imposed its responsibility on to the private sector through abuse of its legislative power. The RTE act mandates that 25% of seats in every private school be reserved free-of-charge for kids from 'economically weaker' families. Government is supposed to compensate the schools for the expense. But as is the norm for everything government in India, the schools were either not paid, paid very late or paid at a ridiculously low rates. In such a situation, where will the private schools raise the cost difference? Their only options are to either pass on the burden to remaining 75% of the students or take the losses and ultimately shut down. In both of the options, it is the middle class that is going to be adversely effected; either pay up more or have private school options reduced. 

If you didn't raise your voice to stop the RTE act because of decades of socialistic indoctrination, I don't think you have any moral right to now prevent the private schools from doing what they have to for survival. What will you do if private schools ultimately shutdown because of losses? At this stage another question needs to be asked. How much is the Indian middle class responsible for the decay of government school system? By not sending our kids to the local government school, haven't we virtually boycotted them? Hasn't this contributed to their ultimate neglect from the government? If our kids were attending these schools, wouldn't we have asked questions and demanded answers from our elected representatives about the poor administration of these schools? Finally, there is one thing that we need to remember. Nothing comes for free. Be it the schools, universities, satellite communication, free laptops, electricity, clean drinking water. Nothing is free. We will have to pay for the stuff that we use; in one way or the other; now or later; if not directly then indirectly.

An Encounter With God

This is going to be a story. A particular event from my life. The immediate trigger for this is another post I made on my Tumblr page. You can find it here. As you will see the post was intended to correct the wrong information being publicized in an American publication about something that happened at a temple in the Indian state of Kerala, the place my family is from. After I posted this, I started thinking about what my position is with respect to religion and the concept of God. My way of thinking about these issues has gone through a lot of change in the recent years but it has not yet solidified. While I am fairly certain about rejection of any organized religion, especially those inclined to being dogmatic, I am not so sure about the existence or absence of a superior power. Since I feel much better writing about something as a process of contemplation rather than thinking in air, I decided to write my thoughts down here. There is also another reason. When the incident that I am going to narrate below happened, it included a rather painful experience that I normally do not like to remember but keeps coming back to me during the bouts of depression that I periodically still go through. One reason, I think, this keeps coming back is because I have never discussed this with anybody in my life. I am hoping that putting it down here might relieve me of the pain. 

I studied in a boarding school till the tenth grade and did not have much freedom or exposure to the world outside. Even during my undergraduate university years, when I lived in my parents' house, I did not have much opportunity to explore and know the world around me because of my father being an authoritarian and excessively protective. The incident I want to talk to you about happened during the last year of my under-graduation. In May of that year we went to Kerala for a relative's wedding. The entrance examination for admissions to master's program at Andhra University (located in Visakhapatnam, the city where we lived) was scheduled on the Sunday following the wedding. There was an unfortunate accident to one of my mother's brothers just ahead of the wedding. So, my mother and rest of the family decided to stay back and I had to go back to our place alone so I don't miss the exam. Anyone who has ever tried to travel around in India during summer vacations in May will attest to how difficult it is to get a train ticket confirmed. For that journey from Shoranur to Visakhapatnam by Bokaro Express, I could only manage to get a wait-listed ticket. One of my uncles assured that he knew someone who could 'arrange' for me to get a confirmed birth on the train. After we reached the train station, this arranging person turned out to be a railway porter who in turn introduced me to a TTE (sort of a ticket supervisor in Indian Railways) on that train. After some money changed hands, the uncle, assured of my reserved berth, said goodbye and left. A couple of stops after the train had left Shoranur, the TTE came around to where I was sitting and asked to check my ticket. Having been assured earlier, I assumed that he had come to allot me a berth to sit. After looking at my ticket he appeared surprised that I had a wait-listed ticket. "This is a waiting list ticket. Don't you know you can't enter the reservation compartment with a waiting list ticket? Get off at the next station and go to the general compartment". I protested and reminded him of the bribe that my uncle paid him. He, of course, denied getting any money from me. "Not me, but my uncle paid you. It is that bald man who came along with porter Hamsa at Shoranur". Probably because there were other people sitting there, this talk of money only seemed to anger him further. "Get out right now. Go stand near the door till next stop". I protested some more. "Will you go or should I call the police". The mention of police scared me. 

I proceeded to the compartment door without any further talk. I stood there for a while and after may be a couple of hours, the TTE happened to pass by that door again. "Why are you still here? Didn't I tell you to get off and go to general compartment?" I didn't know what to say. After a little silence, "OK, look you seem to be from a good family. I have a free berth in the AC compartment. If you have money to pay the extra fare, I can give it to you ". I was happy. There is hope after all. "How much do I have to give you", I asked. I don't remember the exact amount he asked for. How much ever it was, I do remember that I did not have that much money and I told him. How much can you pay, he asked me. I only had about 500-600 rupees. That is not enough, he said. Get out at the next station if you don't have the money or I will hand you over to the police, he further warned me. "I have an exam on Sunday. That's why I was forced to travel without reservation. Please help me", I pleaded. He came close to me and said "OK, if you don't have money, there are other ways to pay". Before I could even understand what he had said, my pants was unzipped and he was touching my privates. I did not know what was happening. At that point in my life, I had never even thought that men could be molested, let alone by other men. I was shocked and scared at once. I tried to free myself but couldn't. What happened in the next few minutes is not very clear in my mind. I don't even know how much time passed. But at the point when my memory of that day returns, I was still standing at the train door but the TTE is not near me anymore. He was talking to another young man, probably a little older than me, about getting his own ticket confirmed. After the TTE left, the man smiled at me and walked away into the other compartment. To this day, I am not sure if he had seen me in trouble and come to help me or if I am just imagining things. 

I did not see him again till that night. I found a vacant seat and sat there till the train reached Chennai. I had to move out after the people who had reserved that seat boarded in Chennai. I was once again back at the door and decided to somehow spend the night sitting there. After being there for a while, I saw him once again. He said he had met a Malayali family who were travelling with kids. They had got separate berths reserved for the two kids who were now going to sleep with their parents. So there were spare berths and they offered one to him. There was some luggage on the other but if I did not have a problem, I could sleep on it. I was more than happy to take anything if I can get out of the cold doorway. So, I slept that night on half a berth. It was not comfortable but warm and safe. By next morning, many people had gotten off the train and there were many spare seats for illegal occupants like the two of us to sit on. I got to know him a little more that day. He was Christian priest who had just finished his seminary training and was going to a remote village in Orissa to take up his first assignment. He asked about me, my family, what I was doing and what I wanted to do. I had brought along a big bottle of water for the journey. When the train reached Visakhapatnam and I was about to get off, he asked if I could leave that bottle of water for him. I was only too happy to be able to do something for him. We parted with the promise of meeting again at some point in our lives. 

Its been a long time since then. I got through the exam, completed masters, got a PhD and now am a postdoc. Have lived in Chennai, New York and Vancouver. But I often look back to that day and think how things could have been. That's how one of my encounters with what I think might be God happened.    

P.M. Bhargava and the scientific temper police

When I started this blog, I had decided to strictly restrict the discussions to science, scientists and academic affairs and to completely keep politics out. But extraordinary times require rules for normal times be suspended. And what we are witnessing in India now is indeed an extraordinary time. The left-liberals who have for all these years since independence in 1947 had enjoyed a monopoly over government policy to decide how India should think and where she should go, are increasingly being challenged and sidelined. Having failed to influence the electorate during the 2014 general elections despite their best efforts and numerous open letters, they have now resorted to spreading canards about a democratically elected government. Latest in these shenanigans is a statement issued by a group of scientists. I was alerted to this statement by a news in Nature India. Third paragraph in this statement begins thus:

"The Indian Constitution in Article 51 A (h) demands, as a part of the fundamental duties of the citizens, that we '...develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform' "

Reading this reminded me of an op-ed that the leader of this group, P.M.Bhargava, had written few months ago. You can find it here. There he narrates why, how and, most importantly, when he got this article inserted into the constitution of India.

"The conclusion that our very own scientists — who would be expected to be leaders in the development of scientific temper — did not possess scientific temper themselves and were just as superstitious as any other group was supported by another incident in 1964. Following a statement by Satish Dhawan (who later became Secretary, Department of Space), Abdur Rahman (a distinguished historian of science) and I, set up an organisation called The Society for Scientific Temper, in January 1964, the founding members of which included distinguished scientists like Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner. For membership to the society, the following statement had to be signed: “I believe that knowledge can be acquired only through human endeavour and not through revelation, and that all problems can and must be faced in terms of man’s moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural powers.”

We were disillusioned when we approached scientist after scientist and all of them refused to sign the statement. Clearly they were devoid of scientific temper. Following this disillusionment, I persuaded Professor Nurul Hasan, then Education Minister, to have the following clause included in Article 51A in the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976: “It shall be the duty of every citizen of Indian “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform.” 

Hopefully, I don't have to draw your attention to the fact that 42nd Amendment to the Constitution of India was enacted during the Emergency that India Gandhi had imposed. It was a time when democratic rights were suspended in India. It was the only time in history when something close to authoritarian dictatorship was actually imposed in India (forced sterilization of people, carried out by Ms. Gandhi's son Sanjay, is often cited as an example). The 42nd Amendment was therefore not enacted through a democratic process. It is also an amendment that has constitutionally imposed a political ideology, Socialism, on all citizens of India irrespective of whether they agree with it or even understand it (as an aside, I remember reading somewhere that the Swarajya Party of C. Rajagopalachari could not be revived in post-emergency India because they did not subscribe to socialism and hence were not in agreement with the constitution. So much for democracy and freedom of political association in India). 

So, here we have a group of people who see no problem in imposing their world-view, their way of thinking, their ideology on rest of the citizenry. They feel no compunction in actively collaborating with authoritarian dictators in the process. They see no problem in passing judgments on the scientific temper of a person just because they did not sign up to their "statement" and subscribe to their "society". The very concept of freedom and individual liberty seems alien to this group. Ramanujan ascribed all his math genius to visions from his family goddess. Newton spent a lot of time searching through Bible for secret messages from God. Now, imagine if the careers of these scientific geniuses were to be left at the mercy of Bhargava and his fellow scientific temper police. Well, you don't actually have to imagine. That is what has happened to Indian science for all these years since Independence. All life has been sucked out of it by this scientific temper police. 

Now, if only this "deeply concerned with the climate of intolerance" gang who have no qualms about collaborating with dictators to impose their ideology on rest of the nation, had looked up the word "IRONY" in a dictionary before churning out their statement. One only hopes they will finally be called out for what they really are, a bunch of hypocrites throwing a tantrum because they no longer have control over other's lives. 

On Indian Universities

Note: A version of this blog was posted on my Tumblr.

Today, I had an interesting discussion with a fellow Indian post-doc here at UBC. Since both of us are at a stage where we are about to start looking for academic jobs, the discussion moved towards the university system in India. Both of us were in agreement that the way universities are currently administered actually does grave injustice to the young Indians that they are supposed to serve. I argued that as things stand today, there is just no quality control mechanism that can force these universities to reform or aspire for excellence. There are so many Indians aspiring for a university degree in the hope that it will help improve their social and financial status, that even the worst among the private universities, with barely any physical or intellectual infrastructure, manage to get many times more applicants for each available seat in every course. The situation in the public universities that charge almost nothing for a fee, the demand is unimaginable. Given this, the government is obligated not only to let these institutions survive despite their low standards but also to actively support their existence to manage the ever increasing demand and avoid riots on the streets. However, the government does have the power, both financial and administrative, to push the universities towards better quality. Problem is that they just don’t seem to think of it as a priority issue. And in a democracy nothing becomes a priority unless the voting public asks to make it one. If past experience is anything to go by, politicians in India do nothing to address an issue unless they are forced to by public pressure. And when they do want to make things happen, they do; the success of pulse polio campaign is a proof to that. In my opinion, one possible way to force this to happen is by imposing a penalty on the public for tolerating sub-standards in the institutions where they get degrees from. Let’s say the recruiting agencies do not consider the degrees from all the universities as equal. They could, for example, apply a normalizing factor that would put the degree issued by a good quality university at a higher level and pushes the one issued by a poor quality institution to a lower level. Such a normalizing factor could be developed by an accreditation agency like the NAAC. In fact, the entire function of UGC can be limited to assessing the different universities in the country to determine this normalizing factor for each university at regular intervals, instead of going around micromanaging universities. The union government can make it mandatory for all its departments, to begin with, to apply this normalization while assessing the applicants before any appointment. Government can also suggest the private sector employers to do the same. If people realize that the degree issued by a particular university is of no use to them in getting a job, they’ll hopefully pressure their local government to initiate the much needed reforms process. And eventually, probably in a couple of decades or so, our institutions might be in the same vicinity as the best in the world.

What do you think of this suggestion? Do you think it can work? Do you have any ideas that you think can help improve our universities’ standards? Do share. I would love to hear from you.

Campus and Politics?

That was the subject line of an email I received a couple of weeks ago from a shocked Canadian lab-mate with the following attachment. 

 

As you can see the image is a paper clip from a Malayalam language paper. For those who can't read Malayalam, here and here are some links to the news in English. While my colleague was shocked that an academic campus could become the playground for the mainstream political organizations to the extent that it could even result in bloodshed, the news didn't even surprise me. So much that, I didn't even bother reading beyond the headline (and I searched for the English news stories just for this blog). And my guess is that even in the printed papers, this news was probably in some interior nook amongst the matrimonial and obituary sections. That's how common such incidents are in school, college and university campuses of Kerala. I do not know much about student politics in many other parts of India but I have studied in two other neighbouring states of Kerala, in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In both these states, though there are student organizations affiliated to mainstream political parties just like in Kerala, their activities are pretty mellow and very rarely lead to violence, if ever at all. 

There are two major students' organizations in Kerala. SFI is affiliated to CPI(M) (and the now opposition LDF) and the KSU is affiliated to Indian National Congress (I) (and the now ruling UDF). Of these, SFI generally tends to invoke violence at the slightest provocation (here is an example). There are students' organizations affiliated to other political parties such as the BJP and IUML but are not as strong as these two which mainly derive their strength from the support of the consecutive LDF and UDF governments that change every 5 years. As the report in the above link points out, these organizations tend to function in consonance with the unions of teaching and non-teaching staff which themselves have political affiliations. Students are often forced to donate money and participate in their activities such as strikes and processions/marches which often turn violent resulting non-activist students getting injured and sometimes, even worse, getting killed. Since both the major political formations in the state have a vested interest in ensuring that these student orgs so that they can have a constant supply of fresh man power, no state government has ever tried to regulate their activities. 

The influence of vested political interests is not, however, limited only to the student bodies. It extends all the way through the teacher and staff unions up to the Vice-Chancellors (VCs). Most VCs are appointed not because of their academic or administrative accomplishment but due to their political and social affiliations. And these VCs don't even remain coy about their political links and often openly show off their political patronage even after assuming office. I know a person who is currently working as a Reader at the Calicut University (which, incidentally, is shut down due to competitive strikes by the SFI and KSU, one opposing the VC and the other supporting). This person had returned to India after two post-doctoral assignment, one in the US and the other in Germany. He had joined the Calicut University despite attractive offers from other private higher ed institutions. A few days after his appointment, he was approached with a membership by the staff union affiliated to the then ruling LDF. Since he was mostly bothered about doing research and teaching and wasn't even inclined towards a leftist ideology, he turned down the offer of membership. This set in motion a series of steps to harass him ultimately ending with termination of his appointment. The poor man had to go for a lengthy and costly legal battle with the University to get his job back, that too only after a change of government following state elections. This example is to demonstrate how the political-staff-student union nexus works in our academic campuses. They break anyone who is not ready to bend to their wishes, sometimes literally. 

All this is not that difficult to fix. As I said, there are states adjacent to Kerala where the politics of student and staff bodies is conducted without resorting to violence. It is also time to rethink if our academic campuses really require political activity at all. I am one of those who believes the primary purpose of universities and other academic establishments is to generate and disseminate knowledge. And the primary duty of the students is to learn as much as they can. Development of politically aware citizens can be restricted to the activities and organizations outside the campus. We can certainly design some other means to ensure student participation in the running of our institutions but that certainly should not be in anyway influenced by the vested interests of the political parties. Elimination of political interference is one basic and simple step that can have a cascading effect on the quality of our universities. Instead of ensuring that, our government keeps spending thousands of crores of taxpayer money to start more higher ed institutions that will all be plagued by the same problems and will ultimately fail to provide quality education to our students. It just saddening and infuriating at the same time. 

Teaching Style

On September 5th India will celebrate Teachers' day in honour of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former President of India and former vice-chancellor of my alma mater, Andhra University. This blog is about the teaching styles that I have noticed as a student at various levels. 
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Now that I am approaching the last leg if my postdoc stint, I have started to think about the next stage of my academic life. I will soon be entering the job market. A part of my future plan will involve teaching; I do not as yet know if it is going to be only a handful of lab colleagues or a class full of undergrads. So, I have started thinking about what kind of a teacher I would be. What approach should I adopt? According to Indian tradition, there are two ways to describe the relationship between God and the devotee - "marjala-niti" (the cat principle) and "markata-niti" (the monkey principle). If you have ever seen a cat carry its kitten around, you would have noticed how the kitten is held securely by the mother's teeth. All the work in this relationship is done by the mother; she is responsible for the kitten's safety as well as for transporting it around the town while the kitten only need to hang around there. On the other hand, consider a monkey transporting its infants. While the mother takes care of the transportation part, the baby has to hold on securely and is responsible for its own safety. In this second relationship, there is a division of responsibilities. These descriptions, that are based on parenting styles of two different animals, can as well be extended to describe the relationship between a teacher and a student.

In my opinion, both the models have their virtues and are suitable at different stages of a supervisor-research scholar relationship. The cat-model is relevant during the initial stages when a student is just starting his/her research. They may not know too much about what to do and where to look for information. It would be useful for the supervisor to hold his hand at this stage and lead through the maze. As the student starts to find his feet, it might be a good idea to let him be and figure things out on his own. Let him figure out how to clear the roadblocks in the project, understand what the data is trying to tell and decide the best format (and place) to present (and publish) the data. Trickiest part of this scheme is to identify the right time to transition from a cat to a monkey. I do not, yet, know how good teachers figure that out. With time, I probably will, just like I did at the beginning of my PhD. 
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What is your opinion on the different teaching styles? Do you prefer any one of them or a composite? What is your style? Do let me know in your comments. 

Goodbye Sachin………

Adding my 2 cents’ worth to an already over-exposed and over-discussed topic. Sachin Tendulkar in all likelihood has played is last innings in Cricket today. And have to admit whenever the Indian Cricket team takes the field next time, it will certainly feel a little different. I hate to admit it but for a very long time he was a part of my life since cricket was the only sport that I followed with any interest and Sachin was an inseparable part of the only team I supported, the national team of India. Mind you those were the days before Ganguly and Dravid and Sehwag. And much much before the IPL. He started playing for India in 1989 and it was also the year that I joined a boarding school where the first seeds of my cricket obsession were sown. To this day, the best and most memorable years of my life were those spent in that school. So my memories of Sachin are also the memories of my growing up years. I am sure this is true with most Indians of my generation. We grew up watching Sachin, adoring him for taking our favorite team to victory, singlehandedly conquering the mighty Aussies and instilling a confidence that our team too could win against any opponent. As his long and very successful career draws to a close, I feel a tinge of emotion. A string in the cord that connects to my childhood will now be broken. So thank you Sachin for being that string for this long, and goodbye. This is the last time I will curse you for getting out without scoring a century.

Minor efforts, Major effects

Towards the end of this blog post, the blogger describes how her employer, IISER-Pune, has taken steps to address a few minor, but non-trivial, issues that could worry a prospective employee, especially the ones that are not natives of the town/state. This is a particularly important, and probably a peculiar, issue relevant to India considering the multitude of languages and cultures in our country that change dramatically from state to state and sometimes even within a state. An outsider might have to deal with not only a bit of a culture shock but also subtle discrimination. This reminds me of my own experience as a PhD student that was diametrically opposite of what folks at IISER-Pune experienced. And the issues at hand were pretty much the same. 

I grew up in Visakhapatnam, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh. When I got a PhD position in Chennai, it was my first big move away from my native town. Also included in the "move to a new place" package were the issues pertaining to a new culture, language and life in a metro. The institute where I did my PhD was a center affiliated to Anna University and established on a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model with pretty ambitious goals for research excellence. In tune with its stated objectives, the center has a very cosmopolitan composition, both in personnel and the research pursued. People of non-Chennai and/or non-Tamil background composed a good chunk of the staff and student population. One of the unintended (and certainly unwanted for someone in my situation) side story of this PPP experiment was that the PhD students did not have access to the University's hostel facilities.  And unlike the Pune folks, people entrusted with the job of running our center did not deem it an important enough issue to pay attention to. Consequently, the students were left to fend for themselves with their broken Tamil and shallow pockets. The challenge was not finding a decent place that was close enough to the campus. There were plenty of such places. The problem though was with the people who owned these places and insisted on renting them out only to "vegetarians" and "families". Luckily for me, both my roommates belonged to this "vegetarian" category. So, we were only half disqualified to be tenants on account of our failure to get married. In the almost 5 years that I spent there, we rented 4 different places. Each time we had to spend considerable time and energy in the process of finding each one of those and in trying to convince the landlords that we did not intend to burn the place down. It is important for me to clarify that I do not blame the landlords of that locality for thinking the way they do. I am sure they have valid reasons derived from their past experiences for imposing those conditions on their future tenants and every property owner has a right to decide who to rent their place out to or not to. But the point I am trying to make is that knowing how things were in the community, the administrators could have done things differently to ease the life a little for the students rather than leave them to their fate. It could have earned them a life time's goodwill for sure.

Another such example of administrative apathy was with regard to our stipends. Some of us had fellowships directly from CSIR. The way these fellowships were administered was something like this. At the beginning of the fellowship year (sometime around June, I think) we had to submit a claim form telling them how much to pay us (as if they didn't know that already) along with a progress report and a certificate from the supervisor confirming our continuation in the program and recommending the release of stipend. These forms are submitted to a particular office in the university. Once this office receives the forms from all the fellows in the university, they forward them to the CSIR in New Delhi who process them and release the funds to the university which then pays us every month. It usually took about 6 months before this entire process was completed and some money showed up in our bank accounts during which time we were without a pay. This could have been fine for someone living in university accommodation and eating in university mess. As mentioned above, we did not have half of this luxury. So, the system forced us to develop a grasshopper like personality to escape an ant like fate during the dry months. Again, things could have been done differently. Since, the CSIR was going to transfer funds to the university, our stipend could have been payed by the university in the interim. As it turns out this mile was too long for them to walk. 

In none of the above instances, were the authorities concerned breaking any rules. They can't even be accused of dereliction of duty. They were just not prepared to walk the extra few centimeters to make our lives a little bit easier. And this is not something limited only to our university. From what I know, this is what happens in most universities in India. In some places, things are even worse. I have heard from people who had to spend money from their pockets to buy chemicals and plastics or to get their samples analysed on specialized instruments. I probably had a relatively better Indian PhD experience. Mostly because I was part of the above mentioned PPP experiment. Though I was part of the university system, I was also detached from it. I was also fortunate to have done my PhD with supervisors who, above everything else, were great human beings. Working from within the system they did their best to protect me and tried to minimize the influence of  the negative experiences. Most importantly, they did not let any of this compromise the quality of my research. Not every researcher in Indian university system is that fortunate. Often one hears the leaders of Indian science lament the decline of research in Indian universities. For all their eminence and experience, one doesn't get a feeling that  they are looking at the right problems and suggesting the right solutions.  Maybe because, like most of our politicians, they too haven't gone through the systems and hence haven't experienced the problems first hand. Hopefully India will soon have leaders, both in politics and in science, who have grown through the system and have experienced the problems to provide real solutions. 
Were you a researcher associated  with a state university in India? Do you have similar experiences to share? 

Questions Galore

Last week, a couple of my friends on Facebook shared this first hand report about an American woman’s traumatic experiences with sexual assaults during her visit to India. Anyone who reads the report cannot but sympathise with the trauma that the woman experienced, so much so that she had to be treated for PTSD. I wanted to say something about the facebook posts but all that I came up was confusion. I knew and wanted to say this is not the culture of my country. This is not an apt description of men who share my heritage. We are a country that preaches "Athidi devo bhava" (may the guest be treated as equal to god). This is probably a one off experience of a foreigner who, by her own confession, had come with a preset mind. May be she was overreacting to a curiosity of  people on seeing a white woman participate in traditional festivities assuming them to be stares filled with sexual perversion. But I also knew that was my emotional side reacting. I knew the experience and horror that the woman described was real. I knew she must have faced sexual harassment, molestation and even rape. I knew in my heart of hearts that this cannot be brushed aside as a one off. This is now a trend, one that is very widely prevalent. Fortunately, there was another report on CNN iReports that gave an alternate perspective from a woman who too was part of the same group that spent time in India.

Of course, this is not the first time that we Indians have experienced emotions such as shame and disgust at how some men amongst us treat women. In fact news such as this and worse than this have become a little too common recently and we might be approaching a stage where we might react to news of sexual assaults just the way we react to corruption in government, with apathy. Just this week there was yet another incident of gangrape on a female journalist in Mumbai. This was followed by the now too familiar  outrage, candle light marches, TV studio discussion, raucous in Parliament and self-righteous speeches by celebrities. But in my opinion, none of this is going to help with the problem that is getting to endemic proportions now. It will probably only assure us that we have not yet become an emotionless populace, despite the television and cinema. I think the problem is deep seated and well entrenched in our cultural psyche, the role and position of woman that was traditionally emphasised in our culture and how these are being re-defined in a constantly evolving society. There are probably some elements of this society that are not acclimatizing easily to this rapid rate of evolution. This is probably a phase in the evolution of our society and things will settle down in the course of time. In the short term though, there is no doubt that steps need to be taken to make India a safe place for women to not just survive, but also to live. This is a necessity for our country to progress and prosper. But what are these steps that would make our women feel safe once again? What can we do to tackle the ugliness that has presently engulfed our psyche? Honestly, I have no answers to these questions. I have neither the expertise nor the experience to come up with solutions this vexing problem. What I do have is the ability to observe the going on around me. My intention in this post is to share some of these observations. 

Many people have pointed to the inefficient and insufficient policing of our streets. There have also been suggestions to enact laws such as to make rape an offence that can be punished with death. No one can disagree with the first of these suggestions. There is no doubt that our police is severely understaffed and not very well trained, especially when it comes to matters related to women and children. Also, better enforcement of the existing laws would also help. Its been my long held belief that if there is any institution that has let India and her people down the most in these 67 years of independence, it is the police and the judiciary. Most problems Indians face today wouldn't be there if the judiciary and the police fulfill their constitutionally entrusted duties efficiently. 

Another aspect (probably a more important one) that needs to be studied is the role that our society (that is, all of us) plays in these crimes. How much does our hypocrisy have to do with this? What role does the moral policing, at the family and societal levels, play? What role do immature measures such as outlawing mannequins advertising lingerie play? What role does the treatment of women in the families of those committing these crimes play in shaping their mentality?  We are a society that cannot tolerate an unmarried man and woman living together. We shut our eyes to natural hormonal changes taking place in teenagers and young adults. In the name of morality, most men and women stay away from a serious physical relationship late into their 20s and 30s unless they are given a stamp of approval by the society in the name of marriage. How much do these attitudes contribute to the present perverse behavior of some? How much does the cultural shock of moving from a traditional/rural setting  to a more liberal/urban setting contribute? How much have our movies contributed, especially with their culture of "item songs" (such as this and this) whose main objective is to titillate men?  Will not treating sex as a sin help? Will it help to have a 911-like emergency response system? Will it help to not criminalize production and exhibition of pornography to grown ups? Will it help to legalize prostitution? Will it help if we do not objectify feelings such as love and beauty? Overall, will loosening the society's grip on individual's life help improve the present situation? 

These are just some questions bugging me and most certainly, I am not the first one to think about them. I am sure there are people that are a lot smarter, and occupy positions that matter, who can, or have to, find answers. Otherwise, our future generations may look back at this part of their history with nothing but repugnance.