Are we a nation of Geeks?

Geek Nation's author Angela Saini talks about how India is emerging as a scientific superpower

She gets first hand experience of it at IIT Delhi where she discovers, fairly early in her journey, that the famed IITians “aren’t geeks. They’re more like drones.” That image gets amplified at India’s largest software company, Tata Consultancy Services, where its chief technology officer has been trying to engineer innovation for a while. The examples he cites to Saini thoroughly disappoint her: They smack of tech reconstruction rather than innovation.
Take for instance open source drug discovery (OSDD): the newest of all the science projects Saini talks about, and a classic example of a tiny oasis of good-calibre science in a vast desert. It’s the brainchild of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) director general Samir Brahmachari, who is himself surprised at the interest OSDD has generated in the international community. I won’t go into the usual argument that most sceptics hold — when will a drug come out it? — but it’s worth asking: Has CSIR managed to bring similar zeal, or geekiness if you will, in to its 37 other laboratories? If it had, it would have produced geeks in hordes.

It’s interesting that Saini starts her journey from Thumba, the birthplace of India’s space programme. She lets former ISRO chairman U.R. Rao go merrily down memory lane but fails to pick up the turmoil that the Indian space programme is currently in. Whether that’s a sign of a maturing organisation or one veering away from its path is a question the book could have at least raised.

As Saini took her flight to India, it seems along with the hypothesis she also had the title clear in her head (she tells Rao right in the beginning what her book title would be), but the evidence she provides makes it a case of poor sampling, full of drones and freaks and rather lacking in geeks.

Angela Saini's book, 'Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World' tracks a remarkable journey through India's scientific institutions from Delhi to Trivandrum, meeting the weird and wonderful characters who are turning India into the next big scientific superpower. Angela who was in Bangalore to launch her book spoke extensively about how India is emerging as an engineering giant but still had a long way to go before contending with the likes of China and Japan. Talking about her book, she says “The book is a result of a six-month journey I made in 2009-10. I visited various cities across India trying to find the ancient roots of Indian science. I witnessed a rocket launch at the Indian Space Research Organization, interviewed scientists and IT giants, visited IITs in a quest to understand where India stands in the field of science today.”

Angela believes that India is a nation of geeks, swots and nerds. As almost one in five of all medical and dental staff in the UK is of Indian origin, and one in six employed scientists with science or engineering doctorates in the US is Asian. But however Angela's concern is that though Indian engineers are hardworking, they are not very creative. “There’s no doubt that people here are very hardworking. But most of them don’t do it purely for the love of science. A lot of other things influence their decision when making a career choice and most of them end up doing something that they don’t really enjoy," Explains Angela, who is an award-winning independent journalist based in London.

Angela says, “Rajasthan has a e-governance programme, where women run the local computer kiosks and that’s a great way of empowering women. In India, scientists don’t patent their innovations, they want it to be free for all and it encourages out-of-the-box thinking which is a great way forward. But what’s really holding us back is the religious and superstitious beliefs. Only if we break away from these shackles we can truly lead in the world of science.” As for the future Angela hopes that India's commitment towards pure science doesn't diminish and more engineers take it up for the love of it and nothing else. Geek Nation is full of curious, colourful characters and gripping stories, it describes India through its people - a nation of geeks.