Keep science awards above politics
IN a bold and rare move, 175 scientists and academicians have expressed dismay over the politicisation of national science awards — the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar — instituted by the Central Government last year. Soon after the inaugural set of awards was presented to the winners by the President a few weeks ago, murmurs of political interference in the selection process emerged. It so happened that the names of three scientists who were chosen by the selection committee were missing from the final list of awardees. They were told about their selection informally by some committee members, only to get a shock later. It was feared that the scientists in question were denied national recognition because of their political views and the stand they took on certain important issues.
Leaving the final decision to a political functionary means that non-academic considerations will play a role in the selection of awardees.
The first red flag came from 26 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardees in a letter to Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) Ajay Sood, who heads the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar Committee (RVPC). They wanted to know if the panel’s recommendations were accepted in their entirety or revised by the government and requested the PSA to reveal the criteria adopted in arriving at the final decision. Once the matter became public, the government altered the selection process, triggering the protest letter from 175 scientists. “The government has updated the selection criteria on its portal and the new version uploaded in the last couple of days adds a line that the RVPC chaired by you submits its recommendations to the Minister of Science and Technology,” the scientists wrote to the PSA on September 24.
The change in the selection process paved the way for the political leadership to overrule or change the decision of the RVPC — which practically represents the Indian scientific community. Presidents of scientific academies as well as secretaries of scientific departments are its members.
The scientific community should have seen this coming. In the first place, it was absurd for the Ministry of Home Affairs to ride roughshod over all scientific departments and abolish dozens of awards, including the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize instituted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in the 1950s and those given by autonomous science academies. Abolishing established and non-partisan ways of recognising good science and replacing them with a new government award which carries no cash component was a rude shock. Now, even the new awards are facing a credibility crisis. Leaving the final decision to a political functionary means that non-academic considerations will play a role in the selection of awardees.
The episode raises important questions about academic freedom and the governance of science in India, going beyond the awards. The letter of eminent scientists has rightly called the awards episode an ‘unhealthy development for Indian science’. The scientists are concerned that this could set a precedent for ministers to use ‘unrestricted vetoes’ to overrule recommendations of expert committees. Academics not in the good books of the government could be sidelined from not just awards but also scientific grants, recruitment promotions, etc, the letter has said. This is against basic tenets of science practice and does not augur well for the development of scientific research.
Scientific recognitions are supposed to be based on a fair review of one’s contributions in a specific area of scientific research. This is generally done through the process of peer review. The now-discontinued Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize was considered the gold standard as it recognised the very best of Indian science in different disciplines. The list of Bhatnagar awardees reads like a Who’s Who of Indian science over the past several decades. Those awarded have gone on to head institutions, establish new ones and lead funding agencies as well as scientific departments. If the process of selection of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar has been compromised in its very first year, will it be able to build a lasting legacy like the Bhatnagar Prize?
The episode also highlights sustained erosion of the PSA’s role in the past few years. Though the PSA’s office was formed in 1999, India has had a framework for science advice for policymaking since Independence, beginning with the national committee for the coordination of scientific work in the 1950s. Subsequently, there were scientific advisory committees to the government, the Cabinet and the Prime Minister. This framework of advice resulted in organising and reorganising scientific departments, the creation of new scientific ministries, the development of research institutes and academic bodies as well as several national policies and programmes. An independent science advice system has acted as a science-policy interface and as a clearing house of new ideas.
The role of a science adviser is to advise on policy matters relating to science and technology as well as science-based policy solutions in general. In both cases, science is supposed to guide policy-making. Policymakers are not supposed to handle affairs related to science grants and awards. How far this balance can be achieved depends on the individuals who become science advisers.
In recent years, however, the office of the PSA has been reduced to a coordinating wing of scientific departments and tasked with work like any other government agency. For instance, it is not the job of a science adviser to prepare sundry dashboards or arrange publicity kiosks at airports. The PSA has also been asked to handle administrative work like screening proposals for the procurement of technology and technological products, reminiscent of the work the much-maligned Director General of Technology Development used to do at the height of the ‘Licence Raj’ in the 1960s and 1970s. Another responsibility thrust on the PSA was making a digital catalogue of technologies developed by public sector undertakings and an e-marketplace for such technologies to facilitate their procurement by government departments and the private sector. Such routine work can be handled by other agencies and departments. Entrusting such work to the PSA’s office erodes its primary function of providing independent and autonomous advice on science to the government.
