FOSS.IN/2008: The once, and future king

Why I will be at FOSS.in/2008
There has been much verbiage expounded at the new directions taken by foss.in this year. While, in my opinion, there is much to be alarmed at in the direction that foss.in is seemingly heading in, I cannot but help feel that some of the most vehement opponents already had their axes sharpened. One can almost see the spittle flying over the remoteness of a glowing screen that brings the words of others to one.

From a personal perspective, I am tied foremost to community-driven events, and organisations, namely Freed.in, the Indian Linux Users’ Group, Delhi (ILUG-D), and Sarai, in no particular order. I have been a participant in FOSS.IN (or whatever name it passed under then), since 2005, and actively helped out at the event last year, but I do not have a dog in this particular fight. My goal is to build bridges, and not cultivate enemies. To quote the incomparable Emily Dickinson:

I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
...


I must also acknowledge the fact that some of the people most actively involved in foss.in are either also part of Freed.in or have provided valuable input to the event. At the same time, this is not a weak-minded acquiescence with all aspects of foss.in. I would love to see the resurgence of a Bangalore Linux Users’ Group, and a community-driven event in Bangalore. It is also up to us to prove that a community-driven event in India can be as successful as foss.in. This means you. At least to my mind, this is possible—Freed.in being what I am putting my energies into—but it certainly remains to be proven. Unless one is expending effort in this regard, in my opinion, blatherings about foss.in 2008 seem to fall into the category of the Arabian saying: The dogs bark, but the caravan passes by.

So, philosophical musings aside (as the rallying cry goes, show me the code), the reason that I will be at foss.in 2008, and am pushing people in IndLinux to be there, is with the idea that let us set aside what we think is the right way to proceed, and engage with foss.in on their terms. IndLinux can have other meetings, on our own terms, and we will indeed do so in the near future, but at least for now, we will also be at the largest, and most successful FOSS event in India, personal misgivings firmly set aside for the moment. We are there with a serious purpose, and will address serious issues of software related to Indic computing, including:

• Indic sorting
• Spell-checking enhancements for Indian languages
• Machine translation
• Optical character recognition (OCR)

Bengaluru, or bust!

The failure of experimental science in India

Subtitled: Why I will never take up an academic position in Indian science

This is a difficult piece for me to write, as it requires me to try and be objective about making the decision to walk away from a large piece of my career, and life. I hope to do a series of posts giving a personal description of why I chose to abandon a career in science, and also an analysis of what ails experimental science in India, and some suggestions on how this might be fixed. If the overall tone comes across as angry, it is because I am angry. Angry at the wasted talent, the wasted lives. Angry for what could have been.

The normal caveats apply. If it helps you sleep any better, you are most welcome to apply the usual dismissals. The common way to wave away such comments is to say that the person in question just could not hack it. Who knows, it might even be true. Google up my name (Gora Mohanty), and the subject of gamma ray astronomy, talk to any of my associates, and draw your own conclusions. I offer absolutely no apology for claiming that I was a good, if maybe not great, experimental physicist. I am also strongly of the opinion that information technology is the area where it is currently the easiest to do world-class work in India. This is, of course, a very broad area, and the term could also reasonably be used for many areas of scientific research.

I will also note that none of this should be construed a priori as a slam on people I have worked with. I know many excellent Indian physicists who have chosen to remain in the system, and try to change it from within. To each his cup of poison.

To my mind, there are two main reasons behind the failure of experimental science in India, and funnily enough, neither of them has to do with a lack of money. These are: (a) An abject failure of the educational system to inculcate the scientific method in students, and (b) The ad-hoc separation of research, and teaching institutes.

Why Bitu cannot do science

Like most other subjects, science is taught at the primary levels, during the formative years, by rote memorisation. We claim to take pride in the fact that most of our students take quote science unquote courses, and, yes, it is also true that the average fifth standard student in India can parrot to you Newton’s three laws down to the last comma in the textbook. Do an experiment yourself, after they quote you Newton’s law of gravitation, ask them why does an apple fall down to the Earth, and not the Earth up to the apple. My favourite answer to this, mind you, from someone who consistently stands first or second in their primary-level classes, is that gravitation is a property of heavenly bodies. Now, where else could they have learnt this wonderful excuse, except from having had it forced down their throat. And, in case you think that you have not lost out from having been brought up in the same system I offer you a simple challenge: Explain to a lay person in 15-20 minutes, without using any math, why the second law of thermodynamics should intuitively be true.

The problem is that the educational system in India is largely in chaos. People point to the IITs/IIMs as some kind of emblem of India’s brain power, but Prof. C. N. Rao’s comment about how the average mid-level university in the USA does better research work than any IIT was, if anything, kind to the IITs. Even taking the IITs, and IIMs at their own recognition, they cater only to a miniscule fraction of the students in India. Besides, by the time students reach that level of higher education, it is already too late. This point was driven home to me as a graduate student in the USA. The average incoming Indian student is definitely much better equipped than his American counterpart in terms of theory and the mathematical tools of the trade, but the outstanding American students, typically people who have learnt physics by tinkering with things, are on a different plane. Richard Feynman, for example, was a uniquely American genius. This is not to put down the outstanding Indian scientists who have succeeded in spite of the system, but how long can we survive on the basis of 5-sigma events?

What is scary is that I do not see any great eagerness on the part of the educational establishment to bring about the sweeping reforms that would be needed. Though things are definitely changing at the top, it is very much the status quo in most parts of the country. For the most part, the only people that I see who are really anguished about the endemic failures in the system are people who do grassroots science teaching, and popularisation. I recounted my pet story about Newton’s law of gravitation to a senior member of the Orissa physical society (who shall go unnamed), only to be waved away with: “Oh, no, no! This might have been the situation in your days, but not now. Besides, it might be the case for ICSE, but certainly not for our CBSE students”. I suppose that there are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Anybody who is at all interested in the reform of science education in India should look into something called the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Project, and Ekalavya, and the reasons behind its failure. This was India’s chance at a reform on the scale of what happened for US science education after the Sputnik scare, and we missed our chance at it. No matter, I suppose. There will be another astrologer, another charlatan, another godman, another cricket tamasha, another Bollywood item number which will ease our sorrows.

Tied to this is the attitude of all too many professors for whom their students are to be looked down upon, and treated as something just a shade above domestic help. Spare me your outrage about how you do not do this. That could well be true, and if so, more power to you, but you only have to take a look around yourself. I will believe that things have changed when undergraduates in the average Indian institution do not feel compelled to address random visitors like me, as “sir”.

Finally, there is the race to the bottom these days in the various entrance exams, something which is actively encouraged by parents. I guess that Taare Zameen Pe was a nice picture, but when it comes to my kid, he (most definitely he, and not she: Uske liye to wheatish complexion ka ad aa jayega akhbaron mein) will be the IIT topper. Kids nowadays do not have a normal life outside of preparing for exams. There are a myriad institutions now in India whose main focus is on preparing students for the IIT-JEE. Oh, and by the way, you also get a +2 degree along the way. If this is what things have come to, I say shut down the IITs: They are doing more harm than good.

Let a thousand flowers bloom

There is no doubt that there are world-class scientific institutions in India; the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) being usually the first thing that comes to most people’s minds. As opposed to that, most universities outside maybe of the main metropolitan areas, are starved for funding, facilities, quality teachers, and any possibility of being involved in research as a student. This is a very dangerous situation, as a constant inflow of fresh blood in the form of brash new students eager to take on the world is what a research system needs. The artificial divorce between research and teaching institutions hurts both, by reinforcing the horribly pejorative impression that those who can’t, teach, and by ensuring that research institutions are perpetually starved of competent manpower. After all, if people are not shown how to do research, the best that one can hope from them is that they will look up experiments in textbooks and journals, and faithfully copy them. And, yes, we will claim that it is ground-breaking because it is the first time that this experiment was done in India.

More to follow. Bouquets, and brickbats are invited. If this article does not have you seething, one way or the other, it is because you did not read it carefully enough.