Take a quantum leap in the field of science

February 19 , 2015 

- All narrow boundaries have to be broken down if India is to realize its potential as a leader in the world of knowledge, writes Bikash Sinha

On December 19, CERN's director-general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, and the chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Ansar Parvez, signed the agreement admitting Pakistan to associate membership of CERN, in the presence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the diplomatic representatives of the CERN member states in Islamabad. It is a progressive move made by a relatively small country with a modest- sized community of scientists.

We, in India, have been very keen to be an associate member of CERN for long, but in our case, the great Indian bureaucracy has only passed the relevant files from one department to another. I know that the file, after months of exhaustive deliberation, was never presented before the last prime minister, Manmohan Singh. With the change of government, I presume that the file has gone back to where it started from - nowhere or may be somewhere - we just don't know.

Frankly, it is a crying shame. Indian scientists have been collaborating with CERN from the 1960s, in fact, not long after CERN was established. In more recent times, our young colleagues have been participating very meaningfully in the experiments using the main three detectors in the Discovery machine in CERN, the Large Hadron Collider. The detectors are CMS, ATLAS and ALICE.

On July 12, 2012, CMS and ATLAS simultaneously announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Young colleagues from the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Tata Institute, among others, are actively participating in CMS and ATLAS. Calcutta's Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre and SINP, among others, are deeply engaged in ALICE. ALICE in the quarkland (the most elementary and fundamental constituents of nature are quarks - three quarks make up a neutron or a proton) is designed to have a peep at the primordial epoch of the universe that occurred a millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Two nuclei colliding at the awesome energy of the order of 2 TeV (one thousand million electron volt makes 1 GeV and one thousand GeV makes a TeV; one electron gains an energy of one electron volt across a potential of one volt) in a mini bang mimics the Big Bang - a tremendously exciting and almost romantic scientific experiment. The point I wish to make is that India is deeply engaged with CERN at an intellectual and technological level but remains only an 'observer' for all decision-making processes.

Associate membership allows the country to participate in the governance of CERN, through attending the meetings of the CERN council. It would also allow the scientists of the country to become CERN staff members and to participate in training and career-development programmes. Most important of all, an associate member country can also bid for CERN industrial contracts, that would open up opportunities for industrial collaboration in the most advanced technology of the world.

India not making aggressive or even pro-active efforts to become an associate member is reminiscent of the 'we shall do it all by ourselves in India' mania, of 'we don't have to go anywhere', 'we are good enough' type of slogans. We tend to shy away from the basic fact that there is no Indian science - science is universal. Some kind of science, by its very nature, has to be tested out through experiments with large-scale to very-large-scale accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider. To look at the smallest, such as the Higgs Boson, we have to build the largest. This kind of venture, by definition, cannot be accomplished by one country: it demands global participation.

Clearly, this kind of large-scale collaboration has very positive and exciting spin offs, intellectually, industrially, technologically, and in many other innovative areas, which include the opening up of vistas for an entirely new form of universal education on science.

CERN, by its very philosophy binds a large number countries together, independent of their culture, history, language, even (in some cases) religion. CERN is the creator of the world citizen cutting across the narrow boundaries of nations.

The universal approach to science is sadly missing in India to a great extent. The 'science excels only in Calcutta or only in Bangalore' kind of approach or even thinking is out of date and the symptom of a narrow perception.

One almost always feels a sense of hesitation here to open up to the world at large and political leaders are no exception to this. This indecisiveness about going to CERN as an associate member is part of the national hesitation programme, although, this time, the discussion leading to a loud 'yes' has gone through all the relevant departments, including those of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.

To cite another example of large-scale international collaboration, India has committed almost five hundred crores in the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at Darmstadt, Germany.

I was much there as a sort of an initiator when the initial agreement was signed between Germany and India, some years back, in New Delhi. It had a smooth sailing, a quick operation; our minister of science and technology at that time, Kapil Sibal, took no time to decide and the signature came very quickly without any interference or 'wise advice' from the bureaucrats - they were not given a chance. India is thriving both in science and technology courtesy FAIR. Now we have access to the kind of technology that would have been unthinkable without this collaboration.

The structure of FAIR is somewhat different from that of CERN; all the participant countries in FAIR are essentially share-holders of the FAIR Company. Thus FAIR is truly international and democratic. India is on the threshold of a quantum leap in the world theatre, be it in the fields of economy, science or technology. But, above all, India is a vast reservoir, an ocean of knowledge, not just a bank.

In the foreseeable future, India probably cannot go beyond the United States of America or China in terms of economic capability, or, for that matter, in terms of military might, but India can certainly be the most significant, if not the most exhaustive, knowledge source in the world.

India must thus be a visible, resourceful country in the world of knowledge. India must take a lead in the world of knowledge because India is the chosen leader. All narrow boundaries have to be broken down for India to lead. Let us remind ourselves that a very significant component of that knowledge base is science and technology.