R. A. Mashelkar came from a poor family. He went barefoot to school in Mumbai until the age of 12, and was able to continue his education only after he won a scholarship. He studied chemical engineering at the University of Bombay, then moved to the University of Salford in the UK. He returned to India six years later as deputy director of the National Chemical Laboratory. A highly regarded polymer chemist, he is a fellow of the Royal Society in London and still runs his own lab.
SPEAK to people in the know about the state of science in India and the chances are the name R. A. Mashelkar will be mentioned sooner rather than later. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar is director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the world鈥檚 largest network of public-sector research centres. But this urbane and softly spoken scientist is also running a one-man campaign to create an enterprise culture in India:to bring science and industry together to increase the country鈥檚 wealth and well-being. To western ears his ideas may seem nothing out of the ordinary, but they are provoking a revolution in India.
Walk around any Indian city centre today and you will see four-wheel drive cars and top-end BMWs. The shops are full of the same branded goods that you find in London or New York. But it was not always like this. Until 1991, government policies made it difficult for foreign companies to set up shop in India or even sell their goods there. For most products, Indian consumers had to settle for locally made copies. In this environment, there was no motivation for Indian firms to innovate. 鈥淒emand on science from industry was sadly missing,鈥� Mashelkar says. 鈥淭he fact that science has to make economic and social sense had not dawned on large numbers of our institutions.鈥�
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鈥淭he fact that science had to make economic and social sense had not dawned on large numbers of our institutions鈥�
But through the 1990s, the country opened up to foreign companies and goods 鈥� a change that not only prepared the ground for the recent influx of high-tech companies but also exposed Indian firms to intense and unfamiliar competition. To Mashelkar, the response was obvious:companies must learn to innovate and get closer to innovative researchers.
In 1989, he took over the National Chemical Laboratory 鈥� one of the CSIR centres. Here, he set up a business development group and a 鈥渒ite-flying fund鈥� for ideas that had only a 1 in 1000 chance of succeeding. Such notions were unheard of in government labs, but when he took over the CSIR in 1995 he applied them across the whole network. 鈥淲e set up a new ideas fund. We knew we would be supporting failure, and there was some opposition,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it sent the idea round the CSIR that you can dream, you can think out of the box. And we saw the impact of that in other areas of work.鈥�
In another break with the past, Mashelkar urged scientists to patent their ideas. They had not done so before because industry wasn鈥檛 interested. The CSIR itself used to apply for only half a dozen patents a year; now it files for hundreds. And in 1997, when a company was awarded a US patent for the wound-healing powers of turmeric, Mashelkar fought the decision and won, arguing that the patent would 鈥渟teal鈥� India鈥檚 traditional knowledge. India has since successfully challenged patents on neem and basmati rice.
Mashelkar鈥檚 latest baby is the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI), which gives government money to projects in which universities, government labs and companies work together to make world-beating products. It has already generated two drugs in clinical trials 鈥� for TB and psoriasis 鈥� and a software package called Bio-Suite that does everything from analysing DNA sequences to manipulating virtual molecules in three dimensions. Bio-Suite was created by several institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Institute of Genomics in Delhi, and was launched last June by Tata Consultancy Services. 鈥淭ata couldn鈥檛 have done it on its own, neither could the universities,鈥� Mashelkar says.
Mashelkar鈥檚 influence extends into government circles. One evening he got a call from the finance minister who needed to make a splash in his budget speech. He asked if Mashelkar had anything up his sleeve. The result was the NMITLI. 鈥淚鈥檝e made presentations to five prime ministers,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ll have supported science unequivocally.鈥� In recent years, the CSIR鈥檚 budget has grown by more than 25 per cent a year.
Beyond the CSIR, Mashelkar sees the arrival of foreign companies鈥� R&D centres as a godsend. He has long complained that losing even a few talented people has a disproportionate effect on India鈥檚 intellectual and economic development. Now foreign companies are bringing expats back by the thousand. Many of those returning have been exposed to western innovative culture, and some will transfer to Indian firms or set up on their own. These companies will in turn soon be looking for new blood, producing a 鈥減ull鈥� on young people to study science and technology.
It all helps to fulfil Mashelkar鈥檚 vision of turning India into a nation not only of ideas, but of opportunity too.