Issue 28 Research Horizons

Research Horizons Pioneering research from the University of Cambridge

Issue 28

Special issue on India

Featuring Democracy Energy Health Water Education Art Manufacturing History Innovation Religion Earthquakes www.cam.ac.uk/research Issue 28, October 2015 2 Contents

Contents

Features

4 – 5 Sanskrit Manuscripts Project 20 – 21 Cambridge’s engagement with India

6 – 9 A whole host of options 22 – 25 A democratic cacophony

10 – 11 Education that adds up 26 – 27 Earthquakes without frontiers

12 – 13 A touch of frugal genius 28 – 29 A world of science

14 – 15 Man with a Bouquet of Plastic Flowers 30 – 31 Phone for a doctor

16 – 17 Not a drop to drink 32 – 33 Spiritual violence and the divine revolution

18 – 19 Keeping the supply chain flowing 34 – 35 Mirage maker

3 Research Horizons

Things Welcome

This issue of Research Horizons is devoted entirely to India. 36 – 37 The sad sailor and The Sea-Pie In 2010, following the announcement of his appointment as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz was asked to join a Prime Ministerial Inside out delegation to India. I was standing on a train platform when he called, asking for an analysis of our existing collaborations in India. What emerged surprised him, members of the University and 38 – 39 Extreme sleepover: The mystery of a damp bed many in India: well over 100 collaborations and partnerships, many forged over decades, others more recently. In providing this data, several academics expressed how they would welcome better recognition from the University of the value of these partnerships. A lot has happened in five years, much of it thanks to the continued support of the Vice-Chancellor. We now lead 15 UK–India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) partnerships ranging from social healthcare to rural agriculture. Our conference on ‘Nehru and Today’s India’ was broadcast live on NDTV. Our work on multi- drug-resistant tuberculosis has been recognised in laboratories co-located in Chennai and Cambridge, funded by the UK Medical Research Council and India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT). The first postdoctoral fellows, based at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore and Cambridge, started this autumn. Annually, we test progress and seek advice from our India Circle of Advisors, based in India. To sustain our work, we are establishing a Section 8 Company in India, which will receive funds in India to support partnerships in India. And we are currently recruiting to the first five Fellowships funded jointly by Cambridge and DBT, in a new model whereby a Cambridge-appointed researcher spends 60% of their time in India, integrating their work with colleagues in India and Cambridge. The following articles give a sense (but only a sense; this issue showcases roughly a tenth of our current partnerships) of the breadth and ambition of our work. They reveal a restless University, continuing to redefine what it means to engage with the world. Some articles cover research by Indian nationals who hold appointments in Cambridge, others cover research by those who collaborate with their former students, based in India. Yes, Cambridge brings approaches, technologies and theories, but we also are in India to learn. As Indian politician Meira Kumar, the first woman speaker of Lok Sabha, once pointed out: “India is a land of diversities, and there lies its strength. Ideas, religions and cultures have been encouraged to interact and create a powerful and unique synthesis, one that believes in the essential oneness Editor of human beings.” Dr Louise Walsh Cambridge is regularly cited in India and the UK as taking a distinctive approach, academically led, institutionally supported Design and premised on a need to understand what can be done to serve The District society. We’re there to address challenges in India because the challenges in India are the challenges we face together. Editorial advisors Professor Joya Chatterji, Dr Bhaskar Vira, Dr Toby Wilkinson Dr Jennifer Barnes Writers Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy Craig Brierley, Alex Buxton, Sarah Collins, Fred Lewsey, Stuart Roberts, Louise Walsh Copyright ©2015 University of Cambridge and Contributors as identified. The content ofResearch Horizons, with the exception of images and illustrations, is made available for non-commercial re-use in another work under the T +44 (0)1223 765 443 terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike Licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/), subject to acknowledgement of the original author/s, the title of the individual work and E [email protected] the University of Cambridge. This Licence requires any new work with an adaptation of content to be distributed and re-licensed under the same licence terms. Research Horizons is produced by the University of Cambridge’s W cam.ac.uk/research Office of External Affairs and Communications.

4 Feature

Sanskrit Inches 1 2 Manuscripts Project cm 1 2 3 4 5 5 Research Horizons Credit: Cambridge University Library University Cambridge Credit:

This beautiful illustration of flying birds and sparring goats is more than 400 years old. It’s found in an incredibly rare Sanskrit book that is among over 500 South Asian manuscripts which are now available online in the Cambridge Digital Library (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk) through the Sanskrit Manuscripts Project (http://sanskrit.lib.cam.ac.uk). 6 Feature

Image lmost one in four of the world’s Macrophage engulfing a cases of tuberculosis (TB) are in tuberculosis pathogen India and the disease is constantly adaptingA itself to outwit our medicines. Could the answer lie in targeting not the bacteria but its host, the patient?

Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan is, it’s fair to say, a world authority on the biology of TB. She studies the disease – one which most people will know of as a disease of the lungs – using what at first sight seems an unusual model: the zebrafish. “What most people don’t realise is that about 40% of human TB occurs outside the lungs,” explains Ramakrishnan. “It can infect the brain, bone, heart, reproductive organs, skin, even the ear. In fact, TB infection is a basic biology question, and this is the same in zebrafish as it is in humans.”

A whole host of options “So far, the treatment of TB has focused almost exclusively on using drugs to try to kill the bacteria directly, but there’s increasing evidence that there

Volker Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology may be benefits to targeting the host” 7 Research Horizons

TB is caused by Mycobacterium the University of Cambridge to apply While treatments tuberculosis, which is generally the very latest in scientific thinking and transmitted from person to person through technology to the problem of TB. do exist, the drug the air. It has been around since at least An expansion of this collaboration has the Neolithic period, but its prevalence now become possible through the recent regimen is one of in 19th-century literature led it to be award of a £2 million joint grant from the considered something of a ‘romantic’ UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the longest for any disease. The truth is a long way from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) this portrayal. The disease can cause in India, which will enable the exchange curable disease: breathlessness, wasting and eventual of British and Indian researchers. For death. And while treatments do exist, the Professor Sharon Peacock, the UK lead on a patient will drug regimen is one of the longest for any the proposal, this means an opportunity curable disease: a patient will typically to train a new cohort of early-career typically need to need to take medication for six months. researchers in an environment where they Ramakrishnan is involved in a new will have access to outstanding scientific take medication trial due to start soon that might allow facilities and training, at the same time as doctors to reduce the length of this becoming familiar with the clinical face and for six months treatment. She is cautiously optimistic consequences of TB for people in India. that it can be reduced to four months; if “India is home to a large pool of successful, however, it may eventually lead talented young people with the potential to treatments more on a par with standard to help fight back against this deadly antibiotic treatments of a couple of weeks. disease,” says Peacock. “Developing a The trial builds on work in zebrafish close collaboration between Cambridge carried out by Ramakrishnan and and Chennai involving two-way traffic colleagues at the University of of scientists and ideas is an exciting Washington, Seattle, before she moved to opportunity to start to tap into this.” the Department of Medicine in Cambridge There are few places more suitable in September 2014. These small fish, for the proposed work than India. which grow to the length of a little finger, According to the World Health helped her and collaborator Professor Organization, India is home to Paul Edelstein from the University of almost one in four of all worldwide Pennsylvania (currently on sabbatical cases of TB, with over two million in Cambridge) to make an important newly diagnosed cases in 2014. discovery that could explain why it takes Not only that, but it is one of the a six-month course of antibiotics to rid countries that has seen an increase in the body of the disease (rather than seven the number of cases of drug resistance to ten days that most infections take) to TB – including ‘multi-drug’-resistant, and yet in the lab can easily be killed. and even more worrying, ‘extremely’ Within our bodies, we have a drug-resistant strains of TB against which host of specialist immune cells that none of our first- and second-line drug fight infection. One of these is the treatments work. In part, this increase macrophage (Greek for ‘big eater’). reflects improved access to diagnostic This cell engulfs the TB bacterium and services, but the situation highlights why tries to break it down. This, together new approaches to tackling the disease with powerful antibiotics, should make are urgently needed, says Professor eliminating TB from the body a cinch. Soumya Swaminathan, Director of NIRT Ramakrishnan’s breakthrough was and the India lead in the collaboration. to show why this wasn’t the case: “So far, the treatment of TB has focused once inside the macrophages, TB almost exclusively on using drugs to try switches on pumps, known as ‘efflux to kill the bacteria directly, but there’s pumps’. Anything that we throw at increasing evidence that there may be it, it just pumps back out again. benefits to targeting the host. TB is very “Once we’d identified the pumps, clever and it manipulates the host immune we started to look for drugs that are system to its own advantage, so if we could out there in the market and tested a use drugs to help the immune system, then few of them,” she explains. “We found we may be able to make it more effective.” that verapamil, an old drug, made This is the approach that Professors the bacteria susceptible to two of Ken Smith and Andres Floto from the the antibiotics we use to fight TB.” Department of Medicine at Cambridge, The trial of verapamil, which is also part of the collaboration, are taking. commonly used to treat high blood Smith is looking at the role that specialist pressure, is due to start soon at the immune cells known as T cells play in National Institute for Research in the persistence of multi-drug-resistant Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai, India. strains of TB. His group has evidence Ramakrishnan is one of a number that around two thirds of the population of brilliant minds working as part of a have T cells which have a tendency to collaboration between the NIRT and become ‘exhausted’ when activated. 8 Feature

This process, known as autophagy mean for the use of current drugs?’” says “There is (‘self-eating’), is a repair mechanism Blundell. “The nature of the polymorphisms for clearing damaged bits of cells and in the TB genome sequence of an infected increasing recycling them for future use, but also individual can give us information on where works as a defence mechanism against that person was infected and what are the evidence that some invading bacteria. So why, when it drugs that might be most effective. We engulfs TB, does the bacterium manage can then begin to look at new targets for antibiotic to avoid being digested? particular polymorphisms.” “Autophagy is partially inhibited by TB Blundell plans to take the information resistance can itself, but we found that if you overstimulate gathered through the Chennai partnership this mechanism – like flooring the and feed it into his drug discovery work. be predicted accelerator of a car – you can overcome the He takes a structural approach to solving bacteria,” explains Floto. “Clearly this will the problem: look at the shape of the from the genome be applicable to normal TB, but we already polymorphism and its protein products have drugs that are effective against this. and try to find small molecules that sequence of the We want to know if this would work against can attach to and manipulate them. In multi-drug-resistant strains.” essence, it’s akin to picking a lock by Floto and colleagues already have a analysing the shape of its mechanism and organism, and we list of potential drugs that can stimulate trying to identify a key that could turn it, autophagy, drugs that have already been thus opening the door. want to establish licensed and are in use to treat other Yet even if the Chennai venture conditions, such as carbamazepine, is successful, and research from the and evaluate this which is used to treat epileptic seizures. partnership leads to a revolution in how These drugs are safe to use: the we understand and treat TB, the team technology in question is, will they work against TB? recognise that this is unlikely to be “We’ve already shown that enough to eradicate the disease for good. India, where it carbamazepine stimulates autophagy in “TB is as much a public health issue cells to kill TB – even multi-drug-resistant as one of infectious diseases,” says is needed” TB. We now want to refine it and test it in Ramakrishnan, pointing to Europe, mice and in fish, alongside a shortlist of where even before the introduction of around 30 other potential drugs,” he adds. antibiotics, the disease was already on TB evolves through ‘polymorphisms’ – the decline. “We need better nutrition, spontaneous changes in the letters of its better air, less smoking, reductions in DNA to create variants. Because the drug diabetes.” regimen to fight the disease lasts so long, Swaminathan agrees. “TB is very many patients do not take the full course much associated with poverty and all of their medicines. If the TB is allowed to the risk factors that go with it,” she says. relapse, it can evolve drug resistance. “When people are living in very crowded These patterns of resistance can be conditions, when they’re malnourished, detected using genome sequencing – TB is going to continue to spread. This reading the DNA of the bacteria. Peacock is happening in the slums of Mumbai, for believes this technique may be able to example, where we’re seeing a mini- help doctors more easily diagnose drug epidemic of multi-drug-resistant TB. resistance in patients. Unless we see a rapid improvement in the “TB is very slow to grow in the living standards of people we’re not going laboratory, which means that testing an to see a very major effect. There’s only so organism to confirm which antibiotics much we can do biomedically.” it is susceptible or resistant to can take several weeks, especially in the case of more resistant strains,” she says. “There is increasing evidence that antibiotic resistance can be predicted from the genome sequence of the organism, and “It might be that exhausted T cells we want to establish and evaluate this can’t fight multi-drug-resistant TB technology in India, where it is needed.” effectively, in which case we need to find This sequencing data could also then a way to overcome this exhaustion and help inform the search for new drugs, spur the T cells on to rid the body of the explains Professor Sir Tom Blundell from disease,” says Smith. the Department of Biochemistry. He is no For Floto, the key may lie in the role stranger to TB: his grandfather died from played by the macrophages and their the disease shortly after the war – though, otherwise voracious appetites. As their as Blundell points out, this strain of TB Greek name suggests, macrophages is far less common now, as the organism ‘eat’ unwanted material (surprisingly has evolved in different communities similar in action to Pac-Man), effectively throughout the world. chewing it up, breaking it down and “We can take the polymorphisms and spitting it out again. ask questions such as ‘What does this 9 Research Horizons

Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan The next generation Department of Medicine [email protected] If there’s one thing on the side of Professor Ken Smith science v. TB, it’s the wealth of Department of Medicine talent available in India. [email protected] Professor Sir Tom Blundell is quick to praise the Indian postdocs that come Professor Andres Floto to work in his lab. “They tend to be Department of Medicine naturally very inquisitive and interactive, [email protected] with very enquiring minds,” he says. This is something with which Professor Sharon Peacock Professor Ashok Venkitaraman, Director Department of Medicine and the of the Medical Research Council Bloomsbury Research Institute (MRC) Cancer Unit at Cambridge, [email protected] wholeheartedly agrees. He has helped establish the Center for Chemical Professor Sir Tom Blundell Biology and Therapeutics (CCBT) in Department of Biochemistry Bangalore in part, he says, because [email protected] “the number of really bright, well-trained young scientists in India is huge. The Professor Soumya Swaminathan level of enthusiasm and commitment is National Institute for Research in something I find quite exceptional.” Tuberculosis, India The CCBT is an inter-institutional [email protected] centre that links the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Professor Ashok Venkitaraman Medicine and the National Center MRC Cancer Unit at Cambridge for Biological Sciences, both [email protected] of which are world-class Indian research institutes studying fundamental biology. However, argues Venkitaraman, India needs the capacity to translate fundamental research to clinical application. It is to help bridge this gap that the CCBT was established, with funding from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in India, recently supplemented by a £2 million joint award from the UK MRC and the DBT. The idea is to find innovative ways to discover ‘next- generation’ medicines against human diseases, by coupling biological research that reveals novel drug targets with approaches in chemistry and structural biology that create potential drug candidates. Although Venkitaraman’s interest is in cancer, he predicts the work of the CCBT will be “disease agnostic”, because similar types of novel drug targets have been implicated in infectious diseases, cancer and even developmental defects. “We desperately need to develop new medicines not just for currently problematic diseases like cancer and TB, but also for the new challenges that are being thrown at us all the time – antibiotic resistance, new Volker Brinkmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology infections, metabolic syndromes and diseases of ageing, for example. Nowhere is this need more critical Image than in emerging nations like India Macrophage engulfing a where the spectrum of disease is tuberculosis pathogen distinct from countries like the UK.” 10 Feature

Education that adds up

“ That number of 250 million children without basic skills slaps you in the face – you can’t ignore it ”

Image School children in

Ratnagiri, India Vikram Raghuvanshi/Getty ImagesCredit: 11 Research Horizons

e are in the midst of a Rose leads Cambridge’s Research understanding of what is actually going “global learning crisis” for Equitable Access and Learning on in the classroom. In the newly funded according to UNESCO, (REAL) Centre, which has highlighted ESRC–DFID programme, Rose, Professor withW too many children worldwide some of the factors that limit children’s Anna Vignoles and Dr Nidhi Singal are learning little or nothing at school. A learning in India and Pakistan. working with an independent education new research programme focusing Among them are an over-ambitious research group in India – Collaborative on India and Pakistan aims to curriculum that leaves children behind Research and Dissemination (CORD) understand what needs to be done and a lack of training and support for – to create a new dataset that will to ensure that education adds up. teachers, who may themselves be follow children through their learning the product of a poor education. experience, from home to school. It’s a numbers game. Three million Now the Centre has been awarded Singal’s focus is on children with households, seven million children, funding by the Department for disabilities: “In many cases, children 30,000 volunteers, and a decade of International Development (DFID) and with disabilities are given access to assessing the basic reading and maths the Economic and Social Research mainstream school just for ‘socialisation abilities of 3–16-year olds across India. Council (ESRC) to look at ways to purposes' – there’s an assumption This is the size of the largest non- improve the effectiveness of teaching that they are not there to learn. governmental survey of the state of Indian quality in India and Pakistan. “My reason for researching what education ever conducted, and it’s a key “Education increases opportunities happens to children with disabilities source of information for communities in life, it can pull people out of poverty, in school is not only to do with issues and policymakers on children’s learning with better jobs and higher wages; for around social justice and human rights, outcomes available in India today. The girls, education often results in delaying but also because problems will be Annual Status of Education Report marriage and having fewer children, who magnified for the most marginalised (ASER) is all the more impressive given as a result are healthier,” she explains. of the marginalised – if teaching the deceptive simplicity and fundamental “Nationally, a young, educated workforce can be more effective for this group importance of the question it seeks to can transform the wealth of a country.” then it can respond to the needs answer: how many children are learning India has made a significant of all disadvantaged children.” the basics in mathematics and reading? investment in schooling over the past The research will assess children But the numbers have to be huge decade, achieving near universal both in the household and in schools, given what’s at stake. The education enrolment in primary education. testing their basic skills on a yearly system in India is in crisis; in rural areas, According to government figures, around basis. The aim is to identify what fewer than one in five poor children of 195 million children are currently in makes a difference to learning, and around 11 years of age have even the primary school. However, the question of to understand the problems teachers most basic of literacy and numeracy how effective is the teaching within the face and the support they need. skills, although most have been in school classroom has largely been overlooked. “There’s a big debate on how the for five years. And it’s a pattern echoed Over the past few months, Rose global Sustainable Development Goal worldwide in what UNESCO has declared and Dr Ben Alcott have been using of all children learning by 2030 can be “a global learning crisis” – even after the ASER datasets, covering all of achieved,” adds Rose. “This project will going to school, 250 million children rural India, to identify the extent to help understand what we need to do globally cannot read, write or count. which children are learning and who to make sure we are not failing children “What’s the point in an education in particular is being left behind. who are coming from some of the most if children emerge after years in “Among the most disadvantaged disadvantaged of backgrounds.” school without the skills they need?” girls, fewer than 10% are learning by the Will governments take notice? “I don’t says Professor Pauline Rose from time they should have had five years in think we as researchers can always go Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, school,” says Rose. “Some aren’t learning knocking on doors and say look at our whose team collaborates with the because they’ve dropped out of school, evidence. But I do think that, through the organisation in India responsible for others because of the poor quality of networks that CORD and ASER have, ASER. “The rhetoric about education education. Governments, schools and this research can have an influence. used to be about giving children access teachers have tended to focus on the These partnerships are really central to school but now it must also be more advantaged, able children. But to to what we do: it’s no good us sitting about making sure they learn what they close educational inequalities, they must here doing all this wonderful research need to learn once they are there.” focus on the disadvantaged, whether it’s if it’s not actually changing anything for Rose was previously Director of by poverty, gender, caste or disability.” children’s experiences on the ground.” UNESCO’s Education for All Global Rose and Alcott suggest five key Monitoring Report. In 2014, the Report steps: encourage children to start assembled the first evidence on the school as young as possible; set the scale of the education crisis. “There curriculum at the right pace for the Professor Pauline Rose was already a debate rumbling. It was majority of learners, not the minority of Research for Equitable Access becoming clear that increasing the able learners; train teachers to teach the and Learning Centre, number of children enrolling in school most disadvantaged learners; provide Faculty of Education was not enough. But the report brought schools with appropriate textbooks in [email protected] the evidence into one place. That the right language; and hold schools number of 250 million children without and policy makers accountable for Dr Nidhi Singal basic skills slaps you in the face – you improving learning outcomes for those Research for Equitable Access can’t ignore it. It’s also an entry point to who would otherwise be left behind. and Learning Centre, understanding why we have got to this Of course, improving the quality Faculty of Education situation and what we can do about it.” of education requires a better [email protected] 12 Feature

“gutsy” Indian approach to among the most influential rural Indian innovation is being echoed entrepreneurs. worldwide by multinational “Emerging markets like India, China, A touch companiesA adopting “frugal” approaches Brazil and Kenya are a breeding ground that help them do business faster, better for ideas like the MittiCool that transform and cheaper. scarcity into opportunity and do more with less,” explains Prabhu, the Jawaharlal of frugal Indian languages have no word for Nehru Professor of Indian Business at innovation. But India has jugaad. It Cambridge Judge Business School. means finding practical solutions, being “Jugaad innovation is one reason enterprising with resources, and learning why, despite a scarcity of food, water genius from the principles of flexibility and and energy, and limited healthcare and frugality. Jugaad is bigger than a word. education, India has one of the fastest It’s a mind-set. growing economies in the world.” To explain, Professor Jaideep Prabhu, And now, in a world that is increasingly co-author of Frugal Innovation: How to do described as ‘VUCA’ – volatile, uncertain, Better with Less published in 2015, points complex and ambiguous – the ‘winds of to a small clay box in the corner of his office. frugal innovation are blowing west’, as “It’s an ingenious invention! It consumes some of the world’s top companies are no electricity, is 100% biodegradable and embracing business models that look for produces zero waste.” simple solutions and then deliver them The MittiCool fridge is the brainchild quickly and at less cost. of Mansukh Prajapati, a potter by trade. Prabhu explains that it is a need- Water in an upper chamber of the clay based, bottom-up approach to innovation box seeps through the walls of a lower that has largely not been seen in Western Image chamber, cooling it through evaporation. economies since the early days of the Jugaad: low-cost but In a country where 500 million people Industrial Revolution. “The more usual high-value solutions live without reliable electricity, Prajapati pathway today is to channel innovation realised that his clay fridge could provide through large-scale R&D efforts, often with huge health benefits by keeping food crippling levels of costs, control and time. cool without the need for electricity and Take the pharma industry for example: R&D at an affordable price; he trained a local spending rose from $15 billion in 1995 to workforce and started mass production. $45 billion in 2009, yet the number of new Forbes magazine has since named him drugs launched annually dropped 44%.” Credit: All images, Penguin Random House Random Penguin images, All Credit: 13 Research Horizons

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction” But it’s still early days in the revolution. Prabhu and Radjou, co-authors of Frugal — Albert Einstein Innovation, estimate that around 5% of companies in developed economies are advanced in their frugal innovation journey, 15% have adopted some aspects and He adds: “Jugaad is gutsy and 80% have yet to formulate a strategy: different. It’s rather like comparing the “Implementing a frugal innovation strategy freedom and improvisation of a jazz in any organisation can be daunting. band with the set of rules and structures you combine them – you join the dots.” To There is no magic formula.” Radjou followed in a classical piece of music.” date, more than 10,000 of these low-cost and Prabhu are not suggesting that To research the principles of jugaad, ECG units have been sold. traditional innovation pathways involving Prabhu and co-authors Navi Radjou and Being able to act flexibly is key, Prabhu structured and rigorous R&D should be Simone Ahuja spent four years talking to explains. “Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata abandoned. They see each approach as rural entrepreneurs and leading Indian and Group, conceived of the Nano car as an complementary and part of an ‘innovation Western companies. The result was their affordable, safe alternative to the perilous toolkit’ to be used by businesses in 2012 book Jugaad Innovation – the first two wheelers that often carry whole developed and emerging markets alike. ‘recipe’ for how jugaad works and why families in India. When sales flagged, “The developed world needs the businesses are adopting its principles in they had to re-think their marketing and liveliness and the growth of the emerging their own innovation programmes. customer financing, and even the formality markets,” says Prabhu. He gives GE Healthcare as an of their rural showrooms.” On the other hand, says Tata, “Indian example. Like other multinationals, GE His research in the past three years has business needs to integrate the structured has set up a large R&D facility in India to charted how what has been the norm for Western R&D model of innovation with tap into India’s massive pool of scientists Indian innovators is turning into a global their free-flowing jugaad model to and engineers at reduced costs. “Although trend as companies across sectors – create a dynamic balance between both they went there initially for labour American Express, Ford, Marks & Spencer approaches in their organisations.” arbitrage, what they have stayed for is and Siemens among them – are becoming Prabhu concludes: “It’s symbiotic – the potential of the local market, and they part of the frugal innovation revolution. one feeds from the other. Jugaad teaches are innovating for that market in a jugaad Marks & Spencer, for instance, unveiled the West to innovate in ways that are way.” its Plan A 2020 last year (“because different. But equally, emerging markets Realising that access to expensive there is no plan B”), which set out an must learn about what makes the West the medical devices like electrocardiography environmentally frugal business model to West – the technology, the processes.” (ECG) machines was a problem for many reduce waste, increase energy efficiency “Ultimately, frugal innovation is thousands of people in rural areas, they and source sustainably. about people,” says Prabhu. “It is human developed a low-cost machine that could Post economic crisis, Ford has ingenuity that drives innovation – just like be carried by doctors from the city to the launched innovation initiatives to become Mansukh Prajapati and his clay fridge – countryside. “The innovation,” explains more agile in a future crisis. One of these seeking opportunity in adversity, doing Prabhu, “was in asking what was the ideal is a partnership with TechShop that offers more with less, being flexible and simple, product needed for the purpose, and then access to 3D printers and laser and and following your heart.” reusing off-the-shelf components developed machine tools – a playground for Ford for other applications, in this case bus ticket engineers and members of the public printers and telephone keypads. to tinker and bring their ideas to life. Professor Jaideep Prabhu “With the jugaad approach, instead Within a year, the tinkerers had helped Centre for India and Global Business of doing everything yourself, you look Ford more than double their output of Cambridge Judge Business School around you and see what’s available and patentable ideas. [email protected] 14 Feature

Man with a Bouquet of Plastic Flowers Credit: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 15 Research Horizons

Image Man with a Bouquet of Plastic The man at its Flowers (1976), Bhupen Khakhar centre looks lmost 40 years have passed straight at the since Bhupen Khakhar painted one of the most iconic paintings viewer, his face inA the history of Indian modern art. Devika Singh offers fresh insights into a shaded and generation of Indian artists whose work reflects the politics and social turmoil of mouth downcast a fascinating era.

Bhupen Khakhar’s portrait of a man Naxalite movement. In addition, the holding a bunch of plastic roses captures development of art should also be a keen sense of solitude. The man at its conceived internationally. Indian artists centre looks straight at the viewer, his travelled to the USA, UK and beyond, and face shaded and mouth downcast. His Western artists travelled to India. The result crossed arms contain his emotion; the was a two-way exchange of ideas.” flowers are clasped tight to his body. The Khakhar trained as an accountant figures and objects that surround him are before finding a voice as a painter. He was defined by their separation. particularly attracted to the vitality of ‘low Dr Devika Singh, Smuts Research art’. At the same time, he was engaged Fellow at the Centre of South Asian with the ‘high art’ that was making waves Studies, is a specialist in Indian modern on a global scale. In 1981, he came out as and contemporary art. Her recent research homosexual and, until his death in 2003, looks at Indian artists who worked post- his work spoke explicitly of his sexuality. independence and pays attention to, Singh says: “Khakhar defies the among others, those (like Khakhar) who frameworks that art historians and attended the art school at the University of curators like to use. Some commentators Baroda. These artists drew on a range of have suggested that he’s a Pop artist – but artistic currents and forged their names on he’s much more. The strength of his work, an international stage. and one of the reasons that it remains Painted in 1976, Khakhar’s Man with significant, is that it’s disruptive and a Bouquet of Plastic Flowers borrows provokes deep questions about society.” elements of Indian popular culture. The Khakhar’s friends and colleagues setting in which Khakhar places his included artists Vivan Sundaram, Mrinalini anonymous subject is taken from so- Mukherjee and Nalini Malani. Their work called calendar prints that feature famous addresses matters of political, communal politicians with scenes telling their life and gender identity, and has been stories. “Khakhar upends this visual recognised internationally. In spring 2016, convention,” says Singh. “The episodes Tate Modern will hold a solo exhibition of here speak of domestic intimacy, tension Bhupen Khakhar’s work, and Singh will and loneliness.” contribute to its catalogue. Shortly after, The 1960s and 1970s marked a critical she will co-convene a conference at the juncture in Indian art. After the first phase Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British of post-independence nation-building, Art and Tate Modern, on the history of the country wrestled with the multiple exhibitions of South Asian art in Britain. influences that permeated society. As By virtue of her academic studies in other post-colonial states, Indian in Paris (Lycée Condorcet), Cambridge intellectuals began to reflect on the (King’s College and Trinity College) and shortcomings of the first generation of London (Courtauld Institute), and her close Indian political leaders. connections with India, Singh has met and The late 1960s saw the emergence interviewed many artists and actors of the of the ‘Baroda school’, named after the post-independence art world. In many University’s Faculty of Arts, where the cases, she has been given access to their painter and teacher K.G. Subramanyan had archives, art collections and correspondence. a lasting impact. “Irony and individualism Drawing on these experiences, she is seeped into the work of artists – both are writing a book on post-independence apparent in Man with a Bouquet of Plastic Indian art for Reaktion Books and co- Flowers,” says Singh. curating an exhibition on photography in “The politics of the time had a big India for the Media Space in London. impact whether it was the countercultural movements or the anti-Vietnam protests, Dr Devika Singh and also took on specific garbs with the Centre of South Asian Studies rise of the Maoist rebellion known as the [email protected] 16 Feature

major research collaboration “What we’ve been doing is looking at the is looking at how small towns underpinning science, seeing what the “There are in the hills of India and Nepal political and social issues might be, and areA coping with increasing demand then working with the relevant people who always going to for water: who wins and who loses can intervene and make a difference.” when resources get scarce? Vira is leading a major research project that is examining the ways in be winners and Nainital is picture perfect: lying in a lush which small towns in hill and mountain green valley in India’s ‘Lake District’, the regions of South Asia depend on springs, losers when it town sits on a crescent-shaped lake, streams and rivers for their supply of surrounded by the snow-capped peaks water. Vira and his colleagues from the comes to water of the Himalayas. Its picturesque location Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies makes it a hugely popular destination in Nepal and the Centre for Ecology in India” for domestic and foreign visitors: each Development and Research (CEDAR) in year, Nainital’s population increases India are looking at six towns – four in fivefold due to the influx of tourists, India (including Nainital) and two in Nepal placing huge strains on the town’s – to understand how they are coping with resources, including the water supply. the ever-increasing demand for water. It’s not just tourists that are contributing The project is part of the Ecosystem to the strain, however. For years, Nainital Services for Poverty Alleviation has been plagued by illegal construction, programme, which is funded by the which has been affecting its ability to Natural Environment Research Council, supply water. The main lake in Nainital the Economic and Social Research is connected to a smaller lake via an Council and the UK’s Department “Many of these towns are looking at underground channel, and together they for International Development. what you’d call nature-based solutions supply most of the town’s water. The India is a wet country, but almost all – they don’t have the budget to pump smaller lake remains dry for just over half of the rain falls in about two and a half water in from 200 miles away,” says the year, but when it fills again during months during the annual monsoon. Vira, who is working with Dr Eszter the monsoon, it becomes an important The problem in India is how to safely Kovacs on the project. “So they’re much reserve reservoir for the main lake. store and transport water so that it’s more dependent on the water that’s But despite a ruling from the Indian available 12 months a year, and distributed available in their immediate vicinity, government banning development in the evenly throughout the country. and they’re looking at ways they can dry lake bed and the surrounding area, Small towns – those with populations harness the resources they do have.” illegal construction has been relentless, below 100,000 – in the hill regions of One of the approaches that the to the point where the smaller lake India and Nepal have grown rapidly, with researchers are taking is to identify and can no longer store enough water to very little planning for infrastructure protect what they call ‘critical water supply the main lake, and water levels needs, more generally, and water zones’ – places where the springs that in Nainital are under severe pressure. supply, in particular. Across the region, ultimately supply many of these towns “Not being able to supply water is almost half of the urban population in are recharged. For example, one of the a major liability for any government or the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh towns (Rajgarh, in Himachal Pradesh) local authority,” says Dr Bhaskar Vira of and Uttarakhand, and in the hill which the researchers are studying has Cambridge’s Department of Geography. regions of Nepal, live in small towns. its water source in the Churdhar Wildlife Sanctuary, which not only protects the wildlife, but also protects the water supply, as the trees absorb the water so it doesn’t run off. The ultimate benefit is a dual one, since the landscape is protected, but so is the water supply for the town. “Water is a precious resource, and it’s very rare to find a water source in India that has no other existing users,” says Vira. “So there are always going to be trade-offs; there are always going to be winners and losers when it comes to water in India.” In Rajgarh, water that is being piped from 14 km away to the town is 17 Research Horizons

Image Nainital, northern India, faces an ever-increasing demand for water

bypassing villages along the way, raising concerns about the water needs of the surrounding rural communities. In Mussoorie, another popular Uttarakhand tourist town, the team is looking at the dhobi (washing) community, which for about 100 years has washed all of the laundry generated by the local hotels, schools and passing tourists by hand in the local stream. Today, the work of the dhobi is supplemented by washing machines and driers, but much of the washing is still done in the stream, and many people still rely on it for their livelihoods. About 15 years ago, town authorities needed to increase their water capacity and approached the dhobi community to ‘share’ their water with the town, through

the laying of new pipes and construction Credit: Ross Huggett on Flickr of a pumping station. Unsurprisingly, they were resistant to the idea. “Eventually, a compromise was reached so that some of the water was left behind for the dhobi the community,” says Dr Vishal Singh from Dr Bhaskar Vira to continue washing, but is it working? CEDAR, one of Vira’s collaborators, who Department of Geography Was it a fair trade-off, for the town or recently spent two months in Cambridge and University of Cambridge the dhobi? These are the kinds of issues on a Commonwealth Professional Conservation Research Institute we’re looking at,” says Vira, who is Fellowship. “This lake is so important for [email protected] Director of the University of Cambridge the region’s sustainability and, for years, Conservation Research Institute. construction was allowed to continue Dr Eszter Kovacs Back in Nainital, the researchers despite the fact that it was illegal.” Department of Geography supported local activists who brought In mid-July, the high court ordered a case to the Uttarakhand high court the formation of two committees: Dr Vishal Singh to remove the illegal buildings. The one to mark and demolish the illegal Centre for Ecology Development Cambridge–CEDAR team also convened constructions, and another to determine and Research, India expert geologists and hydrologists which officials were liable for allowing the who made recommendations construction to happen in the first place. about how the lake’s water-storing Singh, who grew up in Nainital, says capacity could be restored, which he’d like to see the dry lake bed returned in turn supported the legal case. to what it was when he was a child. “It “Additionally, through our awareness should be cleaned up and preserved so campaign, we were able to galvanise the children can play there in the dry season,” local population so they could see the risk he says. “This lake is so important to that this illegal construction is posing to Nainital’s identity – let’s preserve it.” 18 Feature Credit: CIAT/Neil Palmer on Flickr

“A typical supply chain can be a vast, sprawling network”

Image n this age of rapid and escalating of competitive advantage. Companies Increasing the efficiency change, what can businesses do that can more optimally ‘configure’ this of food supply chains can to flourish? Take a look at their complex network have the opportunity supplyI chains, say researchers in the decrease wastage not only to improve their business but Centre for International Manufacturing, also to do so sustainably in an otherwise based on their research in the UK resource-hungry and wasteful world. and India. “Many supply chains today have developed over time, a consequence of A typical supply chain can be a vast, often short-term tactical decisions or sprawling network of producers, ill-considered mergers and acquisitions,” suppliers, ‘super middlemen’, retailers he explains. “There may be large and consumers that connect, for distances between component supply instance, a piece of mined aluminium and the end product, delays in sharing with a finished car, or a field of wheat information along the chain, or an with a loaf of bread on the table. excessive fragmentation of activities. Dr Jag Srai and the team he heads in “Within little more than a generation, the Centre for International Manufacturing the traditional model of a vertically like nothing better than a complex, integrated firm, which has most of multi-faceted supply chain, because its component and final product in- within the connections lies a vital source house, has become fragmented. 19 Research Horizons

The project is funded by the UK’s “Supply chains that link the UK and Engineering and Physical Sciences India incur waste up- and downstream. Research Council and the Indian The figures are quite scary – you Department of Science and Technology. sometimes wonder how anything ends It began a year ago but follows a previous up on a plate!” observes Srai. study in which the team created a set of He highlights how crucial it has representations of the UK food supply been to work closely with Indian chain for dairy, fruit and vegetables, and researchers, industry and policy makers, staple foods. It was painstakingly collated helped by funding through the UK India from industrial reports, literature reviews Education and Research Initiative: “We and first-hand case studies, as well as have chosen partners in India who interviews with key industrial players. complement our skills. It’s like a supply The resulting map provides a chain in action! It has seen a continuous fascinating insight into the dynamics stream of collaborations emerging of networks that many consumers out of this, none of which would have are unaware of – such as the one that been possible without this project.” links a cow on a dairy farm to a pint For instance, researchers at the Indian of milk on a UK doorstep (a seven- Institute of Technology Ropar and the step process, as it turns out). Indian Institute of Management Lucknow Crucially, it also identifies how new have been looking at how simulation and trends are being driven by an increasing modelling of operations could be used demand from consumers to know where to flag up sustainability challenges. their food is coming from and for cheaper, “Our Centre’s research on ‘network own-brand labels. “Organisations that mapping’ tools and close links to industry are able to align these complex networks have meant that we have provided with their own strategic aims have an methods and industry contacts to our opportunity to set themselves apart partners, while leveraging their specialist from their competitors,” explains Srai. skills in the specific areas that we require. One of the researchers’ main interests We have also taken the combined is how maps such as this can be used output to inform our wider work in the to foster a more sustainable approach University’s Strategic Research Initiative to manufacturing, as Dr Mukesh Kumar on Global Food Security,” says Srai. explains: “Food security, for instance, “Technology, supply chains and the is a global challenge as populations way markets and regions develop become continue to grow, yet 30–40% of food in interesting change agents. I believe the UK is currently wasted, mostly at the that our research network will be able Today, for manufacturing a typical retail and consumer end of the chain.” to anticipate these changes,” he adds. consumer electronics product, dozens Working with their collaborators “It’s only by understanding a company’s of firms in as many countries might in India, the team has now generated overall global supply network – a ‘whole be involved in its manufacture, with comparable maps of the Indian food system’ approach – that it’s possible activities dispersed among narrowly supply chain. The comparison could to appreciate the opportunities and the focused companies distributed across help each to explore the key differences benefits that can emerge for doing things developed and emerging economies.” and identify how multinationals from better, wherever you are in the world.” Srai’s team has been mapping one country looking to do business these global networks across multiple in the other might need to adapt sectors, developing novel tools for a supply chain to work best. their visualisation and for identifying “The UK food retail chain is dominated opportunities to reconfigure them to by a few large, organised retailers who meet demand more effectively. control 73% of UK grocery sales, and as Of particular focus has been a result exert considerable influence over a comparison of the food and upstream partners in the chain, whereas in pharmaceutical process industries, India this type of organised retail accounts and the assembly power houses of for only 12% of sales,” Kumar explains. aeronautical and automotive industries, “But the largest difference is where in both the UK and India. the wastage happens. In India, most “Manufacturing is a top priority in both wastage occurs at the early stages of countries,” explains Professor Sir Mike the supply chain, with tonnes of fruit Gregory, former Head of the Institute for and vegetables perishing due to poor Manufacturing, where the Centre is handling and storage facilities and based. “In the UK, the government has lack of cold chain infrastructure.” placed manufacturing at the heart of According to estimates by the Dr Jagjit Singh Srai plans for economic recovery. And in United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Dr Mukesh Kumar India, the government launched the Organization, each year about 40% of Professor Sir Mike Gregory ‘Make in India’ initiative in 2014 with India’s fresh fruit and vegetables rot Centre for International the aim of transforming the country before reaching consumers’ plates, as Manufacturing, into a major global manufacturing hub does an amount of wheat almost equal Institute for Manufacturing and generating millions of new jobs.” to Australia’s total annual production. [email protected] 20 Feature

Mumbai Ghaziabad Cambridge’s ―― Geotechnical centrifuge development ―― Unique identity project ―― Nanoscience and nanotech Jaipur engagement ―― Thorium as uranium replacement ―― Sanskrit manuscripts Pune ―― South Asia democratic cultures with India ―― Drug discovery Lucknow ―― Radio astrophysics ―― Climate change and Indus Hyderabad Valley Civilisation The University’s strategic ―― Gas turbine performance Jodhpur ―― Solar cells ―― Sanskrit manuscripts engagement with India ―― Microstructural properties Varanasi focuses on collaborative ―― Genotype mapping � ―― Land, water, and settlement ―― Gas sensing platform � ―― Sanskrit manuscripts research partnerships ―― Fuel cells Ahmedabad across a wide range of Gulbarga ―― Sustainable housing ―― Public health monitoring � ―― Teacher training disciplines; including public Mangalore Kolkata health and biomedical ―― Conservation studies ―― Migration patterns Bangalore Mumbai sciences; energy and ―― Advanced materials ―― Kāśikāvṛtti Sanskrit research sustainability; education, ―― EU–India grid infrastructure ―― Economic history and growth ―― Multiple carrier generation � ―― ICT in reducing rural humanities and social ―― Solar cells development bottlenecks sciences; and innovation, ―― Solar atmosphere Bangalore ―― Design education ―― Education policy formations entrepreneurship ―― Conservation studies ―― Education of disabled children and business. ―― Avian flight mechanisms ―― Visual histories of South Asia ―― Stem cells Chennai ―― Drug discovery ―― ICT in reducing rural ―― Signalling and development development bottlenecks � Science and Technology ―― Centre for Chemical Biology Pondicherry and Therapeutics ―― Sanskrit manuscripts Jammu ―― Open source drug discovery ―― Seismic structure modelling � ―― Infection and immunity Business entrepreneurship and Chandigarh ―― Student Conference on other related activity ―― Drug discovery Conservation Science ―― Supply chains ―― Digital social healthcare � Delhi Delhi Chennai ―― Entrepreneurship training ―― Gas turbine performance ―― Paleo-climatological environments ―― Training for Indian Administrative ―― Public health training ―― Tuberculosis immunity and infection Service officers ―― Organic–inorganic devices � ―― Diabetes epidemiology Lucknow ―― Split-site PhD programme with ―― Oncology ―― Development programmes nano-doctoral training centre � Vellore Ahmedabad Lucknow ―― Community participation ―― Family entrepreneurship training ―― Drug discovery to tackle tuberculosis Mumbai ―― Supply chains ―― Tuberculosis immunity and infection ―― Sustainability leadership ―― Coronary thrombosis Mysore ―― Strategic road-mapping SIKKIM STATE ―― Drug discovery Hyderabad ―― Seismic monitoring Coimbatore ―― Training for police officers Kanpur ―― Wild rice improvements Bangalore ―― Fluid dynamics ―― Bangalore–Cambridge ―― Solar cells Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Innovation Network Gwalior Mysore ―― Supply chains Delhi ―― Capacity building Shillong ―― Historian exchange programme ―― Indian corporate governance ―― Seismic monitoring ―― Political economy and development Jamshedpur ―― Visual histories of South Asia ―― Microstructural properties of materials ―― Sanskrit manuscripts ―― Transformation of steel ―― Migration patterns Kolkata ―― Religious organisations ―― Detection of pesticides � as service providers ―― Steel composites ―― Global histories of science ―― Drug discovery ―― Climate change and Indus ―― Seismic velocity � Valley Civilisation � Nagpur ―― Ethnographic analysis of � Funded by the UK–India ―― Sunspot behaviour police union politics Education and Research ―― Fuel cells ―― South Asia democratic cultures Initiative (UKIERI) 21 Research Horizons

“Our relationship with India recognises our shared past and a rapidly developing – and exciting – future”

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz Vice-Chancellor

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics

Arts, humanities and social sciences

Business entrepreneurship and other related activity 22 Feature

A cacophony of more than a billion voices and stories all straining to make themselves heard. Some shout, some whisper, others scream. Few are silent Credit: Michael Bumann on Flickr on Bumann Michael Credit: Research Horizons

A DEMOCRATIC CACOPHONY

ndia is home to one of the most vibrant, engaged and mystifying democracies on the planet. ICambridge academics, across a wide range of disciplines, are working on the ground – with citizens, charities, NGOs, fellow scholars and politicians – to try to untangle it.

In a remote village in a forgotten corner of West Bengal lives an old man called Fakhruddin Gazi. He has lived in the village for every one of his long years. However, since India was partitioned in 1947, Fakhruddin Gazi has lived in fear, unable to leave the small landholding his family has owned for generations. A thousand miles away in Rajasthan, the state’s first female Chief Minister is showered with garlands and the kind of affection usually reserved for pop stars, not politicians. The masses clamour to touch her feet. Devotees deify her with all the reverence of a Hindu goddess. Just down the road in Jaipur, an enterprising and popular middle-aged man is making and receiving calls on one of his three mobile phones. The conversations he conducts link voters to politicians, slum-dwellers to local officials. If you need a fake birth certificate, a government job, or your home connected to the electrical grid – his is the number you need to call. In Gujarat, a casually employed labourer is being interviewed. The man is a Dalit, a member of the lowest caste in India’s order of social stratification. Dalits used to go by another name – ‘untouchables’. He tells Dr Manali Desai, who has travelled from Cambridge to interview him, about his political leanings. “Since the BJP came there have been no more riots. We live peacefully. It is not as it used to be. There is progress everywhere. It has become America now... nice cinemas and long roads have been built. It all seems like a dream.” This is India on any given day. A cacophony of more than a billion voices and stories all straining to make themselves heard. Some shout, some whisper, others scream. Few are silent. Each and every voice – Brahmin or Dalit, Muslim or Hindu, old or young – has something unique to tell us about the nature of democracy in India: its flaws and foibles, its puzzles and paradoxes, its successes and its shames. All have their part to play in informing our understanding of the world’s Image largest democracy; a democracy often Election campaign in the 2014 celebrated, regularly condemned and General Election in India impossible to ignore. 24 Feature

of governments to tackle the issues surrounding minority citizenship, Chatterji does have hope for the future. “There is much that is great about Indian democracy and much that is not. My work on internally displaced Muslims has persuaded me that the impact of partition on minorities who stayed behind was far less benign than has often been assumed. However, I do see lots of light in popular organisation and mobilisation around a host of issues of injustice in India. We don’t see this emanating from the state or high politics, but the country is absolutely teeming with everyday movements on the ground. The state has to pay attention to them. There are protests all the time; we have an Arab Spring of sorts in India every day.” Sociologist Dr Manali Desai is another researcher with an ambivalent view on India’s future. Her recent work has looked into the reshaping of the country’s political landscape and how Credit: Nilanjan Chowdhury/Al Jazeera on Flickr the ruling BJP party (historically seen as conservative and elitist) has won the significant backing of many lower-caste Image voters in states like Gujarat. A woman shows her inked has lived with the consequences of While the rise, and aspirational voting thumb as proof of voting partition since the late 1940s. In the habits, of the Indian middle class has upheaval that came with the new been much discussed and documented, international border and the Radcliffe Desai believes that the BJP’s paradoxical Line, his family fled to East Pakistan (now success in attracting voters from the Dalit Bangladesh) while he stayed to tend to and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) – the graves of his ancestors. when the personal benefits of voting BJP Gangs grabbed most of his property cannot be demonstrated – has a great deal and burned his home while the police did more to tell us about 21st-century India. Some of the stories Cambridge nothing. In 1965, India enacted ‘enemy “The BJP claims that the people academics are uncovering – like property’ ordinances that gave the state of Gujarat support [Prime Minister] Professor Joya Chatterji’s experiences unfettered powers – which could not be Narendra Modi because of the with Fakhruddin Gazi – interrogate the challenged in any court – to seize the development he has brought to the foundations and principles of post- property of anyone ‘fraternising with the state,” says Desai. “Yet numerous partition democracy, highlighting enemy’. Since then, Fakhruddin has been studies show that social development in a legacy of injustice and inequality afraid to leave the tiny plot he still has, Gujarat lags behind that of many states against a sub-class of India’s own for fear of being dispossessed. and the benefits of development have not citizens. The work of others, like social “My work looks at the origins and reached beyond the middle classes.” anthropologist Dr Anastasia Piliavsky, precise nature of minority citizenship,” Desai believes that it is precisely directly challenges the Western world’s says Chatterji, Director of the Centre the BJP’s ‘development discourse’ accepted notions of what democracy of South Asian Studies. “Unless you that has attracted lower-caste votes in should look like, arguing that our rush to understand its legacies of impoverishment, high numbers despite many Dalits and brand Indian politics as a basket case of deprivation and seizure of property, OBCs continuing to face widespread corruption and crime is, in part, a failure addressing contemporary problems of discrimination, lacking access to water and in our own understanding as to the minorities in India’s democracy will be less electricity supplies, and being subject to needs and sensibilities of more than 800 straightforward. evictions and relocations. ‘Development’ million registered voters in India. “Minority citizens are seen as ‘lesser’ and ‘peace’ were words often uttered in Chatterji’s work on refugees, and this is enshrined in the constitution. interviews, something the BJP juxtaposed minorities and the rights of marginalised Even when India and Pakistan accorded with an ‘unruly and chaotic’ past. groups in West Bengal and beyond raises these citizens formal membership, they set “India is still in the early stages of questions about the history and meaning them apart legally from full citizenship in exploding capitalism, and for hundreds of citizenship for minority communities vital ways. Their standing is diminished.” of millions of India’s young, this is all they in India, particularly for individuals like Chatterji has made extensive use of have ever known,” says Desai. “Urban Fakhruddin – an Indian Muslim caught on records kept in the National Archives of voters are not aware of rural issues and the ‘wrong side’ at the time of partition. India, and many regional archives across young rural men seek to migrate to cities Once the head of a Sunni family that the subcontinent, to supplement extensive to find jobs. This has all helped the BJP’s owned several acres of good paddy land fieldwork and oral history. Despite the remarkable rise as India has repositioned and many heads of cattle, Fakhruddin current status quo and unwillingness itself in the global economy.” 25 Research Horizons

Looking to the future, Desai underpins all Indian politics – subjects Nehru and Today’s India says: “I am both hopeful and not. that Desai also came across regularly in The established order of things was her interviews with Dalits and OBCs. stultifying the economy and politics, “In India, politics is about relations To complement the work of and new technology and innovation, an and hierarchies,” says Piliavsky. “It Cambridge researchers studying increasingly young population and a new is about obligations and loyalties to Indian democracy, the University is awareness of India’s place globally are all one’s own. We may call this irruption also active as a neutral and respected very positive developments. into the bureaucratic process and convenor of debates in India among “But there has also been a deepening law ‘corruption’. Yet it is precisely this Indian politicians, writers, artists, and normalising of Hinduistic strains. ‘corruption’ – the sprawling, tangled web economists and diplomats. This is particularly potent when young of human relations – that animates India’s Following the success of the people should be opening up, not closing democratic process and drives hundreds inaugural India–Cambridge summit down. That worries me. India has very of millions to the voting booths.” in 2012, the Vice-Chancellor’s deep inequalities around caste. When She contends that attachments to Endowment Fund supported a major not addressed, they come back with a people, rather than ‘left’ or ‘right’, is what conference in Delhi in February 2015 vengeance. But overall, yes, India will draws many into political life and shapes on ‘Nehru and Today’s India’, which become a more democratic place. Lower- political loyalties. Voters expect politicians was broadcast on NDTV, one of India’s caste parties rule in several states despite to give, be it food, money or public goods, leading news channels. being excluded in more and more ways. as part of their responsibility to the voters. Both events were conceptualised More quotas and more jobs for lower Many do not see the distribution of food by Dr Shruti Kapila (Faculty of History), castes is the only way around this.” and alcohol as corruption. To them, the who also provided Indian election India’s democracy is a subject of betrayal of relations is the real meaning of analysis for Al Jazeera and Bloomberg consuming fascination to Anastasia corruption; when people don’t deliver to TV, and has inaugurated a seminar Piliavsky, who in 2013 went on the those whom they owe. series on Indian issues in the House of Getting anything done in India – Lords. from buying a car, arranging a marriage or attracting voters – requires ‘approaches’. Cash does pass hands, but there are few quick and easy sales. Each arrangement A democracy often works through bonds of mutual sympathy, favour and trust. Few in politics can celebrated, regularly avoid spending large sums of money on their constituencies. condemned and As well as defending a democracy often compared with the scandalised impossible to ignore governments of Sub-Saharan Africa, Piliavsky is also more sanguine than many Western commentators about Modi’s Prime Ministership. “Most of those who voted for Modi campaign trail with Rajasthan’s future did so because they believe him to be a Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. She highly effective leader, a man who can was given privileged access to Raje’s get things done. However sound that campaign machine and the chance belief may be, delivering on his many to understand what Piliavsky calls (often improbable) promises is what will “the logic of Indian democracy” – an keep him in office – not backing a violent oxymoron to many. ideology rejected by many Indian citizens Politics and corruption in the world’s and the international community alike. largest democracy are never far from the Having promised millions of new jobs and headlines, either in Indian newspapers having brought many Muslims to the BJP, or on news websites around the world. Modi can now ill afford communal riots. A Google search for ‘Indian corruption’ What India has shown is that no Dr Manali Desai returns almost as many hits as ‘Indian politician is ever good enough. No one Department of Sociology democracy’. can sit pretty, Modi least of all. He’s [email protected] Piliavsky’s research occupies the going to have to work day and night liminal area between the two as she to deliver a small portion of what he’s Professor Joya Chatterji seeks to understand why a political promised. The Indian citizens are not Centre of South Asian Studies system so often regarded as corrupt fools, they know he promised too much, [email protected] and amoral continually engages and they will watch him closely. There hundreds of millions of voters – and is no cult of personality, only a ‘cult of Dr Anastasia Piliavsky attracts turnouts which are the envy of action’. And if Modi’s electorate does not Department of Social Anthropology many Western democracies. feel he has done enough by the end of [email protected] Piliavsky believes that looking at his first term in office, they will expunge India solely through the prism of Western him, just as they did with Indira Gandhi Dr Shruti Kapila sensibilities misses the moral significance before. This is the way of India’s restive, Faculty of History of ‘relationships’ and ‘community’ that fickle democracy.” [email protected] 26 Feature

he Alpine–Himalayan belt, which stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, is one of the world’s T most seismically active regions. Now, a combination of earth science, social science and education is being used to help the region become more resilient to earthquakes, protecting lives and property.

The Ganges is India’s most iconic river, flowing from the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal, and its massive river basin is one of the most fertile and densely populated regions in the world. The Ganges flows through 29 cities with a population over 100,000, 23 cities with a population between 50,000 and 100,000, and close to 50 towns. But someday – perhaps tomorrow earthquakes over millions of years: or perhaps in 100 years – a massive forcing mountains upwards and making earthquake will hit the region, and the life in the desert possible by controlling consequences could be catastrophic: as where water comes to the surface. many as a million lives in the Ganges river As the earthquake faults grind rocks basin could be at risk, primarily because together they make an impermeable clay, buildings have not been constructed to be which often forces water to the surface earthquake resilient, despite the fact that along spring lines, determining where the relevant building codes are in place. people live. To the casual observer, it Of course, earthquakes don’t seems as if the major earthquakes in this respect borders, and India is not alone in part of the world often seem to ‘target’ being at risk due to poorly constructed towns and cities but, in reality, people are buildings. Northern India lies in the often simply living where the water is, Alpine–Himalayan earthquake belt, which which is also where earthquakes happen. stretches from the Mediterranean to the Between 2 and 2.5 million people Pacific. It is the second-most seismically have died in earthquakes since 1900. active region in the world, and responsible Approximately two thirds of those for around 20% of the world’s largest deaths occurred in earthquakes in the earthquakes. The belt is being created by continental interiors – places like northern ongoing plate tectonics: as the African, India. Over that time, advances in the Arabian and Indian plates continue to scientific understanding of earthquakes move northwards, they collide with the have been translated into impressive Eurasian plate. resilience in places where the hazard is The earthquake belt includes the well understood, which are mainly on most famous of the great trade routes, the edges of the oceans. Comparable the Silk Road, which follows the edges advances have not, however, taken place of deserts and mountains, and high in most parts of the continental interiors, plateaus like Tibet. The landscape where the hazard is still much less well of the Silk Road has been shaped by identified and poorly understood. “Earthquake science has progressed so that we’re now much better at recognising the signals in the landscape that tell us whether a particular place is dangerous,” says Professor James Jackson, Head of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “We can’t tell you exactly when an earthquake is going to happen, but we can say it will happen, not least because it’s happened before. If it’s happened before, it will happen again. What we can do, however, is to understand earthquakes better and use that knowledge to help make buildings safer.” 27 Research Horizons

Four years ago, with funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, Jackson and colleagues from other universities in the UK established Earthquakes Without Frontiers (EWF), an international partnership bringing together Perhaps the most important change earthquake scientists from across the that can be made to increase earthquake great earthquake belt, from China to Italy, resilience in these areas is the enforcement in order to share expertise. “But it soon of building codes. The building codes in became clear that the project was about Los Angeles and Tehran are similar, but much more than earthquake science, and the difference is that in Los Angeles, most the real issue was how to translate science buildings are constructed according to into effective policy, which requires an those codes, while in Tehran most are understanding of the social context in not, so as a result, Los Angeles is highly which people live,” says Jackson. resilient to earthquakes, while Tehran With additional funding from the remains very vulnerable. Economic and Social Research Council, “Enforcement comes not just from EWF expanded to include social science legal enforcement, but education,” adds and policy dimensions. The project, which Jackson. “People are really starting to runs until 2017, has three overarching realise that this is important. And once you objectives: to increase knowledge of educate the public, it rises up the agenda earthquake hazards across the region; to because the public insists that it does. establish greater resiliency against these “There are going to be around a billion hazards; and to establish a well-networked new homes built across Asia over the next interdisciplinary partnership to support 10 years – let’s build them so they are safe.” local earthquake scientists. Within Asia, there are more than 50 national level stakeholders who are working with EWF on “In these big cities, everyday life is earthquake risk reduction. difficult enough: they’re very congested, Across much of the earthquake belt, they have huge problems with traffic, people live in large cities, mostly in poorly air quality, water quality, food supply built apartment blocks and buildings that and poverty,” explains Jackson. “And Professor James Jackson have not been designed to withstand quite understandably, the risk of Department of Earth Sciences earthquakes. Large cities such as an earthquake seems quite remote [email protected] Tehran, Almaty and Bishkek have all been compared to daily worries. But that destroyed multiple times by earthquakes, doesn’t make the threat go away.” Dr Supriyo Mitra and it’s only a matter of time before the “We face two main problems: the Indian Institute of Science Education next one hits. The problem that EWF faces first is that there is a lack of awareness and Research Kolkata, India is convincing the public and policy makers of the fact that seismologists cannot of the importance of making towns and predict earthquakes – it’s just not cities more earthquake resilient. something we are able to do or will be able to do,” says Dr Supriyo Mitra of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata. Mitra obtained his PhD at Cambridge, and is now one of the key Indian academic collaborators on the project, primarily working in Indian-administered Kashmir. “The other problem is that there is a lot of resistance to making buildings safe. It is an additional cost, but it’s a necessity and we need to get that across to people.” 28 Feature

he history of science has been “The ‘go-betweens’ are the individuals centred for too long on the West, who, across the centuries, have been the say Simon Schaffer and Sujit cogs that have kept science moving,” TSivasundaram. It’s time to think global. he explains. “They are the knowledge brokers and translators, networkers and The year was 1789; the place Bengal. messengers – the original ‘knowledge Isaac Newton’s masterpiece Principia transfer facilitators’. Their role may have Mathematica was being translated for only disappeared from mainstream histories Europeans often the third time in its already 100-year-old of science, but their tradecraft has been history; this time, into Arabic. indispensable to the globalisation of accumulated The author of this remarkable feat of science.” scholarship was Tafazzul Husain Khan. Schaffer and Dr Sujit Sivasundaram knowledge in India According to a member of the ruling East are historians of science with an interest in India Company: “Khan… by translating understanding how the seeds of scientific the works of the immortal Newton, has knowledge have spread and grown. They by engaging conducted those imbued with Arabick believe that the global history of science is literature to the fountain of all physical and really the history of shifts and reinventions with pandits, or astronomical knowledge.” of a variety of ways of doing science For Professor Simon Schaffer, who across the world. learned men has researched the story of Tafazzul’s They, and others, have called for achievements, the complex work of a retelling of science’s past, not only translation is deeply significant. Tafazzul to be more “culturally symmetric” but worked with scholars in English, also because the issue has enormous Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit language contemporary relevance. communities in his efforts to connect “A standard tale is that modern Newtonian theories with the Indo-Persian science spread around the world from intellectual tradition. For Tafazzul was, as Western Europe, starting about 500 years Schaffer describes, “a go-between”. ago based on the work of those such as

A WORLD OF SCIENCE

Image The European in India, 1813

by Charles D’Oyly (1781–1845) Collection/Bridgeman Images Private Credit: 29 Research Horizons

One conundrum the researchers The art of listening in debated was how global narratives of science could have been missed by scholars for so long. It largely stems Knowledge networks were as from the use of source materials says important to the building of British Schaffer: “It’s an archival problem: as far political intelligence in north India in as the production and preservation of the 18th and 19th centuries as they sources is concerned, those connected were to the diffusion of science. with Europe far outweigh those from No discussion of Indian history, other parts of the world.” or of the communication and the “If we are to de-centre from Europe, movement of knowledge, would be we need to use radically new kinds of complete without reference to the work sources – monuments, sailing charts, of the late Professor Sir Christopher courtly narratives, and so on,” explains Bayly (1945–2015). Sivasundaram. He gives an example of Bayly saw the role of Indian spies, Sri Lankan palm-leaf manuscripts: “The runners and knowledgeable secretaries Mahavamsa is a Buddhist chronicle of the as crucial to the British in helping to history of Sri Lanka spanning 25 centuries. keep information and gossip flowing Among the deeds of the last kings of in the 1780s and 1860s. His ground- Kandy, I noticed seemingly inconsequential breaking research uncovered the references to temple gardens. This led me social and intellectual origins of these back to the colonial archive documenting informants, and showed how networks the creation of a botanic garden in 1821, of ‘go-betweens’ helped the British and I realised that the British had ‘recycled’ understand India’s politics, economic a Kandyan tradition of gardening, by activities and culture. building their colonial garden on the site of “One overriding reason why the East a temple garden.” India Company was able to conquer Moreover, says Sivasundaram, the India… was that the British had learnt mechanisms of knowledge assimilation the art of listening in on the internal are often overlooked. Europeans often communications of Indian polity and accumulated knowledge in India by society,” he explained in his seminal Newton, Copernicus and Galileo, and then engaging with pandits, or learned men. work Empire and Information (1996). Darwin, Einstein, and so on,” explains “The Europeans did not have a monopoly Ultimately, however, India’s complex Schaffer. “But this narrative about the over the combination of science and systems of debate and communication globalisation of science just doesn’t work empire – the pioneering work of Chris challenged the political and intellectual at all. It ignores a remarkable process Bayly [see panel] shows how they fought dominance of the British; it was their of knowledge exchange that happened to take over information networks and misunderstanding of the subtleties of between the East and West for centuries.” scientific patronage systems that were Indian politics and values, he argues, “Successful science is seen to already in place. For Europeans to practice that contributed to the British failure to be universal in its applicability,” adds astronomy in India, for instance, it meant anticipate the 1857 Mutiny–Rebellion. Sivasundaram. “Yet, accounts of scientific translating Sanskrit texts and engaging World-renowned for his enormous discovery, heroism and priority have been with pandits.” contributions to his subject, Bayly was part and parcel of a political narrative of “Very often, scientific achievement the Director of Cambridge’s Centre of competitive ownership by empires, nations is used as a standard to measure a South Asian Studies until his retirement and civilisations. To tease this story country’s progress because science and in 2014, as well as President of St apart, we focus on the exchanges and technology can intervene in problems Catharine’s College, and the Vere ‘silencings’ across political configurations of hunger, disease and development,” Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and that are central to the rise of science on adds Sivasundaram. “If a biased history of Naval History in the Faculty of History. the global stage.” science is told, then the past can become He completely transformed Over the past two years, with funding what Irfan Habib has called a ‘battlefield’, people’s understanding of India in from the Arts and Humanities Research instead of a ‘springboard’ for future research the 18th and 19th centuries, explains Council, he and Schaffer have undertaken or indeed for conversation across cultures.” Professor Joya Chatterji, the Centre’s a programme of debates to ask whether This is why, says Schaffer, it becomes current Director: “Chris has been one a transregional rather than a Eurocentric so important to provide a better account of of the most influential figures in the history of science could now be told. the worldly interaction between the kinds field of modern Indian history. Every To do so, they teamed up with of knowledge communicated, the agents of one of his monographs broke new researchers in India and Africa, including communication – like Tafazzul Husain Khan ground, whether in political, social and Professor Irfan Habib from Delhi’s National – and the paths they travelled. economic, or latterly intellectual history.” University of Educational Planning and His work was increasingly drawn Administration and Professor Dhruv Raina Professor Simon Schaffer towards ‘world historical’ comparisons of Jawarhalal Nehru University, and in Department of the History and connections; his The Birth of the December 2014 held an international and Philosophy of Science Modern World (2004) transformed workshop at the Nehru Memorial Library [email protected] the understanding of the history of in New Delhi. “And now our debate is also modernity itself, drawing attention to its being carried forward by a new generation Dr Sujit Sivasundaram richly complex, overlapping global roots. of early-career researchers who came to Department of History the workshop,” adds Sivasundaram. [email protected] 30 Feature

orried you might be at risk 12/04/15 from diabetes? Check your W phone: it might help stop Physical activity you getting the disease. And if you already have diabetes? Your phone helps to maintain might even help you monitor your normal blood sugar condition at home. It’s the middle of the afternoon. You hear and blood pressure. the trill of an incoming text message on your phone. You pick it up, expecting it to be from a friend. Skipping breakfast will make you 20/04/15 overeat at lunch. Ah yes, this must be from Professor Active life makes Ambady Ramachandran. You’ve never met him and he doesn’t know you you live longer. personally, but he has sent you this helpful reminder because you are one of over 20 million Indians at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Tomorrow, 21/04/15 you tell yourself, you will make sure you eat before going to work. Take fruits as a “It seems paradoxical that something as simple as text messaging could help whole and not as prevent you from developing diabetes,” says Professor Nick Wareham, Director a juice. of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. And yet, the evidence suggests it might work. 01/05/15 In 2013, Ramachandran, who founded and runs a diabetes hospital in Chennai, Desk-bound job? India, and is President of the India Diabetes Research Foundation, reported Take short walk to the results of a study that found almost a third fewer men in the high risk group relax your body went on to develop diabetes if they received between two and four texts a and mind. week giving advice on diet and exercise. “This is a big – and surprising – effect,” says Wareham. And India, as with many other countries worldwide, needs 09/06/15 something big (and, possibly, surprising) to help it tackle the growing burden of Get off the bus one diabetes and obesity. Recent estimates suggest there are 68 million people living or two stops ahead with diabetes in India, the majority with type 2 diabetes. A mixture of poor diet and walk to the and lack of exercise, low birth weight followed by rapid growth, and genetic destination. predisposition – Indians tend to develop diabetes at a lower body-mass index than Caucasians – means that diabetes is twice as common in India as it is in the UK. While targeted strategies aimed at high risk individuals are likely to be effective, there is no way they could be rolled out to 20 million people, says Wareham. “If Phone you had to individually counsel that many people, it would be unaffordable. Simple, pragmatic, scalable approaches are the only ones that are feasible.” for a Ramachandran’s study involved a relatively small sample, but such was its promise that he and Wareham have teamed up to see whether text messaging doctor might be scaled up to a larger population, 31 Research Horizons

with support from the MRC and the Indian Council for Medical Research. 17/06/15 An additional arm of the study, being carried out by Imperial College London, Moderate physical is looking at whether the same concept would work in the UK. activity keeps you Wareham and colleagues use a combination of a risk score that they healthy. have developed, which looks at factors such as age, sex and weight, and a simple blood test to identify people at risk of developing diabetes: these are 30/06/15 the individuals who are targeted by the text messages. Fruits are delicious It is the pervasiveness of mobile phones that could make this scheme and nutritious, work: there are almost a billion mobile phones in India – the country ranks include them as second only to China. Smartphones are still much less common, with just around part of your diet. one in six people in the country owning one, but this is expected to increase significantly, potentially making India the second largest market worldwide. If, as expected, smartphones really do take off, they could hold the answer to helping those people unfortunate enough to develop diabetes to monitor their condition, says Chris Lowe, Emeritus compensating for variability between Professor of Biotechnology at the phones and the environment. Department of Chemical Engineering and The technology works in a similar Biotechnology in Cambridge. way to QR codes – the black-and-white “We’re interested in developing square patterns which, when scanned diagnostics that are appropriate for on a phone, redirect you to information taking measurements at home or in the online. In fact, says Moghaddam, the doctor’s surgery, without the need for a holograms could themselves be QR specialist,” says Lowe. For over a decade, codes. “You can save the patient’s he has been looking at making ‘smart’ information in the holographic QR code, holograms that are sensitive to chemicals so when you scan it and send off your or biological compounds. glucose levels, embedded in this are Unlike conventional holograms, which your own details,” she says. are two-dimensional, Lowe’s holograms Lowe and colleague are exploring are three-dimensional, created by ways of delivering the holograms, from shining a one-nanosecond laser pulse strips of holograms through to contact into a gel, suspended in which are silver lenses that measure glucose in tear fluid nanoparticles. The silver nanoparticles as a surrogate for blood sugar levels, and arrange themselves into planes, giving the even to having holograms that can be hologram a particular colour. But when tattooed onto skin. These could even do glucose – from a blood or urine sample – away with the need to take regular blood comes into contact with the hologram, it finger-prick tests. binds to sensors within the gel, known Despite the hi-tech nature of this as receptors, causing the hologram to technology, part of its beauty lies in its expand or contract; the planes move cost. The holograms could be mass- closer together or further apart and the produced at a very low cost – even if light given off by the hologram changes there were embedded into daily-use colour, moving towards the blue or red contact lenses, the cost would be Professor Nick Wareham end of the spectrum. negligible, making them particularly MRC Epidemiology Unit “You can see these changes visually, attractive in the developing world. At [email protected] but to increase the accuracy you need the moment, patients need special to be able to quantify the change, and instruments to monitor their glucose Professor Chris Lowe this is where smartphones come in,” he levels – in areas such as rural India, Department of Chemical says. Using the phone’s camera and a these are often given away, but their Engineering and Biotechnology downloadable app, it could be possible cost then has to be incorporated into the [email protected] to give an accurate measurement of disposable strips used by the instruments. the level of glucose in the body. His “With smart holograms, there is no Dr Gita Khalili Moghaddam colleague Dr Gita Khalili Moghaddam instrument,” says Lowe. “It’s just your Department of Chemical is working on software that would enable smartphone. And soon, almost everyone Engineering and Biotechnology the app to operate in a real-world setting, will have one of those.” [email protected] 32 Feature

Spiritual violence and the divine revolution of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

New research on the early writings of one of India’s most famous spiritual leaders is revealing how he fused Hindu theology with anti-imperialist politics and philosophy to create an archetype of

the ‘spiritual revolutionary’ that still haunts modern India. https://commons.wikimedia.org Credit: 33 Research Horizons

n 1879, a young Indian boy arrived in in Aurobindo’s thoughts, one that the radical ideals of Swaraj that later anti- England from Calcutta (now Kolkata), harnessed the spiritual to challenge “the imperialist politics were structured around.” in the state of Bengal, sent by his sordid interests of British capital”. Aurobindo’s highly Anglicised, elite Ifather to receive a British education. Aurobindo fused the political and Cambridge education had left him Aurobindo Ghosh showed enormous spiritual, mixing ideas from European estranged from his roots. On his return promise and would go on to receive a philosophy, particularly Hegel and to India in 1893, he had to ‘re-learn his scholarship to study classics at King’s Nietzsche, with Hindu theology under identity’ through classical Hindu texts, College, Cambridge. the aegis of the Tantric mother goddess, whereas his younger brother Barin, who Kali, and Bengali Shaktism – the had grown up closer to home, was more By the time he had moved back to worship of latent creative energy – to familiar with the living traditions of Bengal. Calcutta in 1906, the state had been develop a radical political discourse of Together, Aurobindo, the prophetic split in half by Lord Curzon, Viceroy of embodied spirituality, heroic sacrifice and visionary, and Barin, the untiring India. The British claimed this schism transformative violence. activist, organised the spread of a was ‘administrative’, but it was largely He complemented this with poetic loose network of underground terrorist an attempt to quell burgeoning political interpretations of the French revolution and cells throughout the land and incited dissent in the region. Ireland’s growing Celtic anti-imperialism, the increasingly politicised student The partitioning of Bengal – a prime as well as contemporary upheavals in communities of Bengal to submit example of British ‘divide and rule’ policy – Russia, South Africa and Japan. themselves to the militant spirituality of incensed many sections of the population, Through his polemical speeches and the ‘revolutionary Sannyasi’. and the Indian ‘middle classes’ mobilised essays, Aurobindo furiously developed “These young revolutionaries took under the banner of Swadeshi, the anti- his political theology against a their cues from Aurobindo’s discourses imperial resistance movement that would backdrop of assassination, robbery and of Sannyasi renunciation: they left their eventually force the British to revoke the bombings, weaving all of these strands families and society, living rigorously partition six years later. into what Wolfers argues is the central according to rituals and timetables, While ‘moderate’ Indian leaders symbolic archetype in his political dressing in the traditional ochre robes of lobbied the British for greater theology: the ‘revolutionary Sannyasi’. the Sannyasi. Some even made use of representation, many of the younger In Hindu philosophy, Sannyasis Tantric practices, carrying out blood rites generation in Bengal – particularly are religious ascetics – holy men who and secret vows in cremation grounds to Hindus – believed that ‘prayer, petition renounce society and worldly desires purify their life in contact with death,” says and protest’ would fail, and more radical for an itinerant life of internal reflection Wolfers. “Through these practices they action was needed: non-cooperation, law- and sacrifice. Throughout the late 18th cast off their allocated ‘middle classness’, breaking and even violence, in the name of century in famine-stricken Bengal, breaking free from imposed British society.” ‘Swaraj’ – self-rule. One of the figureheads roving bands of Sannyasis – together The revolutionaries targeted figures of of ‘extremist’ Swadeshi was Aurobindo, with their Muslim counterparts, Fakirs British state authority and, in May 1908, a teacher, poet, polemical journalist and – challenged the oppressive tax regime Aurobindo was arrested in connection underground revolutionary leader. of the British, and repeatedly incited the with the botched assassination attempt In his later years, Aurobindo starving peasants to rebel. of a notorious magistrate. It was while in became one of India’s most influential Aurobindo amplified and weaponised solitary confinement in Alipore jail that he international Gurus, redefining Hinduism this already potent symbolic figure experienced the ‘spiritual awakening’ that for the modern age with his experimental by recasting him as a channel for divine confirmed his mystic status. mysticism (Integral Yoga), global outlook violence. By embodying Swaraj, the Over 60 years after his death in 1950, and life-affirming metaphysics of divine revolutionary Sannyasi could kill with Aurobindo’s legacy continues to live on, evolution. His philosophy is taught across sanctity. Violent revolution became despite often being misappropriated India and was recognised early on by spiritually transcendent, without for political gain. prominent Western figures including murderous stain. “The figure of the ‘revolutionary Aldous Huxley, who nominated him for a “Just as the traditional Sannyasi Sannyasi’ has had an enormous afterlife: Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. He was also intensifies his inner divinity through in its various guises and mutations, its a major inspiration for the ‘New Age’ ascetic practice or the voluntary embrace influence is evident across the political movement that swept across the West. of suffering, Aurobindo venerates the spectrum from Gandhian mobilisation to Today, the popular perception of element of violence and adversity in Bengali Marxism and Hindu nationalism. Aurobindo’s life is divided. The early existence as a prelude to collective ‘self- Even today, it remains an important trope political firebrand and later mystic are overcoming’,” says Wolfers. in Indian politics,” says Wolfers. seen as separate identities, split by a year As Wolfers puts it, the revolutionary “From as early as the 1920s, Hindu of imprisonment during which Aurobindo Sannyasi is the man of spirit and action, nationalist organisations began to recast was spiritually ‘awakened’. sanctified by sacrifice, whose volatile Aurobindo in an increasingly right- However, for Alex Wolfers, a researcher potency is ready to detonate like a bomb in wing mould to assert Hindu dominance at Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, this a violent spectacle of Liebestod: the ‘love- against the subcontinent’s Muslim and dichotomy is a false one. The spiritual and death’ of German romanticism, the ecstatic Christian minorities,” he says. “But political blurred throughout Aurobindo’s destruction needed for rebirth. As Aurobindo hyper-masculine Hindu chauvinism, still extraordinary life, particularly during his time himself states, “war is the law of creation”. a major force in Indian politics today, as a leading light of radical Swadeshi, says “This violent vanguardism is often seen stands in sharp contrast with his original Wolfers, who is investigating spirituality in as an infantile politics that limits broader inclusive and ‘anarchic’ outlook.” Aurobindo’s early political writing. participation in a political movement,” Through research at archives in says Wolfers, “but even the non-violent Delhi, Kolkata and Aurobindo’s Ashram Gandhi significantly borrowed from Alex Wolfers in Pondicherry, Wolfers has traced the Aurobindo’s transgressive politics. This Faculty of Divinity emergence of a new theology of revolution form of terrorism was crucial in implanting [email protected] 34 Feature

In a small room in the Physics Department is a machine that’s helping researchers in India and the UK develop the next generation of solar materials. It makes mirages.

ditya Sadhanala wanders over A mirage is formed as light is bent to the wall, turns a pulley, and when it passes through a medium with a wooden box about a metre varying refractive index – a puddle of squaredA swings up and away. Below it water seems to appear on the road gleams an array of carefully positioned ahead, for instance, when light meets lasers, deflectors and sensors hotter air radiating from the ground on surrounding a piece of glass no bigger a sunny day. than a contact lens. He flips a switch Sadhanala’s machine creates a and creates a ‘mirage’. mirage effect when light absorbed by the solar material is released as heat, which This is a photothermal deflection passes to a liquid that surrounds the spectrometer (PDS) and the mirage – only sample. When a laser beam is directed the width of a human hair in distance to pass parallel to it, the mirage deflects from the glass – is helping researchers to the beam; the amount of deflection measure the quality of materials that turn corresponds to the amount of heat light energy into electricity. absorbed, which in turn corresponds to “We can see one defect in a million the amount of light absorbed. molecules,” explains Sadhanala, who “Before, we would have had to make a built the machine while working on his whole solar device and spend months and PhD in the lab of Professor Sir Richard months testing it to find out how efficient Friend. “The PDS technique measures the the material is,” explains Sadhanala. amount of light absorbed by a material “Now you can measure a new material with up to five orders of magnitude more in half a day, and you don’t even need to sensitivity than conventional techniques, make the whole device – you just need making it one of the most sensitive to be able to coat the material onto glass absorption spectrometers in the world.” and make a mirage.” 35 Research Horizons

First though, there is the matter of achieving a major cost reduction and “India may well leapfrog efficiency increase in solar power. The APEX the UK in taking up team started by focusing on developing a new class of ‘excitonic’ solar cell (which radical new approaches produces electricity from the sun’s energy through the creation of an ‘exciton’ – to power generation” India is the fifth largest essentially a free electron). Instead of using producer and consumer the conventional solar material, silicon, the of electricity researchers used solar materials made Although the aim is to provide a from organic dyes – dye-sensitised solar technology that can reduce the carbon cells (DSSCs) – which are easy to make, footprint of electricity generation A few weeks ago, Tushita Mukhopadhyay easy to process and cost less. anywhere in the world, solar energy – a chemist at the Indian Institute of However, one of the main issues could fulfil a massive demand for Science, Bangalore – carefully packaged surrounding the search for alternative energy in India. India is the fifth largest up five new materials and flew to the UK solar materials to silicon has been their producer and consumer of electricity, to test them on the ‘mirage machine’ in power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) – the around 70% of which is based on Cambridge, and analyse other properties amount of the sun’s energy that can be coal, yet around 200 million people with researchers at Imperial College trapped and turned into electricity. are without access to electricity. With London. She had spent months making The PCE for silicon is around 25%, a rapidly growing economy and more and characterising the materials – all of whereas the current state-of-the-art PCE than 1 billion people, India faces a them belonging to a group of organic figures for DSSCs and OSCs are a little huge energy challenge to meet the solar cells (OSCs) that can be printed as over 10%. To achieve incremental boosts current government’s mission of ‘Power thin-film sheets. in these figures, researchers like those for all, 24x7, by 2019’. in Friend’s group have been analysing what happens at the nanoscale when light hits the material. For instance, they India faces a huge now know that manipulating the ‘spin’ of energy challenge electrons in solar cells can dramatically improve their performance. to meet the current Mukhopadhyay, who travelled to the government’s mission UK thanks to funding through the UK–India Education and Research Initiative, explains: of ‘Power for all, 24x7, “My materials have a fast charge transport are without access rate – as we’ve now proved at Cambridge and to electricity by 2019’ Imperial – but they have a low PCE. We think that a process called singlet fission, in which one exciton splits into two, is happening. This In fact, India could be an ideal place What connects the two researchers, makes them interesting to look at because if to adopt new solar technologies on a and indeed many other chemists, more than one charge carrier is generated large scale, says Friend: “India is already physicists and engineers, is the APEX then this can increase the PCE.” currently running the largest renewable project – an ambitious Anglo-Indian capacity expansion programme in the initiative to turn fundamental advances in world, and there is a sense that the next solar materials into commercial reality. technology revolutions may well happen APEX involves research institutes in in an emerging country like India that Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur hasn’t already built its future renewables- and Pune in India, and Brunel (which heavy electricity system.” leads the partnership), Cambridge, “India may well leapfrog the UK in Edinburgh, Imperial, Swansea and taking up radical new approaches to Oxford in the UK, plus solar industries power generation,” he adds. “We want in both countries. It has received almost of electricity production APEX to contribute to the search for such £6 million funding since 2010 from the is based on coal approaches now and in the future. This is Indian Department of Science and a journey, not a day’s outing.” Technology and Research Councils UK. “Solar has always been the eventual Another family of materials the team solution to our energy problems but it’s has high hopes for is a set of perovskite- Aditya Sadhanala always been the day after tomorrow,” structure lead halides. Work at the Department of Physics explains Friend, who leads the University of Oxford has already achieved [email protected] Cambridge component. “Each of the a PCE of above 17% for such materials, partners in this project has an extensive and Sadhanala has begun using his Professor Sir Richard Friend research programme aimed at developing machine to see the effect of different Department of Physics highly efficient photovoltaic devices, but processing methods on their properties. [email protected] there is a disconnect between what you As well as developing cheap, high- can do in the lab and what can be rolled performing solar materials, the team Tushita Mukhopadhyay out at huge scale. This project is aimed will scale up towards prototypes that Indian Institute of Science, at moving from established science to replicate the performance achieved in the Bangalore a viable technology.” research phase. [email protected] 36 Things

Things The sad sailor and Images Film available The Sea-Pie Whitehouse’s portrait, diary and map http://bit.ly/1WnnZpc

he idiosyncratic diaries of one Unlike many diaries that have become man’s voyage from Liverpool a source of historical information, to India, and the souvenirs he Whitehouse’s are a deeply personal and boughtT there, have found their way into highly idiosyncratic account – so much the archives at the Centre of South so that they were often written as if there Asian Studies. was no-one else on board. Entitled The Sea-Pie, the diaries were A woman peeks from the curtain of a inscribed to his mother, and come with a wagon, rich men parade on a bejewelled caveat scrawled across the front: “Here it elephant and a pensive scholar clutches comes something hot from the oven. Mind the tools of his trade: these paintings, your eye or it may burn your fingers.” no bigger than playing cards, adorn Alongside his self-portrait, seascapes, transparent sheets of mica. a map of his route and a smattering of They were painted in India for the voyage details – “Potato cakes for tea” – colonial tourist trade, and are so rare and Whitehouse expresses a sudden descent fragile that Dr Kevin Greenbank, Archivist into melancholia, for his sweetheart back at the Centre of South Asian Studies, home has left him for another. The sad where they are held, admits: “I get the tale, replete with bereft poetry, takes shakes when I handle these.” up a third of one diary until, rallying, he “They represent an important finishes: “So after moping for a good half period in Indian art – the Company an hour I went below for a cigar.” School of painting – when Indian art developed perspective,” he adds. “But The Centre of South Asian Studies archive what I especially like about them is they comprises a unique collection of photos, accompany a pair of diaries written by a papers, films and oral histories covering sailor, Charles Augustus Whitehouse, who many aspects of life in South Asia. bought them when he sailed to India on the Brig Medina in 1842.” www.s-asian.cam.ac.uk/archive/archome 37 Research Horizons Credit: All images, Centre of South Asian Studies Archive 38 Inside out

Extreme sleepover: The mystery of a damp bed and other tales

The notion of land as a symbol of status and marker of identity

Credit: All images, Girija Godbole Girija images, All Credit: is beginning to change

disparity among the villagers due to the influx of money through land sale are affecting the social networks adversely. We retire to Parubai’s house. It’s a total contrast, with its mud walls and tiled roof with gaping holes covered by a plastic sheet. Unlike Alka, she is a landless Katkari, one of the most socio- economically marginalised tribes in India. Her husband herds a few goats to earn a living. It is an open secret that she brews liquor for extra cash. After a meal of rice and spicy potato irija Godbole travels to a Department of Geography, I am trying to curry, I struggle to write my field notes by a remote village in western India understand the impact of this increasing small kerosene lamp – there is no electricity to understand the effects of incidence of land sale on a rural society. in the house – while Manjula, Parubai’s Gthe increasing incidence of land sale When we reach the village, I am granddaughter, spreads a few sheets on on a rural society, and makes the surprised to see several expensive cars the mud floor for the four of us to sleep on. acquaintance of a naughty goat. standing in front of a modern house Hens kept under a basket in the corner where one of my other helpers’ hut rustle. A drunkard turns up asking for booze. As I drive with Parubai to meet the rest once stood. I see his wife Alka making Highly embarrassed, Parubai somehow of her family in Pune district, I spot in my rice bhakari – a kind of flatbread – on a sends him away. It is getting chilly as the rear mirror a motorbike following us. I slow traditional wood stove in a small kitchen wood stove has died out completely. down, wondering if it is someone I know. at the back. She invites me to have a bite. A few hours pass, I wake up with a The rider, a man in his mid-30s, signals As I sit with smoke making my start: the sheets seem wet. I am horrified for me to wait. It’s already close to sunset eyes water, she gives me updates. Her and hurriedly check the concerned body and Parubai, who is assisting me with my husband, who belongs to the dominant parts. To my relief all is well. Unable to doctoral fieldwork, is a bit nervous as this Maratha caste, has sold large chunks identify the source, I long for the soft area is not considered to be the safest, of family land and used the money to sheets, comfy pillow and cosy duvet back especially for two women on their own. buy a car, build this house and organise in my Cambridge house. Eventually I creep “Madam, are you looking to buy a lavish marriage ceremony for their out. The sky looks like a diamond-studded some land? I can show you a plot, daughter. Tonight he is hosting a party cloak. It is quiet and peaceful. I go back road-touch, clear title. Many city people for a local politician. and wait for the sunrise. like you have bought land from me,” he “Money so earned finds a hundred After the morning tea, I raise the assures me in his salesman’s patter. I ways to disappear,” says Alka despairingly. matter of my damp sheet in an attempt to am amused – till recently, this region During my stay in the villages, I have resolve this mystery. “That must be Mini was seen as the back of beyond, but often heard similar comments. With the the naughty goat,” says Manjula, as she now with the real-estate boom, one can escalating land prices, the notion of land bursts out laughing. “She enjoys relieving see vast stretches of land marked off as a symbol of status and marker of herself on an unsuspecting guest in the with barbed wire fences. Through my identity is beginning to change. Disputes middle of the night.” As we embark on a research with Dr Bhaskar Vira in the over land ownership and increasing trek to the fields for the morning job, she 39 Research Horizons

the promise of power The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan Maya Tudor Making News in Global India Media, Publics, Politics

Sahana UdUPa India Research at the highest levels of excellence from scholars around the world

www.cambridge.org/india2015 is still giggling. On the way, we pass a few fenced areas advertising the upcoming holiday home project. Labour, Innovation Employment During my fieldwork, I have observed in and Economic India Growth in that the physical landscape of a village Combining Economic Growth with Inclusive Development is beginning to change, with new fences Edited by India Shyama V. Ramani Edited by and luxury villas. Money from land sale is K. V. Ramaswamy opening up new business opportunities such as shops, restaurants, beauty parlours, wedding halls and renting of houses for a few villagers, but at the same time poor people like Parubai are losing the additional income through fodder harvesting as large areas are fenced off. When we return, Parubai’s husband is busy getting the goats ready for a grazing Read these articles and more at trip. I suspect one particular member of the journals.cambridge.org/India2015 herd giving me a mischievous look. A few metres away, I see the land broker from • Spoiled Brides and the Fear of Education: Honour Modern Asian Studies Studies Modern Asian Modern Asian Studies Modern Asian Modern Asian Studies Modern Asian VOLUME 49 PART 4 JULY 2015 VOLUME 49 PART 4 JULY 2015 the previous evening with a man wearing CONTENTS ISSN 0026-749X BÉRÉNICE GUYOT-RÉCHARD: Reordering a Border Space: Relief, rehabilitation, and nation-building in northeastern India after the 1950 Assam earthquake 931 SCOTT RELYEA: Yokes of Gold and Threads of Silk: Sino-Tibetan competition for authority in early twentieth century Kham 963 and Social Mobility among Dalits in South India MAGNUS MARSDEN: From Kabul to Kiev: Afghan trading networks across the former Soviet Union 1010 expensive sunglasses. “Very good plot, C. RYAN PERKINS: A New Pablik: Abdul Halim Sharar, volunteerism, and the Anjuman-e Dar-us-Salam in late nineteenth-century India 1049 BART KLEM: Showing One’s Colours: The political work of elections in post-war Sri Lanka 1091 ARJUN SUBRAHMANYAN: Education, Propaganda, and the

People: Democratic paternalism in 1930s Siam 1122 JULY PART VOLUME 4 49 2015 LAURI PALTEMAA: Serve the City! Urban disaster governance in Tianjin city 1958–1962 1143 ROBERT PECKHAM: Hygienic Nature: Afforestation and the road-touch, clear title,” I hear him say... greening of colonial Hong Kong 1177 JULIE E. HUGHES: Royal Tigers and Ruling Princes: Wilderness and wildlife management in the Indian princely states 1210 • New Spirituality, Politics of Self-empowerment,

REVIEW ARTICLE K. SIVARAMAKRISHNAN: Ethics of Nature in Indian Environmental History 1261 Citizenship, and Democracy in Contemporary India Girija is a Gates Cambridge Scholar and is • Sanskrit for the Nation also funded through a Fitzwilliam College 0026749X_49-4.indd 1 6/12/15 6:05 PM Environment Studies Fund. Available for free until end of 2015

Girija Godbole Department of Geography [email protected] T +44 (0)1223 765 443 Contact E [email protected] Research Horizons W cam.ac.uk/research Office of External Affairs f facebook.com/cambridge.university and Communications twitter.com/cambridge_uni The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street youtube.com/cambridgeuniversity Cambridge, CB2 1RP instagram.com/cambridgeuniversity Cover Queuing to vote in India; find out more about India’s vibrant and engaged democracy – the largest in the world – on p. 22 of this special issue on India. Credit: Goutam Roy/Al Jazeera on Flickr