Hey, he is an Indian... nope: of "Indian Origin"

Just recently Dr Venki Ramakrishnan won the Nobel Prize (2009) in Chemistry for his seminal work in elucidating Ribosome Structure and Function along with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath.

And as expected everybody Indian started celebrating his "victory" and how that he was Indian in origin and was only the 4th Indian to win a Nobel and all what a great thing it was. Celebrations galore.

And then the internet came alive with blogs and tweets as to why all these celebrations, Venki did his Phd from US, his Post Doc from US, his research from US, using US dollars in grants and using resources provided in US by US and US and US. His discovery is beneficial only to the US and not to us in any way. And is he even Indian anymore?? Why the hell Indians in India are going over the top. The main question was why are we raising such a hue and cry over it.

Well I beg to differ. First and foremost, I dont think his discovery is beneficial only to US and not beneficial to us, because his discovery was for Science, something which transcends international boundaries. His work has resulted in understanding the mechanism of antibiotics that work in every Human, not just US citizens.

Secondly I ask, when does one stop being an Indian?? How does one define Indianess?? I mean, now that i live in Pune, i have come to love Mumbai more than before. Bombay is a place where i spent my whole childhood in, and whatever happens and whichever city i live in, there will always be some Mumbai and some Bombay in me. Similarly when and if i leave this country, does it mean i will cease to be an Indian?? That i will drop the values, principles and morals i follow. I feel to whatever different places we go to, we always come from one place, may be birth place, may be where u spent your childhood, may be home town, but mostly a place where u feel u are from. That place stays with you. Always. And wherever you go, you always have some of it in you.

So should we be asking whether Venki is Indian or not?? Einstein was from Germany, but won his Nobel as a US citizen, just like Khorana and Chandrasekhar. Does it make their work any less important or less meaningful??

It must also be noted that we have excellent research institutions in IISC, NCBS, TIFR etc. but look at the papers published from IISC, how many are Nature publications??. NCBS does publish in Nature and Science level journals but at what rate?? These institutions must be given the things they need (chiefly funding) to do such work, Venki winning the Nobel only goes to show that Indians have it in them to achieve such heights, only they have to leave the country to do so, and then face accusing questions by other people.

Instead of celebrating Diwali prematurely as we (Indians) are doing, we should rather try to provide opportunities in India to scientists for doing such fundamental work.