Career in Mathematics

India has a long and ancient mathematical tradition. The Sulvasutras, Vedic texts for the construction of ritual altars, contain a lot of geometrical results and constructions. These include a statement of the Pythagoras Theorem, an approximation to the value of ‘pi', and the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. India gave the world the decimal place value system, the modern way of writing numbers, and above all, the number ‘zero.' It boasts of mathematical schools like those of Aryabhata and Bhaskara. Much later, in the 15th century, came the flourishing School of Madhava in Kerala, which anticipated, by more than 200 years, several results of the Calculus invented by Newton and Leibnitz.

In the post-Independence era, the Government of India established some schools of excellence, where several individuals distinguished themselves, and continue to distinguish themselves, by doing excellent work.

Nevertheless, for a country of India's size, despite having a large scientific workforce, we have failed to make the kind of international impact that countries like, say, China, have made. India's own scientific leaders have often bemoaned the ‘ocean of mediocrity' that has been created.

The main problem is that a mathematical career has been regarded as being synonymous with a teaching career. We religiously teach our children slokas like Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwarah. However, equally cruelly and callously we say things like a teacher's vocation is for those who have no other option. This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Barring a minuscule number of exceptions, India's brightest minds are not engaged in scientific research. The situation in general is that those who fail to join professional courses leading to gainful employment come to research as a last resort. These are the ones who will become the (uninspiring) teachers of the future — and we are caught in a vicious cycle.

The situation should, in reality, be the opposite. Those taking to a research career should be those who are passionately involved in the subject. As the experience of the information technology industry shows, anybody with a reasonable degree can be trained on the job and be well-employed, whereas that is not the case in academia.

It is indeed possible to build a perfectly satisfying career in mathematics (and much of this applies to other pure sciences as well) if one is deeply interested in the subject.

Job scene
Look at the job scene. A trained mathematician can be very well employed outside academia. Government departments engaged in space research (the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO), defence research (Defence Research and Development Organisation, or DRDO), aeronautical research (National Aeronautics Limited, or NAL), all employ mathematicians to solve their special problems. Today, cryptology is in vogue (the systems ensuring the safety of your credit card transactions are based on some very sophisticated mathematics). Organisations such as the DRDO and the Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS) are interested in mathematicians with training in this area. Financial mathematics is another area that leads to well-paid jobs. Computer giants such as IBM and Microsoft have research departments which have highly paid scientists who are either mathematicians or theoretical computer scientists. (They can, for all practical purposes, be considered as mathematicians). Thus, there is plenty of scope, outside academia, for well-paid jobs for mathematicians.

Having said this, it must be emphasised that the majority of mathematicians will end up in academic jobs, namely, in research and teaching.

Job opportunities

There are three kinds of institutions of higher learning.

Purely research-oriented institutions like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in Chennai, and the Harish Chandra Research Institute (HRI) in Allahabad. Interestingly, all these are autonomous aided institutions that are fully supported by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) of the Government of India. TIFR is now a deemed university, while the IMSc and the HRI are affiliated to the deemed university called the Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) that covers all other aided institutions of the DAE.

Institutions of teaching and research which can offer degrees but do not come under the purview of the University Grants Commission (UGC). These are set up by Acts of Parliament, and some come under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). These are the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), the IITs, the IISc, and the newly set up Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) in Bhopal, Kolkata, Mohali, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram, and the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in Bhubaneswar (set up by the DAE). Then there is the precursor to these latter new institutes, the unique Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI), which is an example of public-private partnership. ISRO has also established its own such institution in Thiruvananthapuram.

All the other institutions of research and teaching mentioned above have well-established and transparent methods of selection, and all of them have a crying need for fresh faculty. In fact, the need is so great and the supply so meagre that the age of retirement has been increased to 65 for these institutions. And in many cases they are allowed to re-employ superannuated faculty members till they are 70. The government has suddenly started NISER, the five IISERs and about eight new IITs, all of which need faculty members. These are currently functioning with a bare minimum of recruits, augmented by adjunct faculty members, who are retired mathematicians. This is not sustainable in the long run.

Thus, for those who hold a reasonably good doctoral degree, there are plenty of job opportunities in such institutions. This will be so for a long time to come.

Even the existing institutions like the IITs face continuous attrition due to retirement of faculty members who were engaged from the 1960s onwards.

Source: The Hindu (Online)

The author of this artcle is Assistant Professor, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Indore