Only two Indian women have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy with continuous existence for over 400 years. Coincidentally, both Gagandeep Kang and Soumya Swaminathan became household names during the COVID-19 pandemic. As chief scientist at the World Health Organization, Swaminathan was the familiar, measured, reassuring voice of science on television screens around the world.
A pediatrician by training, Swaminathan began his career researching tuberculosis and HIV. She carries the legacy of her father MS Swaminathan – widely considered the architect of India’s Green Revolution – as well as the legacy of her mother Meena Swaminathan, a pioneer in early childhood development who helped shape important welfare programs, including Integrated Child Development Services.
I spoke to Swaminathan over the phone as she returned from a field trip to KE Panyore in Arunachal Pradesh to study the progress of India’s first “bio-happy district,” a concept conceived by her father that focuses on human well-being through conservation and biodiversity.
As a newly appointed Fellow of the Royal Society, what does this honor mean to you personally and to women in science everywhere?
The first thing is to recognize the quality of the scientific work one has done. Often when you live and work in a developing country, it is very difficult to get your work published. Research and science are also more difficult to do because of bureaucracy and complex processes. For example, in the US where I worked, if you need a reagent for your experiment, you order it and it arrives on your desk the next morning. In India, this will take several weeks.
If you want to travel abroad to present a paper at an international conference, you will need to obtain several permissions. These may arrive a day before the conference so you can neither plan, nor buy your ticket, nor obtain a visa. Too many scientists miss these opportunities to go to international meetings where you learn and people learn about your work.
So coming back to your question, Fellowship is basically a global recognition by your peers about the quality of science and its impact on the world. Every year a very small group of people are selected from around the world. In a way, it is very disappointing to know that only two Indian women, I and Gagandeep Kang, have been selected before me.
When I look at the last century, many Indian women scientists have made tremendous contributions. And yet, he has not been recognized, perhaps because no one thought to nominate him.
You have talked about patriarchy in our institutions and how, early in your career in a government research institute, you experienced a very male-dominated committee room culture. Can you expand on this and to what extent it still exists?
Patriarchy and male dominance still exist. Perhaps in the medical field, less so because you have a large number of women doctors and scientists. But when you look at the directors and leadership positions of institutions, you will find that there is still an imbalance with far fewer women than men.
Ultimately, leadership matters because decisions are made by leaders. If you have poor representation of women, decisions will be uninformed by women’s experiences.
For example, my mother, Meena Swaminathan, a feminist and women’s rights activist, used to say that men don’t think about issues like breastfeeding or child care because they don’t realize that these can be important to working women.
This is just one example, but many studies have proven that if there is a gender balance in a committee, whether it is a board of a private company or a government one, the debate will be better informed and better decisions can be made.
There has been a lot of interest in women’s health issues recently, from menstrual health and menopause to women’s pain identification and, most recently, the renaming of PCOS. Given that leadership is largely male, to what do you attribute this growing interest?
I think this is due to the efforts of women around the world, especially the work of NGOs and civil society groups in different countries, who have consistently raised these issues. Some challenges related to gender inequalities still remain to be overcome and the struggle continues. Greater awareness has led to some policy changes – for example, maternity leave benefits, more flexible work hours, and prevention of sexual harassment.
In India, Dr. Rohini Godbole, who is no more, was one of the women who really fought for women in science and wrote several reports making recommendations. But, it is an ongoing struggle because there are many hidden and unseen ways in which these biases flourish.
Such as?
The Chief Secretary of a state told me how the post of a Collector was vacant. She wanted to post a woman there but when she asked her officer to send the list of eligible candidates, there was no woman in it. So he asked, “Where are the women?” And he replied, “The women are not ready to go.”
Then he picked up the phone and talked to a woman about what he had in mind and the woman replied without hesitation, yes.
Often, it is a question of a preconceived notion – women cannot do this or that – when the fact is that women can do any profession that a man can do. And it is still not fully accepted by the society.
Getting girls to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects in India is not as much of a struggle as it is in many western countries. But, the numbers drop at specific institutions. Women disappear in leadership. So there are two challenges – how do we retain women and keep them from dropping out, and how do we get them into leadership positions?
You need a multi-pronged approach. On one hand you need progressive policies. I am not saying that women should be given any extra attention. But if you have an interview and you find that all the shortlisted candidates are male, this should automatically be a reason to review the list, so that you have female candidates for final selection, especially for senior positions.
Others have flexible policies because women have to take time off to have children. So when women are in their 20s and 30s, men are really building their careers but we need to take some time off. This should be compensated for by some flexibility in your career: the fact that you have taken time off for child-rearing or family reasons should not be held against you.
During Covid, men advanced in their careers by writing more papers and doing more research. But women scientists retreated because they had to take care of the children at home. Many women scientists took a career break of one to two years.
The third thing that needs to be done is leadership building courses, especially for early and mid-career women. From my own experience, I know that as a young researcher, I was not putting myself forward for promotions or awards, whereas my male counterparts would always be applying for them. I would tell myself that I’m not good enough yet, I need to do some more work before I apply. It was my male mentor who really encouraged me and said, “No, you have all the minimum requirements. Why aren’t you applying?”
I want to ask you about the ways in which your father, the late MS Swaminathan, influenced you, and also the influence your mother, Meena Swaminathan, had on you.
We grew up in the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, my sisters and I, surrounded by scientists and PhD students. My father was always busy, so, we understood early on that science is hard work and very exciting too.
Also, my mother’s influence was very important because I think a lot of scientists don’t have a social science perspective because in our education system you have to choose very early on – science or humanities. One doesn’t really learn much about other subjects.
My mother would take us to the mobile crèche she had helped set up for children whose parents worked on construction sites, to provide a safe environment where they could be cared for, fed, provided with playthings and encouragement early in their childhood.
We traveled a lot with my parents to villages and visited farmers’ fields where my mother would talk to the women about their problems. So, I actually, I think, unconsciously, learned from her about the role of women and their invisible and unpaid labor and struggles that are still unaccounted for.
